Chapter 20

"I do," Howie walked past AJ into the room, his nose in the air, sniffing. "I don't see any, though," he turned around slowly, looking around the room.

Kevin walked through the suite, turning on lights as he went, sniffing, and looking closely for smoke. "In here!" He shouted, pointing into the bedroom.

"What?" Brian ran into the room after Kevin, his eyes widening when he saw the smoke billowing out from the nightstand. "What in the world…"

"Here," AJ had grabbed the fire extinguisher off of the back of the door, and pushed it into Kevin's arms. "You know how to work this thing?"

Howie carefully opened the drawer of the nightstand, revealing a smoldering book inside. "Fire's out, you don't need it."

"What is that?" Kevin asked, bending down and peering at the burnt paper.

Brian's face was white as he joined them in the bedroom. "What book is in the nightstand in every hotel in the world, Kevin?" He asked softly, running his hands over his arms, trying to stop his trembling.

"Compliments of Gideon's," AJ cracked, smiling weakly. "Well, it always is, didn't you ever notice?"

"This idiot can't burn a bible and think he's going to make me lose my faith," Brian said angrily, turning around and walking out of the room.

"Brian," Kevin chased after his cousin, finding him sitting down on the couch outside. "He's just trying to scare you."

"It's working," Brian replied, biting his lip as he stared at the ground. "How the hell is he getting so close, Kevin? He was IN MY ROOM!"

"Nobody has keys to our rooms," AJ frowned as he walked out of the bedroom.

"Any protocol for getting rid of this?" Howie walked out holding the burnt bible, and looked at Brian. "B?"

Brian shook his head slowly, "just throw it out."

"Our bodyguards do," Kevin looked at AJ, a strange expression crossing his face. "So does tour management."

"Yeah, but they wouldn't do this," AJ sat down and shook his head. "I mean, I know Marcus is a weird man, but…"

"I'm not saying they're doing this, but what do they do with our keys?"

AJ shrugged. "Keep 'em in their wallets?"

"Each bodyguard gets a set," Howie's eyes widened. "So does Philly, as road manager. You can't fit five room keys, plus your own, in your wallet."

"Pocket?" AJ offered.

Kevin made a face, "forget it, I was just thinking out loud."

"No, you've got a point, Kev, what do they do with our keys? We know they don't use them," Brian said softly, looking at his cousin. "Especially Philly, he's never needed them, he probably throws them on the dresser in his room and forgets about them."

"Or it IS a bodyguard, or Philly," Howie said ominously.

"They wouldn't," Kevin said firmly. "Philly's been with us a year, the rest for longer, I won't believe that."

"I don't know, Kev, I'm not real prone to trusting anyone anymore, short of the people in this room right now."

"And Nick," Brian added quickly. "Don't forget Nick."

"Tara too," Kevin offered. "I think she's proven she's for real."

Howie shrugged. "I guess."

"You guess?"

Howie sighed, "I don't know, she's just been watching all of this, you know? I don't think I'm really going to believe she is for real until something happens to her too. Isn't that awful to say?"

"Under the circumstances?" Kevin shook his head. "It's sad, but, understandable."

"I think we're all best off hoping we find out who's doing this soon, and nothing more happens to anyone," AJ said firmly. "Not to Brian or Tara. Just stop this now."

"I hope so, Bone, I hope so."

*****************************************************************

"Seen this?"

Tara jumped back from her desk, startled by the newspaper thrown on top of her keyboard. "What?" She pulled off her headphones to look at Tommy, frowning.

"Paper," he gestured to the newspaper, and sat down on her desk. "Did you see?"

Tara picked up the paper, her eyes widening when she saw the article it was open to. 'Prices to Fame: Backstreet Boys Terror on Tour' read the headline. "What the…." She quickly scanned the article, biting her lip at the description of the 'vicious assault on Nick Carter that took place early Saturday morning.' "So?" She forced calm into her voice, and handed the paper back to Tommy.

"So, did you see what it said about this guy trolling chatrooms and scaring their fans? Sound familiar?"

Tara shrugged, "I guess."

