Page 43 of You Found Me
It messed with her head. He’d killed the last show of the year for her. There was no excuse for that.
She’d meant what she’d said.
He was fired, and she was going to Lizzie’s. Tomorrow. She’d shoot her manager a text right now to get the plane ready.
She took a piece of pepperoni and a napkin. “Good night, y’all.”
A chorus of “Good night” followed her down the hallway.
Her spirits lifted now that she had a plan. She nibbled the pizza on her way to the bedroom, thinking it through. First, she wanted to spend some quality time with her big sister. Two months, maybe. Until Mattie’s wedding, unless Mattie was serious about moving the wedding until after the baby came. If she was, then maybe she could hop to Piper’s next movie location for a bit first. Was it Greece? Germany? Spain? That was it. Spain. Then she’d go back to the Belhurst when it was close to baby time.
She reached her bedroom and paused. The door was closed.
She frowned at it. She always left it open when she wasn’t in there.
A fresh prickle of unease tickled the back of her neck. First, the broken gate. Now, a closed door.
She snorted an impatient breath. She was getting as paranoid as Ward. There was nothing wrong. The gate was old, and one of the security guys probably shut the door when he checked the room.
The security on this house was so tight it didn’t let a crack of sunlight through. No way anyone could get in here without being spotted.
She pushed the door open and strode in, taking another bite of pizza as she went.
Her gaze instinctively swept the room and snagged on something lying on the bed.
She drifted closer, not sure what she was looking at, until she spotted the rose.
The room blurred around her as she focused on the things that hadn’t been there when she left. Several photos littered the middle of the bed, and a single red rose lay on her pillow next to a white envelope with “Della” scrawled on it in black.
The bit of pizza she’d just eaten sank like a rock in her stomach.
If one of the security guys had done this…
If it was a joke…
She stared at the envelope. It looked just like the one in the dressing room. Same size. Same color.
Her name wasn’t written neatly. It was jumpy and jagged, like someone had been in a hurry.
Or angry.
The slice of pizza hit the floor as goose bumps raced down the back of her neck.
She reached for the photo closest to her. It was a candid shot of her on Scott’s shoulders in the pool. He was looking up at her, and she was laughing.
She remembered that moment. Marshall and his date had just wiped out going for the ball. She could still hear Scott’s rich, deep laugh. He had a warm, friendly smile that lit up his eyes and made her day a little brighter.
She couldn’t see his smile in the photo.
Someone had obliterated it with angry black slashes across his face and hands where they rested on her thighs.
She checked the other photos. One showed Scott standing on the deck. He faced the spot where they’d placed the DJ platform, but she couldn’t totally be sure what he was looking at because most of his body had been scratched away, along with a lot of the background.
Was she in that one?
She studied it. No.
Her gaze traveled over the rest of the photos. She was in some of them, but most placed Scott center stage, and all of them featured black slashes over his face and body.