Code blue, p.1
Code Blue, page 1
CODE BLUE
ATROUS SERIES, BOOK TWO
N.R. WALKER
COPYRIGHT
Cover Artist: N.R. Walker
Editor: Posy Roberts, Boho Edits
Publisher: BlueHeart Press
Code Blue © 2022 N.R. Walker
Atrous Series © 2022 N.R. Walker
All Rights Reserved:
This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. This is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or business establishments, events or locales is coincidental. The Licensed Art Material is being used for illustrative purposes only.
Warning
Intended for an 18+ audience only. This book is intended for an adult audience. It contains graphic language, explicit content, and adult situations.
Trademarks
All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
BLURB
Steve Frost had dreams of wearing the national championship belt in mixed martial arts, maybe even going pro, but instead, finds himself working as a security guard for the rich and famous in LA.
Quickly earning a reputation for his blunt and precise people management skills, he lands a position on the security team for an up-and-coming boyband, Atrous. Years later, he’s head of security. He knows these boys, and with countless tours, flights, car trips, public events, concerts, he’s closer to one band member in particular.
Jeremy’s been a pillar for Atrous since day one, but even more so these last few months. Now the face of the band more than ever, he’s also got himself the attention of a delusional stalker-fan.
When the fame and stress become too much, when Jeremy’s health takes a hit, Steve becomes Jeremy’s lifeline. But as Jeremy knows already, and as Steve is about to learn, not even the brightest star can shine forever.
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Epilogue
SONGS FOR STEVE
About the Author
Contact the Author
Also by N.R. Walker
CHAPTER ONE
The Platinum Entertainment offices took up the top five floors of executive levels of the Krüper building in downtown LA. Sleek polished concrete, expensive finishes and furniture, ergonomic everything.
It looked a billion dollars and probably cost that much.
I didn’t particularly care for it.
What I did like about it was the security measures to get in. No one, and I mean no one, was getting within an inch of those five floors without the required credentials.
At least Platinum had used some of the absurd fortune Atrous had made for them implementing protection measures.
Now, that I cared for.
Being called into a meeting with the big boss, Arlo Kim, wasn’t too unusual; all department heads would meet often. Nothing new about that. But an emergency meeting with all close-contact seniors, and only close-contact seniors, wasn’t a frequent thing and it made me more than a little nervous.
Neil Ambrose, the band manager, was there. The three personal managers to the band were there too. Roscoe Hall, Amber Seratt, and Ryan Morton.
And me, head of security.
We sat around the large oval desk in the conference room. “Anyone know what this is about?” Roscoe asked first. “Neil?”
Neil shook his head. “Not a clue. Just got told I had an hour to be here.”
“Same,” Amber added. Ryan nodded.
We had meetings all the time. And plenty that could have been simply an email. But an emergency meeting?
We were technically all at the end of one week off. We were due to come back to work tomorrow. We’d finished the Code Red tour. A massive eight-week international tour. Sold out every venue, great international press coverage, excellent publicity. Calling us back a day early for an emergency meeting wasn’t good.
The sinking feeling in my gut got lower. “My feeling is this isn’t good.”
Roscoe offered me a smile but it was tight. “No offense, Steve,” he said, “but you being here worries me.”
I certainly wasn’t offended. “That’s why I think this isn’t good.”
Ryan, Amber, and Neil all stared at me and Roscoe as if we needed to elaborate or maybe we knew something they didn’t. So I explained.
“If I’m here at first briefing, it means it’s security related.” I shrugged. “And it’s something that affects the band. If it was a broader concern, everyone would be here. So I’m guessing this is serious and something to be kept on the down low.”
Roscoe gave a nod, and I knew if any of them would think the same, it’d be him.
Before Neil could say anything, the door opened and Arlo came in, followed by a woman holding a laptop.
I’d never seen her before. She was maybe thirty years old, wearing a tailored suit, her long dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, her eyes sharp and focused. I didn’t know who she was, but she clearly meant business.
“Thank you for coming on such short notice,” Arlo said. He turned to the woman. “This is Hetty Reyes. She’s a digital forensic security specialist. We’ve received some mail, both physical and digital, that relates to Atrous. It’s—” He grimaced. “—concerning.”
The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.
Roscoe sat forward in his seat. “Excuse me?”
Arlo nodded but turned to Hetty, and she took her cue. “Good morning.” She put the laptop on the table, opened it, and clicked some keys until the smartboard on the wall came to life.
On the screen were images of emails, letters, and packages. All focused on one member of the band in particular. It looked like something from a movie, a CIA film, or FBI.