Tommy rolled his eyes, and threw the paper back at her. "Isn't this the guy who's IP you made me check?"

"I wouldn't know offhand, he was making threats towards them, sure."

"And exactly why did you ask me to check that IP?"

Tara looked at Tommy dimly. "So I could ban his ass, because I'm getting really sick of killing his account."

Tommy frowned, "so you don't know anything about this stuff?"

"Nope," she turned back to her computer, and began clicking through abuse reports. "I only know what these folks send in."

"They still complaining about the Backstreet hater guy?"

Tara nodded slowly, of course they were, she'd spent half the morning reading about nothing but him. "When aren't they."

"Says here the Backstreet Boys are working with the FBI."

"So?"

"So…have you heard anything about it?"

Tara raised an eyebrow. "And why would I?"

Tommy shrugged, "seeing as you're the one who keeps killing this guy's account?"

"I don't know anything about it." Tara typed away on her computer, trying to get Tommy to leave.

Tommy swung his legs back and forth like a little kid, refusing to give up. "Article says someone tipped the Backstreet Boys off about this guy."

"Uh huh."

"Wonder who?"

"Wouldn't know, Tommy," Tara said in a tired tone. "Are you done?"

"Just pretty funny, isn't it? You were all worked up about this guy, and just as things seem to get bad, I mean, did you read? It says he attacked one of them Friday night….you don't care anymore."

"I don't."

Tommy stood up, and sighed. "I got your message from Friday night, you know."

Tara's face paled, and she looked up at Tommy, her eyes wide. "What?"

"The 'goddammit, why are you asleep, I need an IP from you now' message," he said slyly, smirking at her reaction. "Let's see, a boy gets hurt, Tara desperately needs an IP…any relation?"

"It was something else entirely," she said quickly, frowning. "There are lots of freaks out there, you know."

"Yeah, I guess," Tommy sauntered back to his cubicle, waving his hands at Tara. "I guess."

"Yeah, I guess," she muttered, putting her headphones back on and returning to her work. She plowed through the abuse queue, biting her lip as she read report after report of 'nasty pictures of Nick' being spread around chat, sending the standard 'we have received your report, thank you' e-mail to each girl as she went. "OW!" A stuffed animal bounced off of her head, and she scrambled to grab it, throwing it back at Tommy.

"Got a joke for you," he stuck his head over the top of her cubicle, grinning down at her.

"Yes?" She asked, rolling her eyes.

"So, two engineers are riding bikes down the side of the road. One engineer says to the other, 'hey, that's a nice bike you got there. How'd you get it?' The second engineer says, 'well, I was walking down the street the other day, and this woman rode by on her bike. She stopped, took off all her clothes, and said I could have anything I wanted. I told her I'd take the bike.' The first engineer laughs, and says 'yeah, you're right, you never would have fit in her clothes.'" Tommy snickered. "You like?"

"Only you'd be proud of that joke, Tommy," Tara sighed, and shook her head. "Can I work now?"

"I'm compiling…" he whined, throwing another stuffed animal at her. "Play with me."

"No."

"Please?"

Tara threw the teddy bear back, laughing when she heard it land with a resounding whack. "No!"

"Gameboy?"

"No."

"Fine. See if I ever run an IP for you again."

"Like you helped oh so much the first time," Tara grumbled, and put her headphones back on, effectively ending the conversation there.

***************************************************************

The next morning, the Backstreet Boys gathered in Kevin's room for breakfast before heading out for the masses of interviews they had scheduled. Par for the course, for their life on tour. All eyes were fixed on Nick, who was slumped in his chair, sullen and pale, although they were all also pretending not to watch him. Which wasn't working.

Kevin finally gave up pretending, and put down his fork, looking at Nick closely. "Did you sleep last night?"

Nick shook his head no, and continued to push his food around on his plate.

"The night before?"

Another shake of his head.

Kevin sighed, and ran his hand through his hair, not knowing exactly what to say, but knowing he had to say something… "Nick, you have got to sleep."

Nick just shrugged.

"Did you talk to Tara?"

Yet another shake of his head no.

