Five
CUT TO: ME ringing Jack Stapleton’s fancy doorbell in the Museum District.
In my standard pantsuit. Without the makeover I had so valiantly refused.
Kind of regretting that victory now.
This was an intake meeting, and I’d done dozens of them. Usually, the whole team went—primaries and secondaries—to meet in person and gather information. But the team was scrambling too hard right now to take the time.
So, today: just me.
Alone, and talking myself through the moment. You got this.
Once you learn to look at the world from a perspective of personal security, you can’t look at it any other way. I couldn’t walk into a restaurant, for example, without assessing the threat level in the room—even when I was off duty. I couldn’t not notice suspicious people, or vehicles that circled the block more than once, or empty vans in parking lots, or “repair crews” that may or may not’ve been doing surveillance. Honestly, I couldn’t get into my car without a three-step process: checking for signs of entry, checking the tailpipe for blockages, and checking under the chassis for explosives.
In eight years, I’d never once just walked out to my car and gotten in.
I must’ve seemed like the craziest person ever.
But once you know how terrible the world is, you can’t unknow.
No matter how much you might want to.
I wasn’t sure exactly how much Jack Stapleton knew about the world, but part of my job today, and going forward, was to educate him. You absolutely have to get buy-in from the principal, because you really can’t do it alone. Making it clear that protection is necessary without freaking anyone out is a crucial task at the beginning.
You have to calibrate exactly how much clients can handle.
Arriving at Jack Stapleton’s door, I clutched a checklist of things to cover so that he could hold up his end of the safety bargain. I also had some basic in-person tasks that his assistant in LA couldn’t do for him: fingerprints, a blood draw, a handwriting sample. Plus, a list of questions that Glenn called the VPQ—Very Personal Questionnaire—that gathered info on tattoos, moles, fears, weird habits, and phobias. Normally, we’d do a video recording, too, but, obviously, for this guy: no need.
Anyway, that was all I had to do. Stick to the script.
But wow, did I feel nervous.
And that was before he shocked the hell out of me by opening the door.
Shirtless.
Just opened up the front door. To a total stranger. Utterly naked from the waist up. What kind of a power move was that?
“Jesus Christ!” I said, spinning around and covering my eyes. “Put some clothes on!”
But the image of him was already burned into my retinas: Bare feet. Frayed Levi’s. A corded leather necklace encircling the base of his neck, just above his collarbones. And I don’t even have words for what was happening in the midsection.
I squeezed my eyes tighter.
How the hell was I supposed to work with that?
“Sorry!” he said, behind me in the doorway. “Timed that wrong.” Then, “It’s safe now.”
I made myself drop my hand and turn back around …
Where I beheld Jack Stapleton halfway through the process of wriggling into a T-shirt—six-pack muscles undulating like they wanted to put me in a trance.
Let me just stop the clock right here for a second, because it’s not every day you stand in Jack Stapleton’s doorway, squinting directly into his magnificence, while he does a completely normal yet utterly astonishing thing, like put on a T-shirt.
What was it like, you must be wondering, for me to live through that moment?
Maybe this will help: My brain shut down.
Like, I lost the power of speech.
I know he asked me a question somewhere in there.
But I cannot tell you what it was.
Nor could I answer him.
I just stood there, gaping, like a widemouth bass.
He’s just a person, you’re thinking. Just a person who happens to be famous.
Sure. Fine.
But you try stepping into that moment and not just falling mute with awe.
I dare you.
Can I also just add that I really hadn’t expected him to answer the door at all? I assumed it would be an assistant, or a secretary, or a posh British butler in a morning coat and tails—anyone but the man himself.
Add to that, he was bigger than he looked.
And he looked pretty big to start with.
I felt really tiny, in comparison. Which was not my favorite power dynamic.
And I’ll add—and maybe this goes without saying—he was … alive.
As opposed to a celluloid representation of himself.
He was a living, breathing, three-dimensional creature.
Which was new.
I was getting a good look now, and he wasn’t nearly as buff as he had been in The Destroyers—and of course not—right?—because who can keep a five-hour-a-day workout regimen going indefinitely? So instead of witnessing a jacked-up, bemuscled he-beast, I got a slightly less defined, more subtle yet somehow more sophisticated, ordinary, everyday washboard stomach.
A washboard stomach that didn’t have to try too hard.
Which made him seem more human. Which should have been a good thing.
But more human made him more real.
