Run, Rose, Run(81)
“You’re plumb crazy if you think that sounds relaxing,” she said. “Imagine! There you are, trying to do mountain pose, and ol’ Flipper’s pressed up against the glass, staring at you like, Get me the hell out of here!” She giggled. “I got to hand it to these Vegas folks, though,” she said. “They sure do keep coming up with new ways to separate people from their money.”
“No kidding,” Ethan said, thinking back to the previous night’s three-figure dinner check, which had set him back deeper than he cared to think about. He knew Ruthanna would cover it if he asked her to, but he didn’t want to ask her to. “How was it getting into town?”
“I tried to sneak in under the cover of darkness, but I forgot there’s no such thing as actual dark around here,” Ruthanna said, still sounding disgruntled. “You wouldn’t believe the commotion! You’d think I was the Beatles.”
Ethan could imagine the crush of hollering fans, and tiny Ruthanna trying to make her way through them with Lucas, her bodyguard, and whatever security team they’d pulled together before leaving Tennessee. “Wasn’t it just a little bit flattering?” he asked.
“Yes,” Ruthanna said thoughtfully. “But also…a little scary. I’m not used to it anymore, Ethan.” She paused. “I’m not sure that agreeing to play this show was the best idea I ever had.”
Ethan detected a note of fear in her voice. “It’s a great idea,” he said firmly. “Why else’ve you been writing all those songs? Why else hire me and the rest of the band to play music in your basement every week? Don’t even say it’s because you like the company, because everyone knows Elrodd drives you up two walls at once.”
“And you, Ethan Blake,” Ruthanna agreed, laughing. “You’ve been trying my patience since the day I met you.” But when she spoke again her voice was serious. “Watching AnnieLee come up the way she did, appearing out of nowhere and taking folks by storm…I don’t know, it made me nostalgic. I thought it looked like fun. But I don’t think I’m having fun yet.”
“You’re going to love being up onstage,” Ethan assured her. “And you’re going to kill tonight.”
“Oh, what do you know?” she exclaimed.
But he could tell that a part of her believed him. Like AnnieLee, Ruthanna was a natural. And after four decades of life in the spotlight, she was also a trained and professional performer. She might think she was rusty, but she’d take the crowd by storm.
“Oh, I know it, all right,” he said. “I’d bet Gladys on it.”
“So about three hundred bucks, in other words?”
“Gladys is priceless!” Ethan said in mock offense.
“Sure she is. Well, thanks, cowboy.” Then Ruthanna took a deep breath. “Listen, I want you to go scope the scene for tonight, okay?”
Ruthanna didn’t need to say anything more; Ethan knew she wanted him to check out the venue’s event staff and security protocols. “Of course,” he said. “I’ll see you later. After dolphin yoga. Say hi to Flipp—”
She snorted and hung up on him.
Ethan downed the rest of his coffee and hurried to the Aquitaine Event Center. Ruthanna’s personal team would be assisting the venue’s regular staff, which included over a hundred uniformed and plainclothes guards responsible for bag checks, pat downs, and crowd control.
The manager of the event center, a no-nonsense blonde named Mary, assured Ethan that there were only a few ways to get in, and reentry would be forbidden. “The venue is extremely nonporous,” she said. VIP badges would be limited, and no one would have access to Ruthanna’s backstage area without passing through a gauntlet of armed guards. Ethan scanned the huge, empty space and pictured it thronged with people.
Lucas, Ruthanna’s driver and personal bodyguard, walked over and slapped Ethan’s shoulder in greeting. He was six foot four at least, with a head shaved smooth and shiny. “Ten thousand seats,” he said, “and every one of them sold. Ruthanna’s fans sure didn’t forget her.”
“Let’s hope the creeps did, though,” Ethan said. Ruthanna had had her share of stalkers over the years, including a deranged man who’d managed to scale the fence of her compound before being arrested. Police had found knives, zip ties, and a pair of handcuffs on him, and Ethan still shuddered to think what the man would’ve done if he’d gotten into her house.
He stood at the railing on the three hundred level and gazed down. Could a person manage to slip a weapon past the guards? Would someone come to the concert intending to do harm?
Ruthanna was the real star tonight, and Ruthanna was the one who needed professional protection. So why was it that Ethan was more worried about AnnieLee?
Mary walked over, adjusting the radio earpiece beneath her short blond curls. “We’ve had multiple security meetings, and we’ve gone over media credentialing, where our singers will enter and exit, which gates will be used, blocking reentry points, et cetera,” she said. “We’ve got everything under control.”
Ethan nodded, knowing that he should trust in Mary and her staff. And Las Vegas was a safe city. Every hotel, casino, nightclub, and theater had its own security team, and there were police on foot, on mountain bikes, and in patrol cars. There was no need to be afraid—not for Ruthanna, and not for AnnieLee.