"Why not?"

Another shrug.

"Nick, care to actually talk?" AJ finally asked, frustrated with Nick's silence.

Nick raised a pair of bloodshot eyes to stare at AJ. "No," he said, before returning his gaze to his plate.

"What about eating something?" Brian asked softly, concerned for his best friend's condition. "You haven't eaten in days."

"Not hungry," he mumbled, dropping his fork on the table.

"Why didn't you call Tara?" Kevin asked, frowning. "You know she's probably worried sick about you."

Nick looked at Kevin for a moment, before rolling his eyes and standing up. "If she was really that worried, she'd be here," he said harshly, before stomping out of the room.

"Kevin, what are we gonna do?" Brian asked in a pained voice, wincing when the door slammed behind Nick. "He's falling apart in front of our eyes."

"Tara will be here Friday night," Kevin sighed. "All we can do is keep trying to get him to talk to us until then."

"It's only Tuesday," Howie reminded him. "How's he gonna make it until Friday?"

Kevin bit his lip, and sighed. "I'll call Tara tonight, see if she can get here any sooner, ok?"

"Good," Brian nodded. "Tell her what kind of shape Nick's in, hopefully she'll come."

There was a knock on the door before it was opened, and Agent Palmer stepped inside. Her face was drawn, and she looked at them all sadly, before taking the seat vacated by Nick. "I need to let you all know what's going on."

"Ok…" Kevin said with apprehension, not liking the tone in her voice one bit.

"I don't know quite how to put this," she said carefully, looking around the table and meeting all of their eyes. "Last night, at some point, a certain object was put up for auction on a website. A very popular auction website."

"What object?" Howie asked slowly, pretty sure he didn't want the answer to that question.

"When we found Nick, we were only able to recover one of the, um," she made a face, "dildo's used on him. The one that had been in his mouth was never found."

"It's being sold?" Brian whispered, his blue eyes wide with disgust. "How? God, no.."

"It's not anymore," she said quickly, shaking her head. "But it WAS up for sale, for probably a good 12 hours before anyone was notified. It was posted along with some pictures, and a description of how the object was used. The description claimed that the dildo was not the one from his mouth, but rather…" her words trailed off, and she saw by the expression on the guys' faces that she didn't need to finish that sentence.

"Jesus christ," AJ hissed, staring at her. "So now you're going to tell me you caught the person who put this up on the auction, right?"

"I'm afraid not," she said sadly. "We are in the process of recovering the logs from the site from when the auction was posted, but the initial information they gave us about him was incorrect, false name, false address."

"How do you know it's false? Did you check? Bust his door down?" Howie asked, raising an eyebrow when she didn't immediately reply. "Well?"

Palmer shook her head, "the name we were given was Brian Littrell, and the address was your home address," she looked at Brian sadly. "Your home phone number was on the account as well."

Brian just stared back at her, his face white.

"We need to tell Nick, don't we," Kevin said, biting his lip hard. "Jesus, like he hasn't been through enough…"

Palmer nodded slowly. "The press is aware of the auction, and it is likely you will be asked about it. I suggest you prepare an answer to the question."

"What question is that?"

"Is it real," she said softly. "Was Nick raped."

"What do you suggest we answer?" Kevin snapped angrily, unable to believe he was having this conversation.

She sighed, "I suggest you leave that up to Nick. He's the one who will have to deal with the majority of questions."

"Nick isn't really capable of talking right now," AJ said, shaking his head quickly. "What are they gonna do? Ask, and he'll shrug? He can't deal with this now."

"That's why I came here to tell you, so you can prepare him." Palmer stood up, and sighed. "I'll see you all later."

"How do we prepare him for this?" Kevin asked sadly, looking around the table and seeing three just as confused faces staring back at him. "After everything that's happened…."

"Just one more thing," Howie said, shaking his head slowly. "Nick said he couldn't hurt anymore, be humiliated anymore. It looks like he's about to find out if that's true or not."

"God, poor Nick," Brian whispered, unable to say anything more.

"Yeah," AJ agreed. "Poor Nicky."

***

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