And he wasn’t supposed to be real.
The real Jack Stapleton was less tan than his movie posters. The real him had irises that were more gray than blue. The real him had a little nick where he’d cut himself shaving. His lips looked a bit dry, like they needed some ChapStick. His hair was shaggier than I’d ever seen—How long since he’d had a haircut?—and flopping over his forehead in a way that just begged somebody to brush it off to the side. He had a Band-Aid on the back of his hand, and he wore a beat-up drugstore sports watch, and he had glasses on, of all things. Not cool-guy Prada glasses—just the kind of slightly bent glasses that regular people actually wear for seeing.
That’s how I knew I wasn’t dreaming, by the way. Because it never would have occurred to me to put a bent pair of ordinary glasses on Jack Stapleton.
And they somehow made him look both better and worse.
Exhausting.
OKAY, LET’S START the moment back up.
Where were we? Oh, yeah:
Holy shit.
Friends and neighbors, I just met Jack Stapleton.
Barefoot. In Levi’s. Wearing a leather necklace that made me redefine all my opinions about leather necklaces.
“You’re early,” he said then, interrupting my ogle. “I was just getting dressed.”
I was still mute. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. I could hear myself wanting to say, “I am exactly on time,” in a professional, even imperceptibly irritated voice—but I couldn’t actually orchestrate the required squeezing of the diaphragm to make it happen.
Using every ounce of willpower I had, I ratcheted my open mouth closed.
That was something, at least.
He frowned at this for a second, and then he said, “Wait. Are you early? Or am I late?” He checked his watch. “You know what? I’m still on mountain time.”
All I could do was not gape.
“Are you thinking that North Dakota is central time?”
No response, but I did maintain eye contact.
He went on. “Because I get that a lot. North Dakota is central time, mostly. Except for the southwest corner. Where I happen to live.”
He was unfazed by one-sided conversations.
This must happen to him a lot.
But now he turned and waved for me to follow. “Come on in,” he said, heading farther back into the house.
I closed the door behind me and trailed him to the kitchen. Get a grip, I scolded myself. He’s just a person! He cut himself shaving! He’s not even all that tan anymore!
“Cool pin necklace, by the way,” he called back as he walked.
Like a reflex, I touched my beaded safety pin. Huh. Observant.
And the pin must have been even more of a talisman than I’d realized, because only then did I magically remember how to talk. “Thank you,” I said—though it came out more like a question than a reply.
In the kitchen, Jack Stapleton bent down and started rummaging through the cabinet under the sink, like regular people sometimes do.
Imagine that. They’re just like us.
“I’m new here,” he was saying, as I watched, “so I don’t really know what we have, but just let me know anything you need, and I’ll get it for you.”
He turned and stood up then with a caddy full of cleaning bottles, scrub brushes, sponges, and trash bags, which he set decisively on the counter in front of me.
I frowned at him.
“For cleaning,” he said.
I shook my head.
He frowned again. “Aren’t you the…”
And then—so newly grateful for the power of speech—I answered with, “Executive Protection Agent.”
Just as he said, “Cleaning lady?”
Really? Here I am in my best pantsuit, and he’s thinking “cleaning lady”?
Maybe Robby was right. Maybe I couldn’t pass.
“I am not the cleaning lady,” I said.
He frowned. “Oh.” And then he waited, like Who are you, then?
“I’m the primary Executive Protection Agent on your personal security team.”
He really looked baffled. “You’re the what on my what?”
I sighed. “I’m in charge of your security detail.”
“I don’t have a security detail.”
Well, this was new. “Pretty sure you do.”
At that, he clamped his hand around my arm just above the elbow—not so hard that it hurt, but hard enough that I couldn’t mistake the strength of the grip—and he led me back out the front door. In truth, it’s a grip I knew how to get out of, but I was so befuddled by what was happening, I just followed like a lamb.
Outside, he closed the door behind us and locked it.
Then, he got back to business. “You’re telling me you’re not the housekeeper?”
“Do I look like the housekeeper?”
Jack Stapleton shrugged, like Why not?
I should’ve let it go. “How many housekeepers show up for work in a silk blouse?”
“Maybe you were planning to change?”
Okay. Done with that. I gave a sharp sigh. “I am not the housekeeper.”
That’s when he held up his finger, like Just a sec, turned, and walked down the driveway digging his cell phone out of his pocket.
After a few steps, I heard him say, “Hey. A person just showed up here claiming to be personal security.”
