Fade to Red by Willow Aster Read Free Book Online Page B

picture and repositioned the tack so it looked like a hair barrette instead of a colorful ball in her forehead. Better. The sister was safe.
    Ian Sterling and his wife and daughter were surprises she hadn’t seen coming. She had them on the wall, but they didn’t really seem threatening. From what she could tell, they were so wrapped up in each other, they wouldn’t stand in her way of getting to Beckham.
    The dancers. She ticked off their names. Memorization had always come easy for her. There were two who had toured with him before, so that left two less to worry about. She repositioned the tacks on Justin and Vanessa’s heads. Brad and Shelton, too. They were gay and wouldn’t get in her way. Without question, Beckham was damn straight.
    That left the last two: Brooke and Roxie. She left their pins right where they were and studied the pictures intently. Brooke was the prettier of the two, with black hair and porcelain skin. But there was something appealing about Roxie. Almost magnetic. Her thick, waist-length blonde hair made you want to pull it and her eyes looked deep blue-green innocent. She also had an ass that would probably be insured by the time the tour was over. Brooke was beautiful, but Roxie was sexier … by far. She tried to look at them through Beckham’s eyes and see what he would see in both of them.
    Roxie. She would have to watch that one.
    She stepped back to look at her walls. The maps were ready. Each of Beckham’s tour stops were marked on a huge map that covered a wall. The other two walls she’d been adding to for years, clipping her favorite shots of Beckham Woods. Some she’d printed from the Internet, some she’d clipped from magazines, most of them she’d taken of him herself. Those were her favorites.
    The final wall was anyone who might get in her way. She belonged with Beckham. There was no doubt that she would have him.
    Red X’s were drawn through Josephine Sales, Genny Freeman, and Bethany Cook—girls he’d dated. She kept watch on them every now and then to see if they were still in contact, but they seemed to have all moved on from each other.
    There was one girl he’d met in rehab that she’d followed for weeks after he got out. He contacted the girl and went out with her once. She might have seen to it that the girl got reacquainted with her little buddy, heroin.
    But that could never be pinned on her.
    Stick, prick, blood. She grinned. It really was that easy.

Ian poked his head into the rehearsal room and watched for a few minutes before he saw a place in the back where he could sit unnoticed. Beckham had given him the security code, but Ian wasn’t expected to come in for another week at least. He was stunned by the whole set-up. The dancers were unbelievable. He’d done a lot of rehearsals and traveling—short tours and an extended tour—and liked to think he did things with excellence, but he’d never been part of something as big as this. This tour was a production , far better than anything he and Donny could have dreamed up on their own. He couldn’t wait for Sparrow to see all of it. She would freak .
    When he realized Beckham wasn’t coming in, he went out the same way he came in—secretly. He walked outside, dialing Beckham before he reached the car. He looked around, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck stick up … the way he usually knew he was being watched. Then again, he felt that way pretty much all the time now when he was out and about in L.A., and unfortunately, it was usually true. He hoped he hadn’t been followed. Beckham wanted to keep this location private as long as they could.
    He looked around one more time but didn’t see anyone. Beckham answered just as he got in his car.
    “I stopped by the warehouse,” he said. “Thought I might see you here.”
    “Ahh, not yet. I dropped in the other day, but I probably won’t go in until later this week. I don’t want to make them too uncomfortable when they’re still learning