The Bodyguard (12)

Red flag. Uncooperative client.

I raised my hand. “Did he hire us? Or was it, like, his manager or something?”

Glenn paused. And with that pause, we all knew the answer. “A little bit of both,” he said. “His manager technically hired us. But it’s at the strenuous urging of his team. And the studio that’s about to make the Destroyers sequel.”

It was not uncommon for our clients to have “teams.”

“Why is the team ‘strenuously urging’ him to hire security?” I asked.

“He’s had some stalkers in the past,” Glenn said, “and one of them lives here in town.”

The table gave a collective nod.

“So the first strategy, of course, is to conceal the fact that he’s here at all for as long as possible. But that’s a wild card. He is widely recognizable—”

Kelly let out a “Ha!”

“But,” Glenn went on, “he’s been off the grid for a while, so he might not be in the forefront of people’s minds. And he does seem to avoid the spotlight pretty well these days.”

That was good. The less spotlight, the better.

“He has indicated that he’ll accompany his mother to her surgery and appointments. Other than that, he plans to lie pretty low.”

I was trying to remain uncommitted, but my brain was already starting to churn and work out the strategy. We’d need to get the hospital architectural plans. Do a site visit in advance. Find the best ingress and egress options. Secure a private waiting area.

“What’s the situation on the former stalker?” Doghouse asked.

Glenn nodded and pulled up a photo. A mugshot of a middle-aged woman with no-nonsense hair, pale-pink lipstick outside the lines, and, most notably, wearing earring bobs with Jack’s face on them.

“Don’t you have those earrings?” Doghouse said to Kelly.

She flung her ballpoint pen at him, next to her. When it clattered down to the table, she took it back.

We all relaxed. A female stalker was a good thing. Women didn’t tend to kill people.

“A lot of activity in the two years before The Destroyers came out,” Glenn said, “but less since the brother died and Stapleton went off the grid.” Glenn put up a list on the screen and gestured at it. “In five years, she’s sent hundreds of letters, some of them threatening. Lots of online harassment, too—most of it trying to frighten him into dating her.”

“Oldest trick in the book,” I said.

I heard Robby laugh at that.

Glenn went on. “She took trips to LA and found his house. He woke up one morning and discovered her asleep in his bathtub, clutching a doll with a photo of his face taped onto it.”

“So, standard lady stalker stuff,” Taylor said.

“Correct,” Glenn nodded. “She’s done everything from knitting him sweaters to threatening suicide if he didn’t impregnate her.”

“Isn’t she kind of … past childbearing age?”

“Not according to her.”

“Any death threats?” Amadi asked.

“Not that we know of. Not from her, anyway. There was a recent series of unhinged insults on a fan site from a username”—Glenn checked his notes—“WilburHatesYou321. We’re keeping an eye on it.”

“Guess we know how Wilbur feels,” Kelly said.

“Why does the name Wilbur just not seem threatening?” Taylor asked.

“Because,” I answered, “Wilbur’s the pig in Charlotte’s Web.”

“Aww,” Kelly said.

“Ladies,” Glenn said. “Focus, please.”

“If you wanted us to focus,” Kelly said, “you shouldn’t have kicked things off with that beefcake slide show.”

“They’re drunk on hormones,” Doghouse said.

Kelly elbowed him. “You wish.”

The briefing was far more … brief … than usual because we’d only just gotten the case. Catching up and doing all our normal due diligence would be a scramble. Glenn broke us into teams to get to work.

Glenn assigned Robby to analyze Jack’s media coverage, including his Instagram, to find out how much of his personal information was out there. He assigned Doghouse to do a physical assessment on the rental house in town—including architectural plans and features, crime info on the neighborhood, and a deep dive into the security system. He told Amadi to gather everything he could on the parents’ ranch. He assigned Kelly to compile a dossier on the recently hired housekeeper, and Taylor to create a comprehensive portfolio on all past stalker activity.

And me?

Glenn tried to send me to the beauty parlor.

“What the hell?” I said, right there in the meeting.

“You’re the primary on this one, Brooks. You need to look the part.”

“First of all,” I said, “I haven’t agreed to be the primary.”

Glenn flared his nostrils. “You will.”

I looked down at my suit. I looked fine. Didn’t I?

Glenn went on. “If you needed a burka, we’d get you a burka, and if you needed a sari, we’d get you a sari—so since you are headed to the fancy rent-a-mansion of a Hollywood A-lister, we’re getting you a makeover.”