Wait. Was he suspicious of me?
I couldn’t hear the response.
But I could hear Jack Stapleton loud and clear. “We decided against that already. Twice.”
He was kicking the crushed gravel on the driveway.
“But that was years ago.”
A pause.
“It won’t work. It’ll be a disaster. There has to be another way.”
Another pause.
Jack Stapleton and whoever he was talking to—His manager? His agent? His guru?—went round and round. I don’t know if he didn’t realize that I could hear him, or if he didn’t care … but he vociferously protested my presence in his life, right within earshot.
It stung a little. To be honest.
He argued for so long that I finally sat down on the little bench near the potted fiddle-leaf fig, noting that it could be used to smash the window behind it and should be moved, or sold, or thrown away. With nothing else to do, I half-heartedly assessed the property—distance from the street: adequate; lack of driveway gate: suboptimal; potential skull damage from one of those landscaping rocks: lethal—more out of habit than anything else.
Had I ever shown up for an intake meeting with a client who didn’t even know he’d hired me?
No. This was a first.
It was unsettling to think that he didn’t even want me there.
Most people were at least somewhat grateful for your help.
By the time he was finished arguing, fifteen minutes had gone by. He walked back, looking angry—a facial expression that, weirdly, I already recognized. I’d seen that face in Something for Nothing, right after the drug dealers confronted him. I’d also seen it in The Optimist, after he got cheated out of winning the cooking contest. I’d just met this man, but I already knew the funny little dimple that inevitably appeared on his chin when he was really pissed off.
And there it was.
As I stood up, I was not un–pissed off myself. We could’ve been done by now. I could’ve been home and already punched out for the day.
“Did you not know they were hiring us?” I asked, as he got close.
“I just thought we’d decided against it,” he said.
“Guess not,” I said.
“I mean,” Jack said, “I did decide against it. But the studio decided for it.”
“I thought you wanted out of that contract.”
“I do,” he said. “But what you want and what you get aren’t really the same thing.”
Not untrue.
“Anyway, their lawyers want them to protect their assets.”
“Is that what you are?”
Jack nodded. “Absolutely. They don’t want trouble. And they do want me to stay alive.”
“I’m sure everybody wants that,” I said.
“Not everybody,” he said. “Isn’t that why you’re here?”
True enough.
As I nodded, Jack Stapleton really looked at me for the first time since I’d arrived: his new housekeeper-slash-bodyguard. I felt his gaze like a physical sensation—like sun rays on my skin. I’d looked at him so many times. It was unbelievably weird for him to actually look back.
He let out a long, defeated sigh. “Let’s talk inside.”
INSIDE, AS HIS anger-dimple will testify, he stayed pissed for a while.
Though I hoped it was more at the studio than at me.
We sat at his dining table, and I unclutched the accordion folder I’d been holding to my chest since I got there. It felt strangely naked to release it.
Jack Stapleton was now slumped in defeat on a dining chair. “Just do what you normally do,” he said.
I took a breath. “Okay.”
What I normally do. This was better. We were back in my wheelhouse.
“I’m Hannah Brooks,” I began. “I’ve protected dozens of people in every type of situation imaginable.”
This was an introductory paragraph I’d memorized. I used it the same way, every time, when I met new clients. It was comforting to recite it, like singing an old favorite song.
“Executive protection is a partnership,” I went on. “We’re here to help you, and you’re here to help us. What you need from us is competence and experienced guidance, and what we need from you is honesty and compliance.”
Jack Stapleton wasn’t looking at me. He was checking his texts.
“Are you texting right now?” I paused to ask.
“I can do both,” he said, not looking up.
“Um. Not really. But okay.”
Nothing to do but keep talking. As I remembered who I was, I gained momentum. I pushed the handout I’d brought for him across the table. Printed on the cover page was our guiding principle. I recited it out loud. “The object of personal security is to reduce the risk of criminal acts, kidnapping, and assassination against a principal through the application of targeted procedures to normal daily life.”
Jack Stapleton looked up. “Assassination? Really? I’ve got a fifty-year-old stalker who breeds show corgis.”
But he couldn’t derail me now. “Constant awareness is the cornerstone of good personal security,” I went on. “In addition, security measures must always match the threat. Based on our level of knowledge at current, your threat level is relatively low. Of the four levels—white, yellow, orange, and red—we presently list you at ‘yellow.’ But we expect the news of your visit to Houston to break at some point, and when it does, we’ll up your classification to ‘orange.’ The strategy is to have systems in place to make that transition quickly.”
