Page 28 of Faking the Pass
Sitting on the sofa opposite her, I opened my laptop, intending to do a search for her name and find out what information was out there regarding her near-miss wedding and subsequent escape.
It wasn’t necessary. My home page had the story of her canceled wedding right at the top.
As I scrolled down, I found more articles and several photos. One was a grainy image of Rosie standing just outside the front doors of Bellevue Manor, wearing a stricken expression and what looked like mascara smudges.
And then I saw it—a headline screaming about the accompanying video which had apparently been captured by a drone.
Clicking the thumbnail, I watched it, and my stomach sank.
Mystery solved.
The drone must have been circling the wedding venue yesterday and had gotten “lucky,” capturing the moment she’d escaped her nightmare wedding.
The video was remarkably clear, showing an aerial view of a blonde in a poufy white dress and a lifejacket, taking a dinghy from the mansion to my house.
There were several still shots bearing unflattering captions with phrases like “Floataway Bride,” and “Dingbat in a Dinghy.”
When I refreshed my home page, several brand new images appeared—of Rosie standing on my deck, wearing my t-shirt.
The photographers must have been using high speed shutters because she’d only been outside for a few seconds, yet there weresomany photos.
You could see in the succession of them when it hit her what was happening.
The look of horror dawning on her face made me feel queasy.
I glanced away from the screen to the real-life woman curled up in a near fetal position in my chair. She still hadn’t sipped her tea.
“It’s gonna get cold,” I warned softly.
She took a robotic sip then went back to cradling the mug against her chest.
“How bad is it?” she asked in a monotone, finally slipping a glance over to me.
“Not so bad,” I said to be nice. “They got a few shots of you on the deck.”
I didn’t mention the drone video or the shot of her in tears outside the mansion in her wedding dress.
“Doesn’t look like they know who owns the house.”
“Yet,” she said sourly.
For the first time maybe ever, I regretted the fact that I was famous. I’d always known it was part of the job and had never let it bother me.
But what Rosie went through was in a whole different league.
As I searched her name and scrolled down the page to older stories about her, I was shocked by the level of public scrutiny she endured on a daily basis.
Everything she wore was picked apart by the celebrity press.
If she frowned—ever—the image was splashed around along with rampant speculation about the cause of what had no doubt been a momentary facial expression.
What was probably just squinting against the bright sunlight got turned into some kind of made-up drama.
Rosie was right. When it did eventually get out that I owned this cottage and people studied closeups of those deck images—and realized she was wearing a man’s t-shirt—shit was going to get ugly.
We needed help.
Wilder’s company, Viridian Security, specialized in high profile clients. He had ways that he didn’t discuss—and that I didn’t ask about—of keeping information people didn’t want getting out from getting out.
