Discovering the Real Risk

Lila

Lila's office was beautiful, just like the rest of Daniel's security. Where the hallway walls were a soft gold color, with marbled floors, her office had a plush, creamy carpet and slightly darker walls. Warm and inviting. One entire wall was made of windows and overlooked the city. When she walked in for the first time, she'd smiled without even thinking about it. The view was gorgeous. But she didn't have time to enjoy it.

Thanking Tish for showing her in, and making sure the girl closed the door on her way out, Lila dropped her laptop bag on the desk, and make a note of her new direct phone number. She'd need to send that to a few contacts. She had just sat down in the thick, leather desk chair and started tapping a message on her phone when there was a quick knock at the door and a young man peeked his head around it, grimacing. "Miss Farris?"

"Hi!" She said, smiling. "Yes, that's me. But you can call me Lila."

He smiled back, relieved. "Lila, I'm so sorry to bother you, but we kind of have a situation out here, and Tish thought you might be the right person to talk to?"

"I hope so!" She'd said brightly, grabbed her phone and a notepad and pen, and started for the door. "What's going on?"

Less than an hour later, she was in the conference room that had been set up as a central office by the two staff assigned to Becky Hanson. Another gold room with vaulted ceilings, this one centered on a massive, black oval table for meetings and conferences. But now it held three phones and laptops, and countless paper files. There was a huge television screen on the wall at the end of the room currently tuned to one of those stupid morning shows full of people with too many teeth smiling so falsely they looked like their cheeks would crack.

But the host had a serious expression as she listened to the gorgeous young woman who sat on a stool, her shoulders slumped and eyes lined in silver as she faked tears.

". . . You just never imagine when you hire someone so famous that they might be a monster," she said softly. Lila rolled her eyes and flipped through the file on. Becky again. And playing up this storyline like it was a Hollywood movie. But why? What was she getting out if it? Was it just for the attention.

Lila was missing something. She knew she was.

"But that night, I was so terrified. I never thought . . . I never thought if I hit the panic button they just wouldn't show up!"

The host made sympathetic noises and reached out a hand to Becky's knee. "None of us would have thought that." Then she turned to speak directly to the camera. "And when we come back, we'll cover the history of Dane Daniels, why his name had been so trusted until now—were there signs of these problems even before Becky's case? And do personal security teams actually work in this age of internet and global surveillance? We'll discuss that when we come back. Don't go away!"

Lila snorted and slapped the file back down onto the conference table. She'd been through it three times already. She needed to let the information sift through her head. Figure out what it was that was different here. What the key was to pulling this whole thing together.

Why did this woman want to destroy Dane Daniels? And what was the real reason his brother—the head of security—had chosen not to respond to the call? That was the first question she needed answered.

"Any luck getting Christian on the phone?" she called to Grant, the young man who'd come to ask her for help.

Grant shook his head without looking up from his laptop. "I'm calling every ten minutes, like you said. I'm guessing he's gone covert. He always answers his phone unless he's undercover."

Covert, my ass, Lila thought. He'd been here less than half an hour before she'd first asked them to call him. Even if he'd gotten a call right after she walked into her office, he hadn't had time to go off signal. She'd read the procedure a dozen times so she'd understand what the teams did when a client was in trouble—or suspected of being targeted. He needed at least twenty minutes to disguise, and that was assuming the client wasn't a long drive away.

Her lips pressed to thin lines. He was avoiding her. Which meant she needed to talk to him even more than she'd realized.

Tonya, the researcher, pulled out the chair next to her at the table and dropped a stack of photos. Lila started thumbing through them as the young woman explained. "Okay," she said, all business, "how did you know?"

Lila gave a grim smile. "I was right?"

"Yes. I can't believe we . . . I mean, no one thought to ask. . ."

"Who helped her?"

Tonya sighed and leaned over Lila's shoulder to point to the relevant photos as she spoke. "So, it's not unusual for people who get a little famous to have contacts, right?" Lila nodded. "I guess none of us thought twice about it after we did the initial checks. Her dad is a producer for the studio. That's not weird. Hollywood is full of people who know the people who are already in Hollywood."

Lila nodded again, but paused on a photograph of the beautiful young woman on the red carpet with . . . "She's related to Frank James?"

"Yep," Tonya sighed again. "He's her dad. That's what I mean. I guess the team just assumed she got in to the show because he asked for her to audition. I guess no one looked further."

Lila's lips pursed. "You're telling me we have a woman trying to bring this business down whose father is a known FBI informer, and no one stopped to ask whether she had been planted?"

She scowled at Tonya, who nodded warily.

"And there's more."

*****

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