Chapter 7

Tara walked inside her apartment, breathing a sigh of relief to be back on home turf. Things had just been far too scary in Las Vegas, from the explosion on Kevin's bus, to the game in Nick's breakfast, and the pool…. She shuddered at the memory of that pool. "A hell of a lot of goddamn food coloring," she grumbled, shaking her head. That's what the FBI had said it was…just food coloring.

Sure.

She saw her answering machine flashing, and hit the button to play the messages, laughing when she heard Andy yelling at her to call him. Where had she been, dammit? She sat down and bit her lip, wondering what she was going to tell him. Kevin had begged her not to tell a soul what was going on, especially not anyone who was a fan of theirs. The fewer people who knew, the better, he said, no matter how trustworthy they may be.

But how was she supposed to look Andy in the eye, and avoid telling him she'd spent last night in Nick Carter's room? He would die!!

Tara hadn't even had a chance to sit down before she heard a banging on her door. Andy.

"I know you're in there, I saw your car outside! Open up!!"

"Coming, coming," she called, opening the door and waving him in. "Hey."

"So, my source tells me…" Andy walked two steps into the house before stopping in his tracks, staring at her. "Um. Nice clothes, babe."

Tara looked down at the huge sweats she was wearing, and smiled sheepishly. "They're comfy."

"They're a little big."

"Yeah."

Andy gave her another look up and down before continuing into the apartment, throwing himself down on the couch. "So, as I was saying before your disgusting fashion sense distracted me, my source tells me AJ has stopped drinking. Completely. Kaput." He made a face, and shook his head, "so unlike my Alex."

"Your source?" Tara snickered, and rolled her eyes. "Her name is Jessica."

"Yes, but it sounds so much better to call her my source," Andy grinned. Jessica had the same job as Andy did, working on the Backstreet Boys' website, but where he did his work from Los Angeles from the offices of the management company, Jessica did hers on tour with the group. Any time the Backstreet Boys went anywhere, she would be with them, and always filled Andy in on the gossip from the road.

"So, not drinking anymore, huh," Tara said non-chalantly, trying to sound as disinterested as she knew she normally would be. She sat down next to him and shrugged, "Who cares."

"You thought someone was going to hurt them, right? Doesn't it sound like that might have happened, then?" Andy prodded her with a finger. "Doesn't it? Something got AJ to stop drinking."

"I guess."

"What happened to your whole 'someone's going to kill the Backstreet Boys' rampage? It ended, just like that?" He scrunched up his nose and frowned. "Wait…" he leaned forward and sniffed her sweatshirt, his eyes widening comically. "I smell a MAN! Oooh," he sniffed again. "A man who likes expensive cologne."

"Andrew," Tara pushed his head away with a laugh. "Stop it."

"No!" Andy giggled, and jumped on Tara's lap, sticking his nose in her neck. "I smell a man! Someone got lucky…"

"What are you, a dog?" She squirmed underneath him, smacking his head. "Get off of me!"

"I'll lick you," he threatened, holding her face between his hands and staring into her eyes. "Tell me who's clothes these are."

"Mine!"

"Unless you suddenly wear hoity toity men's cologne, these are so not yours," Andy told her, squeezing her cheeks together. "Tell me!"

"Someone gave them to me," she said, her voice completely muffled by her face being smushed together.

"Now we're getting somewhere," Andy jumped off of her and back into his seat, smiling at her. "Who? Is he cute? Does he have any gay friends?"

"No he's not cute, and no he doesn't have any gay friends," Tara said flatly.

Andy sighed, and shook his head. "All right, so you didn't get laid. I would hope if you had, you wouldn't have such a stick up your ass."

"I told you I didn't."

"But these clothes do belong to a man."

"Yeah."

"Thank you," Andy crossed his arms over his chest. "Just a friend though, huh."

"If that," Tara shrugged. "I needed something to wear, that's all."

"Because you were…where?"

"Worked late. Didn't want to drive home."

"Aaaah." Andy accepted that explanation without argument, as Tara had been known to do that before. "So, my boys?"

"Yes?"

"AJ's not drinking anymore."

"So you said."

"Don't you care?"

"No," Tara stood up and yawned. "Honestly, I'm just really tired."

Andy's eyes narrowed, and he looked at her carefully. "Because you were up all night working, or doing something else?"

"Working, Andy, working," Tara rolled her eyes at him. "Now go, I'm sure Jessica has some hot gossip to share with you about what the boys are up to tonight."

"OH! I didn't tell you the capper!" Andy stood up, his eyes twinkling as he clapped. "So, you know they were in Vegas last night, well, I guess YOU don't know, but everyone else does. Anyway, Brian drove on to the next show last night, but the rest of the guys spent the night there in Vegas. Isn't that weird??"

Tara's eyes widened briefly, and she quickly turned away, not wanting Andy to attempt to read her face. "Weird."

"Jess got to spend the night in Vegas too."

"Cool," Tara stared at the floor, realizing then just how lucky she'd been not to run in to Jessica the night before. She was going to have to be careful, if she was going to keep the promise she'd made to Kevin, and not let anyone know what was going on.

"I told her to grab a boy and get married," Andy giggled. "Just not MY boy."

"Get married?"