Jack Stapleton frowned. This was a lot of high-level jargon coming from the cleaning lady.
I went on. “All security is a compromise between the demands of the threat level and the reasonable hopes of the client to live a somewhat normal life.”
“I gave up on normal life years ago.”
“We’d like you to read this guidance carefully and familiarize yourself with your responsibilities toward your own safety. Anything you can do to prevent yourself from being successfully targeted helps us all keep you safe.”
“Again,” Jack said, “this lady mostly knits Christmas sweaters with my face on them. They’re actually kind of impressive.”
I stood up a little taller. “All successful kidnappings and assassinations happen because of one final factor and one final factor only: the element of surprise.”
“I’m really not worried about being assassinated.”
“And so the number one thing we need from any protected figure is awareness. Most people sleepwalk through their lives, barely cognizant of the dangers everywhere. But people under threat don’t have that luxury. You must train yourself to notice the people and objects around you—and to question them.”
“You’re kind of like a talking textbook, did you know that?”
“I’ve worked for Glenn Schultz for eight years and made my way to the highest rungs of his organization. I have a PPO certificate, as well as advanced training in countersurveillance, evasive driving, emergency medicine, advanced firearms, and close combat. But if I do my job right, we’ll never need any of that. You and I and the team, working together, will anticipate threats and diffuse them long before any crisis occurs.”
“I think I liked you better as the maid.”
I met his eyes. “You won’t say that at threat level orange.”
He looked away.
I took a breath. “I can sense from your body language that you’re not too interested in reading the handout, so I’ll summarize the most important guidelines for VIPs.” I ticked off the list on my fingers, going faster than necessary, just to show off:
Don’t meet with strangers at unknown locations.
Don’t book restaurants in your own name.
Don’t travel at night.
Don’t frequent the same clubs and restaurants.
Walk in groups whenever possible.
Don’t drive a distinctive vehicle.
Alert the police to any new threats.
Keep your gas tank at least half-full at all times.
Always keep your car doors locked.
Avoid stopping at traffic lights by pacing your speed.
Establish special code words to indicate all is okay.
There was more, but he was smiling at something on his Instagram.
I stopped talking and waited for him to notice.
After a long pause, he looked up. “What was that last one?”
I quoted myself: “‘Establish a code word to indicate all is okay.’”
“What’s the code word?”
I decided on the spot. “The code word is ‘ladybug.’”
Jack dropped his shoulders. “Could we do something a little more badass? Maybe ‘cobra’? Or ‘beast mode’?”
“The client doesn’t get to choose the code word.”
Clients chose the code words all the time.
But that’s what you get for texting while I’m talking.
Jack frowned. “How am I supposed to remember all those rules?” he asked next.
“Read the handbook,” I said. “Many times. With a highlighter.”
It’s possible my tone was a little sanctimonious.
Jack set down his phone with a sigh. “Look,” he said. “I won’t be going to clubs or restaurants—or meeting with strangers at unknown locations. I’ll just be staying home—or going with my mother to her doctor’s appointments.” He sighed. “I will also … under duress … make a few trips out to my parents’ ranch, but God willing, those visits will be short and rare. And that’s it. I’m not here to have fun, or make trouble, or get assassinated. I’m just here to be a good son and help out my mom.”
“Great,” I said. “That makes our job easier.”
He started to pick his phone back up.
I added, “I just need to collect fingerprints, a handwriting sample, and a vial of blood, and we can call it a day.” I was forgetting the Very Personal Questionnaire. But I was doing pretty well, all things considered.
“A vial of blood?” he asked.
I nodded. “I’m trained in phlebotomy.” Then I glanced down at his forearms. “And you’ve got veins like firehoses, anyway.”
He put his arms behind his back. “What do you need blood for?”
“Basic bloodwork. And to confirm your type.”
Now he was blinking in disbelief. I enjoyed shocking him a little.
This was way better than being the maid.
“Your assistant filled in your blood type on the form as AB negative,” I said, “and, if that’s confirmed, you’re lucky, because that’s my blood type, too.”
“Why does that make me lucky?”
“We always like to keep at least one person on the team who can act as a donor for our principal,” I said, pulling out the rubber tourniquet and snapping it. “So you might’ve just met your own personal blood bank.”