Except this was real.
A cold sense of dread washed over me.
Hetty went through each one—clinical, detached, matter of fact.
The mailed-in letters began as most fan letters did. Expressing love and gratitude. Then they became angry at the lack of personal response. They grew in frequency, urgency.
Gifts of all kinds were returned to sender, unopened.
Then the emails to Platinum started.
From blame, accusations, responsibility, to downright anger.
There were links to social media, of course, with publicity images from photoshoots and some taken by fans at concerts or on the street, getting into cars, at airports.
All images had been cropped, centering totally on one man.
Jeremy Dalton.
I felt cold from my scalp to my toes.
“Where is he now?” I asked.
“He’s here. Upstairs,” Roscoe answered. “Maddox and I flew back from Vermont yesterday. Jeremy came over, they had a few drinks, and he crashed at our place. He came in with us this morning.”
I looked at Arlo. “Does he know?”
Arlo shook his head. “Not yet.”
Jesus.
“If the culprit has used social media and an email, they’re traceable, right?” Roscoe asked.
Hetty clicked through to another screen. “They’re using screened VPNs. Multiple. All different. But we believe it’s all the same user.”
“The police have been notified,” Arlo added. “We’ll be meeting with them to share all the information we have.”
I don’t know why, but that didn’t make me feel much better.
Arlo continued. “I wanted you guys to know first. Steve, you’ll need to implement new security plans. You and I will go through that. But I didn’t want to tell the boys without having some kind of game plan.”
“How long has this been going on?” Ryan asked.
Ryan was Jeremy’s manager. He looked a little pale.
Arlo paused. “The first letter arrived six months ago.”
“Six months?” Roscoe and I cried in unison.
“We get letters and packages all the time,” he explained. “Even some that border on concerning. It happens more than you’d think. But the emails started four weeks ago.”
“Four weeks is still too long,” I bit out. “What risk have we put him in in that time? Huh? Every day. Every time we leave here or take him home.” Oh god. “When we were on tour . . .”
Arlo put his hands up. “The mail is postmarked here in the US. The emails are marked from a London location. That’s why we never associated the two together. Not at first.”
Hetty nodded, then scrolled through the smartboard pages back to the first physical letters. “This line here,” she said, pointing to one in particular. “‘Only the truest fan knows . . .’” And then she scrolled through to an email. “From a VPN registered in London. ‘Only the truest fan knows . . .’ It was too coincidental. So we began connecting dots and we found some other similarities, which make us
“The letters are postmarked from a US location?” Ryan asked. “Where?”
“All over,” Arlo replied. “San Diego. Columbus. Seattle.”
“We believe they’re using a secondary postal service,” Hetty said. “There are people who will receive any mail and forward it as directed for a fee. Makes it look like it came from somewhere else.”
“So this is not a police issue,” I said. “They crossed state and country lines, mail fraud . . . This is an FBI issue.”
Both Hetty and Arlo nodded. “We’re taking advice from local law enforcement first, as is protocol. Trust me,” Arlo said sincerely. “We’re taking this matter very seriously.”
I ground my teeth together. This was bullshit, and this was probably something I should have saved for a private conversation with Arlo, but I was pissed off. “We should have known before now. You didn’t just put Jeremy at risk or the whole band, but these guys.” I gestured to Roscoe, Amber, and Ryan. “And me and my team as well. And you knew someone was sending this garbage while we were overseas on tour. At our most vulnerable.” I tapped the table a little too hard. “Supposedly from London, while we were in London, and you never mentioned it.”
“It turns out we don’t believe they’re in London,” Hetty said.
“You didn’t know that then,” I replied.
“If they’re not in London, if all the VPNs are scrambled or fake,” Roscoe said, “then where are they?”
Arlo gestured to Hetty to answer. She looked at each of us. “We believe it’s highly likely they’re here, in the United States.”
“Well, that’s just fucking great,” I mumbled.
Arlo’s hard eyes met mine. “I understand your frustration. But we get mail from all over the world every day. We needed proof before moving forward.”
I held his gaze. “You needed to tell us six months ago.”
“Debating whether we divulge every piece of fan mail that comes through the system is moot,” Arlo said dismissively. “We’ve concluded today that we believe the sender of these letters is one and the same, and there was a lot of mail to go through. We need to implement and action protocols and measures to ensure the safety of everyone.”
Christ.
Roscoe glanced at me and gave me a nod. I knew he would be on my side with this.
Full security, full time. On all five of them.
