Page 111 of The Oscar Escape
“And why is that?” the man holding her asked.
“Because I’ve got a mean right hook, and I’m not afraid to use it.”
Thanks to growing up with a World Heavyweight Champion, she knew her way around kicking ass. Drawing on her extensive boxing and fighting knowledge, she drove her elbow into her assailant’s ample belly, striking his solar plexus. The man coughed and released her. Time to get a better view. She whipped off the bag and spied another idiot in a lobster-embroidered ski mask. She reared back and made good on her right hook claim, decking the man square in the jaw.Crack!That had to hurt. He fell to the ground like a tubby bowling pin.
Two down. One to go.
A twig snapped behind her. She spun around. “Uppercut, uppercut, jab, cross,” she cried, calling out the hits as she used the third assailant’s ski-mask-covered face as a punching bag.
“You want some more, bitches?” she taunted, but she hoped the answer was no. She rubbed her throbbing knuckles. It was a lot easier to kick ass with boxing gloves. She surveyed the three whimpering men. They looked ridiculous in lobster ski masks paired with Hawaiian shirts.
The breath caught in her throat.
Hawaiian shirts.
That’s why she recognized the voices. They were part of the paparazzi entourage. They’d cornered her in front of her dressing room. How did these morons find her? That was a question for later. She wasn’t about to wait around for them to come after her again. She took off for the amphitheater, then skidded to a halt when another man jumped out of the brush.
“Aria, my love, I’m here to save you.”
She cringed. This had to be a joke.
“Justin?” she balked.
The coiffed crooner stood before her. With his highlighted locks and a smarmy grin stretched across his face, he was dressed in leather pants and a ripped T-shirt. He looked ready to take the stage. Instead, he took her hand. He guided her out into the open.
“Aria, the world has been trying to figure out where you’ve been. But I’m here. We’ll escape together,” he vowed like he’d been practicing the line.
“Are you on drugs?” she shot back, pulling her hand from his clammy grip.
She gestured with her chin toward the trio of groaning men. “I know those douchebags. They’re paparazzi. What are you doing here?” She took a step away from the man as a revelation hit. “Are you working with them?”
“No,” Justin sputtered. “I’m rescuing the woman I love,” he announced, hamming it up.
He was playing for an audience, and it sure as hell wasn’t her.
“How did you find me, Justin?”
“That would be me,” a blond woman trilled, popping out from behind a bush.
How many assholes were waiting in the woods to jump out at her?
The blond bush dweller held her cell phone like she was recording herself. “Aria Paige-Grant just asked me how we zeroed in on her location. The answer. Me.”
Aria crossed her arms. “Yeah, I’m going to need a little more info.”
The blonde fluffed her hair for the camera. “It started when independent documentarian Oscar Elliott sent Phil from News 11 a video of a woman resembling Aria Paige-Grant conducting a group of musicians.”
Aria’s heart leaped into her throat. That had to be what Oscar saw on his phone. He must have accidentally texted Phil the video he’d taken of her.
“Phil showed the clip to my sister Lexi, and then Lexi sent it to me,” the blonde continued, lifting her chin and batting her eyelashes at the camera. “Panty lovers, I was the mastermind who confirmed it had to be Aria Paige-Grant, and that she was on Havenmatch Island. You see, several of the musicians in another video touting the Love and Lobsters Festival, here, on the island I know well, were also on the video of the woman conducting.”
“And who the hell are you exactly?” Aria demanded.
The woman held the cell so the two of them could be in the frame. “I’m Lisa Sheehan. You might know me as the Panty Princess. I’m a huge underwear influencer. I got over a million followers the night I—”
“The night you came back for your lacy panties,” Aria finished, anger simmering as she connected the dots. “You were with Justin that night at the club in Boston, and you’re also the Havenmatch Island dingbat. Didn’t you hit your head somewhere around here?”
The panty lady pouted. “That was a long time ago. Is Margo Lubec still calling me that? Everyone is supposed to call me the Panty Princess now.”