"You know, all of those wedding chapels in Vegas. There's a wedding every ten minutes there, did you know that? Jess told me." Andy sighed, and smacked her head. "I'm going, you're no fun tonight."

"I told you, I'm tired."

"Yeah, well, go to bed, find your personality again. Ok?" He patted her head as he walked to the door.

"Right. Goodnight, Andy."

"Night my little gaming goddess," Andy chirped as he left. "So long, farewell, adieu!"

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

Tara stared at her computer screen, fighting tears. There it was, written for the world to see in the diary.

Strike two, FAILURE. THEY SHALL PAY.

And below that, a description of what he'd done when his 'strike' had failed. The game in Nick's breakfast, turning the pool red. He said that he had intended to play "nice," to take things slow. But since the Backstreet Boys were so determined to thwart him, well, no more Mr. Nice Guy.

"What exactly does he think being mean is?" Tara muttered, clicking around on the website as she read. Her eyes widened when she saw her own face staring back at her on the screen. It was a shot of her, Kevin, AJ, Nick and Howie standing in the window of Nick's room, looking down at the pool. They all looked as terrified as she'd felt at that moment, and it was captioned with the line, 'four dead rats. One live girlfriend. For now.' "I'm not a girlfriend," she took a shaky breath, and continued to read, searching for the next clue. She knew it was there somewhere…

The abuse reports kept flying in, telling her that this guy was still going into the chatrooms and scaring girls, but Tara still hadn't managed to catch him online. As soon as she did, she'd have Tommy run an IP check. Until then…all she could do was wait.

"Aaah," Tara found a link to 'strike three,' and pulled up the page. Her eyes narrowed as she read the clue being offered.

'Now I see you're just somebody who wastes all my time and money. What a lie, you and I…'

"Sure, that makes sense," she groaned, and kept reading.

'Do you ever feel like you've been lied to, oh Backstreet Boy? You got the money, but you never get to sing….'

Tara jumped when her cellphone rang, and picked it up, walking away from her desk to go outside as she answered. "Hello?"

"Tara?"

"Yes?"

"It's Kevin Richardson," a gentle voice drawled into her ear. "How are you doing?"

"Oh, Kevin, I'm glad you called," Tara said as she made her way outside. "The website's back, and there's another clue on it about the next strike."

"What does it say?"

Tara repeated the line to him, her eyes widening when Kevin didn't say anything in reply. "Kevin? You still there?"

"Yes," his voice sounded much softer. "I'm here."

"Did that make sense to you?"

"I'm afraid so," he said sadly.

"Oh." Tara sat down on a bench outside her office, squinting in the bright sun. "I'm sorry."

"So am I."

"As soon as I can catch this guy online, we can try to figure out where he's coming from," she said, trying to be helpful.

"Great," Kevin's voice got stronger once again. "The FBI is tearing our hotel in Vegas apart, trying to figure out how the hell that game got up to Nick's room, and that food coloring got into the pool."

"Maybe they'll find something?"

"Maybe they will," he didn't sound like he believed that, though.

"So, um," Tara kicked at the ground, biting her lip. "Is Nick doing better? He seemed pretty shook up when I left…"

Kevin chuckled softly, "yeah, Nicky's back to his old crazy self."

"Oh good. Any luck convincing the rest of the guys to cancel the tour?"

"Nope. The FBI is behind them on that one, they think that the less we show that we know what's going on, the better off we'll be."

"Sure, that makes sense," she said sarcastically, rolling her eyes. "Because this crazy guy knows what you're thinking and all."

"The FBI knows this stuff better than I do," Kevin said, trying to convince himself with his words.

"But this isn't happening to the FBI."

"Yeah, well," Kevin sighed heavily. "They want to talk to you."

"Me?" Tara stammered, "I can't, Kevin, I'll lose my job if anyone finds out…."

"Wait, calm down, they don't have to know. We'll fly you out this weekend, and Agent Palmer will interview you here. Ok?"

"My job will never know?" She asked doubtfully.

"I swear. We wouldn't do that to you."

"I don't know…."

"You can also catch us up on what this guy's been doing for the last couple of days. Sound good? Call it a free vacation?"

Tara took a deep breath. Sure, a vacation where a killer was on the loose. What fun. "I guess so…."

She heard a grunt from the other end of the line, followed by the phone being dropped. The voice that returned to the phone was not Kevin's. "Tara?"

"Yes?"

"Hey girl, it's Bone."

Tara started laughing, "who?"

"AJ?"

"Oh!" She snickered, "your nickname's Bone?"

"Yeah. Got a problem with that?"

"A better nickname for you, maybe," she teased. "How are you doing?"

"Oh, just lovely," he said sarcastically. "Kevin's running off to talk to management about something, did you say yes to this weekend?"

"Yes."

"Great! So I guess we'll see you then."

"Yup, you will." Tara stood up and stretched, sensing the conversation was over.

"Hey, Tar, before you go, now you know my nickname, what's yours?"

Tara laughed, "well, my nickname online is Katchoo, but Andy likes to call me the gaming goddess."

"Gaming goddess?" AJ laughed. "I like that one."

"What can I say, you name the game, I'll kick your ass in it."

"I'll leave that to Nicky. Bring some games, you two can have a play date," he replied with another laugh. "I'll see you Friday night, babe."

"See you then, AJ."

***

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