As if he could read my mind, Arlo continued. “We don’t believe there’s an actual immediate physical threat But we’ll let the authorities be the judge of that, and I promise everyone’s safety is the highest priority.”
Still, not a comfort.
I spoke to Arlo. Not exactly asking, but more telling him how it was going to be. “I’ll feel a whole lot better when we’ve nailed down the details. We’ll need more feet on the ground, private security, full detail day and night on each of them. Here, at home, wherever they go. They won’t like that, but they’ll just have to deal with it.”
Arlo sighed. “Let’s just tell them first.”
Neil spoke next. “If I can suggest . . .” He made a face but shot a look my way. “Don’t do anything without asking or informing them first. I learned that lesson, and well. We all know how that went. They’re five grown men. They need to be a part of the decision process. This is about them. It’s for them. They should be here.”
Part of me wanted to tell Neil to fuck right off, but the part of me that knew he was right wanted to keep my job.
What had Roscoe called it? Looking after these five guys was like herding cats.
Arlo gave a nod. “Let’s bring them in.”
Fifteen minutes later, the five band members all sat, staring at the smartboard. Wide-eyed and a little pale, Jeremy sat in the middle. Maddox sat on one side, Wes on the other, and they’d both moved a little closer to Jeremy as the slideshow went on.
I hated seeing him so vulnerable. I hated that he’d been at risk without my knowledge, and I hated that I couldn’t even reassure him in a room full of people.
I’d always had a soft spot for Jeremy. But in the last two years or so, since the Maddox and Roscoe ordeal, I’d spent a lot of time with him, and the more time I’d spent with him, the deeper my feelings ran.
Now, every time I saw him, my heart did a double-knock. My belly tightened every time he smiled at me or looked at me.
Spending a week with him at Roscoe’s family farm in Vermont over two years ago had sealed it for me. I had legit feelings for him, which I’d done everything in my power to ignore. And of course, since Maddox had taken time out of the spotlight and Jeremy had stepped in, I’d spent most days with Jeremy. I might even say we’d become kind of close.
I’d always remained diligent and professional. No one here even knew I was gay. It had all but ended my last career. I wasn’t letting it ruin this one as well. No matter how much I wanted to say something, no matter how much I wanted to touch him the way he touched me, put his arm around me, jumped on my back, made me give him piggyback rides when he was too tired to walk. All the little touches, the laughs, so casual, like it didn’t mean anything to him.
Even if it did mean something to me . . .
Not that it mattered. Jeremy was straight, and he was a client. Those were two red-zones I didn’t go near.
Amber, Ryan, Roscoe, and I stood at the back wall, and energy radiated off Roscoe. He was almost vibrating with anger, fear, and frustration.
“Maddox is gonna lose his shit,” Roscoe murmured.
And Jeremy was going to freak the fuck out. “We’ll take care of them,” I replied.
Arlo explained the need for heightened security and how he’d divulge the full plans once the police and possibly the FBI had been involved. We would need to follow their advice, and we would need to not panic. These were all precautionary matters, Arlo said. He just wanted to keep the boys up to date. Being well-informed was part of the plan. No secrets, blah, blah, blah.
Like he was selling them insurance.
When he’d finished his sales pitch, he looked at me. “Steve? Anything to add?”
They all turned to me, and Maddox put his arm around Jeremy and gave his neck a gentle squeeze. When Jeremy’s eyes met mine, I almost lost my nerve.
“To start with,” I said, “there will be changes to daily routines, and you’ll each have your own security detail, twenty-four seven, so you’re gonna need to get used to that.” I could see they didn’t like the idea of that already, so I raised my chin. “I’ll work out details and we’ll go through them together, sort out any issues or questions. But Jeremy?”
He scrubbed his hand over his face, then looked up at me. Those blue eyes clouded with fear. “Yeah?”
“You’re with me.”
CHAPTER TWO
I spent what felt like hours with the police. After being unable to decide if it was a cybercrimes unit job for stalking or if they needed to call the Detective Support Division for harassment, they decided it was a federal issue and handed it off to the FBI.
In the meantime, I’d called Robbie and told him to round up the entire team. Yes, they still had one day of vacation time left. No, I didn’t care. I instructed them to bring a bag of clothes for a few days. Robbie never questioned why. He never did. His only response was his usual, “Sure thing, boss.”
The FBI agent who turned up looked no more than twenty years old. Well, maybe twenty-five. Suit, blond hair, dark eyes, and I doubted he even shaved yet. His name was Miles Zielinski, and he diligently took notes and photographs, asked for copies of everything, all while sweating bullets as Arlo’s legal team sat in the corner like vultures.
