Chapter Sixteen: Out of Sight
A month into the tour, the girls had gotten into a very stable routine that kept them grounded but also very exhausted. The guys were use to this hectic life, and hardly seemed fazed by the lack of sleep, uncomfortable beds, and fast food for every meal. Kate even got sick when the tour first began after she was distracted away from her disease, and since then had been on strict watch from both Denise and Joe about her eating habits. Everyone could tell that she was a little annoyed by the constant attention, but no one dared budge an inch.
“Where are we going to be tomorrow?” Kalleigh asked Denise while the two sat listening to the guy’s soundcheck in Lincoln, Nebraska.
“Kansas City,” she answered. Kalleigh gasped as Denise had answered her. “Are you alright, sweetie?”
“Um…yeah…will you excuse me for one minute? I need to find Krystal and Kate.” Kalleigh didn’t wait for a response from Denise as she rose and moved backstage. She found both her sisters in the band’s dressing room, snacking on carrots and cucumbers, while watching Frankie play some video game.
“Hey, Kal,” Kate acknowledged Kalleigh’s entrance into the room.
“Guys, we have a slight problem,” she told them quietly as she sat next to Krystal. “Tomorrow’s show…is in Kansas City.” Both girls gasped just as Kalleigh had done.
“What should we do, Krystal?” Kate asked her older sister.
“We will tell the guys and have them up security around us,” she said. “And we are not going to walk around just the three of us. If he’s even going to try and attempt something, we need to make sure we cut off all of his chances.” The other two nodded as Krystal talked.
“Are they going to be able to protect us? I mean, if their schedule is anything like it’s been…” Kalleigh started.
“Then we just stay put in the hotel or we stay close to them all day,” Krystal said calmly, setting a hand down on Kalleigh’s knee.
“What are you guys talking about?” Frankie interrupted, turning around from his video game.
“We were just saying how awesome you are at that game, Tank!” Kate said, smiling big at him. The other two eagerly nodded back at the young boy, masking their terror to his eyes. He beamed and turned back to the game. The girls stopped talking and just watched Frankie, until the guys and their band burst through. Sound check was over, and now it was time for lunch.
“Hey, Kevin. what’s your schedule like tomorrow in Kansas City?” Krystal asked him as they walked through the buffet line.
“Um…I’m not quite sure. Hey, dad!” Paul lifted his head from his plate of spaghetti and looked at his eldest son. “What’s tomorrow looking like?” Paul pulled out an electronic device and scrolled through it.
“You three have a radio interview with a local station at eight in the morning. Sound check at the arena is at eleven. The show starts at seven-thirty.”
“Thanks,” Kevin said to his dad after he finished calling out the schedule. He then turned his attention back to his girlfriend, who had just set a piece of garlic bread on her plate. “It looks like it’s going to be a pretty empty day, babe. Why did you want to know?” Krystal hesitated as they sat down at a table with Joe, Kate, Nick, and Kalleigh. She looked at both her sisters, who were focusing on their food to look as if they weren’t paying attention to the conversation. Nick and Joe, however, had their eyes locked on Krystal, waiting for an answer.
“That’s…um…we use to…um…” she started, her head running a million miles an hour trying to figure out how to tell the guys without them over-reacting.
“That’s where we lived before we came to live with you all,” Kate piped up, helping out her sister. Kalleigh added the main point.
“Jack lives in Kansas City.”
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The girls didn’t leave the sides of the brothers the entire day in Kansas City. During the phone interview, they sat with them, holding their hands. The guy interviewing them, of course, asked the guys about their love lives, which caused the girls to quietly giggle. Nick gave the perfect answer to the question.
“The three of us are very busy with the tour, so we really don’t have time to date anyone right now. And even if we did, it’s not like we could bring them on the road with us.” This made the DJ laugh.
“I guess not,” he said back, and the topic was dropped.
Sound check only took two hours, so by one-thirty the guys were free to do whatever. They decided to take the girls out to lunch and to a late-afternoon movie.
“We’re not letting you out of our sight,” Joe told Kate, and her sisters, as they led the group to a car behind the arena. “So you know what that means, don’t you?” He smirked at Kate as she looked at him in confusion.
“No, what does it mean, Joseph?”
“No bathroom breaks, duh!” The girls laughed as the car began to drive the group to lunch. The car pulled up at a small local deli about five minutes later, and it looked somewhat crowded at the time of day.
“Are you guys sure about this place?” Kalleigh asked hesitantly as they began to pile out of the car.
“These guys make the best one-of-a-kind sandwiches,” Nick told her, wrapping an arm around her and leading her through the door.
“We found this place last time we were here,” Kevin added. “They were all really nice to us.”
“Yeah, we know,” Kate said out loud. “This was one of my favorite restaurants. Kalleigh and I use to hang out here almost every day after school, when we were avoiding going back home.”
“Oh…” Joe stopped in front of Kevin and Krystal as Kate brought up their history in the sandwich shop. “Maybe we should…” But it was too late. The owner of the shop recognized the girls almost immediately, calling out their names in excitement, and the group was soon mobbed by both the guys’ fans and the girls’ old friends.
In the excitement of the moment, no one noticed the man in ratty clothes, holding a digital camera, slide into a booth in the back of the restaurant. He aimed the camera at the group of celebrities and began to take pictures.
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As the mob dwindled down, the guys went and ordered food while the girls found a table. The experience had shaken them up quite a bit.
“That was insane,” Krystal muttered under her breath to her sisters. They nodded their heads in agreement with her.
“Lunch is served!” Joe exclaimed as he sat a chicken caesar wrap in front of Kate.
“It all looks delicious,” Kalleigh said, admiring the turkey sandwich Nick had ordered for her.
“Are you guys okay?” Kevin asked the girls, noticing their quiet nature. They nodded, but didn’t say anything, eating their lunch to keep their minds from wandering to the scary few minutes. They were scared, because something, to them, just didn’t feel right.
“I’m going to go to the bathroom,” Kate excused herself.
“We’ll go with you,” Krystal said.
“Be careful, you three,” Nick warned as they stood and walked to the bathroom. The guys went back to eating after they saw the girls safely walk through the door. What they didn’t see, however, was the man in the back on the restaurant with the camera stand up and walk out, his camera full of pictures of the three girls and knowledge of where they were and who they were with. It was just what he had paid him to discover, and phase one of the plan was complete.
Now, it was time for phase two.
