When we pulled up to the hotel, we waited with Marco and Trevor while two more guards took off into the lobby to clear the way. They were also in communication with the team waiting at Brady’s hotel room. Everything was calm and quiet.
They hustled us out of the vehicle and into the lobby to where they had the elevator already standing open and ready to go. Alice, the road manager, appeared from nowhere and shoved my keycard into my hand. I noticed that, tonight, her hair was almost pink. It had changed almost every time I’d seen her.
Alice and her team had checked us in hours ago, making sure our luggage made it to our rooms. She coordinated and juggled more items daily than I had room for on my checklist. And she never missed a beat. Tonight, with my emotions strung tight, I was grateful for the ability to go to my room and crash.
“Thanks, Alice,” I said. She nodded.
It wasn’t until two bodyguards hauled Brady into the open elevator and the doors shut, leaving me in the lobby, that a new tremor went through me. While tonight’s fireball ending wasn’t what anybody had expected, I should have anticipated this part of the job. I would be traveling around the U.S., and eventually the world, with a country rock star. We would be staying in hotels. Lots of them. Hotels that didn’t like their guests using the stairs as I’d used around The Capitol. I was pretty sure if I opened one of the stairwell doors, an alarm would sound, and these two hulks, Marco and Trevor, would be all over me, hustling us from the building.
As I waited with Alice and the two bulky men for the next elevator, I pulled my earbuds from my handbag with trembling hands and put them in. It took me three tries to open the meditation app I had on my phone, but by the time the doors slid open, I was listening to the soothing sound of the ocean waves. Marco and Trevor held the door for Alice and me, which meant I was not only in an elevator, but I was at the back, trapped behind male bodies.
I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate on the sound of the waves, but my mind kept jumping to my pounding head which matched the pain I’d faced over a year ago in another elevator. My heart rate was not decreasing. Quite the opposite. It was thrashing around in my chest at such a fast pace that my breath was uneven and harsh.
I opened my eyes and saw Marco staring at me, brows drawn.
“You okay?” he asked. This caused Alice to turn and look with a similar frown.
“I’m fine. Just a little shaken,” I said, trying to keep the tremor out of my voice.
I was pretty damn sure I hadn’t convinced anyone, but just as my lungs got to the point where they were actually burning, the elevator dinged on my floor.
Marco got out so I could get past.
“Do you need me to come with you?” he asked.
I shook my head. I wasn’t the one needing security. I needed to get to my room and break down in solitude. The last thing I wanted or needed was someone thinking I was just going to be a liability on the tour.
I headed down the hall, searching the numbers on the doors. I realized about halfway down that I’d gone in the wrong direction. I headed back the other way, and by the time I locked myself into my room, my vision was beginning to blur.
I let myself drop down on the bed, my shoulder hissing as it made contact with the comforter, but it was good. It allowed me to come back to where I was. To the chemical, cleaning-product smell of the hotel. To the noise of a TV on in the adjoining room. To the fact that I was thousands of miles away from D.C. in a totally different space.
Eventually, the tremors stopped, and my heart rate slowed. My breathing evened out, and I was hit with waves of exhaustion. I would have been dead on my feet regardless of how our evening had ended, but the attack and the elevator had drawn every nerve to its endpoint.
I undid the zippers on my boots, slid my feet out, and then slipped under the covers. I left the lights on and just let myself drift away.
???
“Shake It Off” was blaring on my phone and vibrating against my butt cheek. It took me a few minutes to adjust to where I was and why my alarm was going off in my back pocket. I pulled the phone from my jeans and groaned when I saw the time. It was 4 a.m. I’d been out for less than four hours, but I knew there would be no going back to sleep once the alarm sounded.
I pulled myself to my feet and into the bathroom.
My makeup from the day before felt ten inches thick, but you’d never know it from the image in the mirror. I looked like I had when I’d set out from Wilmington yesterday. The makeup was hardly smudged, which just meant I hadn’t moved a hair once I’d fallen asleep.
At least the nightmare hadn’t invaded my sleep.
I twisted to take a look at the mark on my shoulder, relieved to see it had faded almost completely. It was still tender but was much better than it could have been.
I washed my face, brushed my teeth, and then dug through my suitcase for my workout gear. When I left the room with my keycard and phone in hand, I eyed the “emergency exit” sign at the end of the hallway with longing. I had no desire to get back in the elevator.
I put in my earbuds, turned on the meditation app once more, and waited for the elevator to show up. When it did, I placed myself right by the door as I hit the mezzanine button to take me to the fitness center. I listened to the ocean with eyes closed and was grateful when the doors opened with no one else getting on.
Soon, I was on a bike, zooming my way through the mountains, with the coach on the bike’s workout screen. My body was throwing off the tightness it had held since the night before. After a forty-five-minute ride, I moved over to the weights and began a routine I’d been doing for years. One I could do without too much thought but that required enough muscle concentration my brain couldn’t deviate to other topics.
My phone sounding out Mac’s ringtone in the quiet of the room had me jumping, almost dropping the weight in my hand. I set it down, wiped my face and hands with my towel, and then hit the “on” button.
“It’s ridiculously early. Why are you calling me instead of sleeping with your wife?”
“What the hell, Dani?” His voice was full of anger and concern.
