by Mandy Baggot
She shook his hands off. ‘Don’t touch me!’ Autumn hissed.
‘Hey, Autumn, how you doin’, girl?’ Blu-Daddy asked.
Autumn drew her arm back, closed her eyes, and threw a punch at Juan’s face. She missed completely and hit him on the shoulder.
Surprise and bemusement arrived on Juan’s expression then. He adjusted his sunglasses and shrugged his shoulders to straighten his jacket.
‘Ow! Man, what’s with you? And who is this guy? You and me, we’re the business. What you making announcements like that for? A publicity stunt or something?’ Juan asked, turning his attention to Nathan.
‘I’m Nathan Regan. You must be the prick who’s been cheating on her.’
‘What?’ Juan exclaimed, all wide-eyed innocence.
‘I know what you’ve been doing behind my back! With that lying bitch, my so-called friend! You and I are finished!’ Autumn screamed. ‘I don’t want to see your vile face or your, bald, greasy head ever again!’ She pushed Juan backwards with all the force she could muster.
He staggered back into a group of guests, but she wasn’t finished with him yet. She hit him, with both of her fists, pummeling a rhythm on his chest and beating him with all her might.
‘I am not a meal ticket to the high-life for you. I don’t want your crap rapping on my records, and I don’t want you remixing anything except that press release we did last week. We will not be holidaying in Martinique. I will be going to the Seychelles with Nathan.’
A team of half a dozen photographers followed the action with their cameras, capturing not just the visual before them, but the audio, too.
‘Autumn, that’s enough,’ Nathan said. He grabbed hold of one of her arms as it swung back from a thump at Juan’s abdomen.
‘No, it’s not!’ she shrieked. ‘Do you know, once he told me not to speak for an entire party because he didn’t think he could trust me not to tell everyone about his new album. Like anyone was interested!’
‘I said that’s enough.’ Nathan tightened the grip on her arm.
‘It’s not enough! It’s not! For God’s sake, you hit him!’ Autumn ordered, her face as red as a ripe cherry, tendrils of hair falling from the do Tawanda had carefully created.
In one quick action, Nathan moved Autumn aside and landed a punch on Juan that sent him to the floor. He was unconscious before he hit the parquet tiles.
‘What on earth is going on here?!’
The room silenced as Alison Raine looked to Autumn for an answer to her question.
Seventeen
He’d considered the idea, but he hadn’t really expected it. Still, he didn’t really know, but she was here, that said quite a lot all on its own.
She was preened and perfected and wore a scowl on her Botox-enhanced face as she looked at her daughter. How different the two of them were. The mother was hard, the daughter pretended to be, but inside, Autumn was gelatin. From what he had encountered, there was nothing but rock right through Alison Raine.
A guest punched Nathan on the arm. ‘Hey! Who do you think you are? Do you know who he is? He’s A-list, man. Has someone called the cops?’
‘Why don’t you just fuck off and go and get another drink. It’s a free bar, isn’t it? Knock yourself out.’
‘He isn’t coming round,’ a female guest who was attending to Juan reacted, shaking at his jacket.
‘Should we call a paramedic?’ another voice asked.
‘I’m calling the cops… where’s the security around here?’
*
‘Mother! What are you doing here?’ Autumn questioned as another section of hair came loose from its grip.
‘Janey called me. What’s going on, Mr Regan? We were supposed to keep in touch,’ Alison said, her irritated look directed at Nathan.
‘Were we?’ he asked, his eyes trained back on Juan.
The rapper showed signs of coming around and was now being attended to by some waiters.
‘Yes, we were. That was the deal,’ Alison hissed through tight lips.
‘What deal?’ Autumn wanted to know.
‘Yes, Foreign Secretary, what deal?’ Nathan repeated.
Autumn saw his focus directed back at her mother, the expression in his eyes serious.
‘We were supposed to keep in touch. It’s been forty-eight hours, and I didn’t know where she was,’ Alison continued. Her voice lowered as a waitress with a tray of blinis passed close by. No one was taking the food, they were all too busy watching Juan come back to consciousness.
‘I was under the impression that I was protecting your daughter. I told you I was concerned about your office,’ Nathan spoke briskly.
‘My office—although I trust all of my staff implicitly—is my office. I’m talking about me!’ Alison exclaimed.
‘No need to raise your voice, Foreign Secretary,’ Nathan said.
‘And what was that announcement about a relationship between you? If this is part of some plan, I need to know about it. I want to know exactly what’s going on.’
Autumn observed her mother, trussed up in a magenta cocktail dress, wearing shoes that were far too young and far too high for her. Her eyebrows almost met at the bridge of her nose with the ferocity of the snarl, and her lips were pursed like a cat’s bottom smeared in Max Factor’s Fantasy Fire.
Nathan grabbed hold of Alison’s arm. ‘We can’t have a fucking conversation like this here.’
As soon as he made contact, two men lunged forward from behind her, grabbed Nathan and had him on the ground with both arms up behind his back.
The crowd gathered around Juan, let out a collective gasp, and the photographers moved their focus from the semi-conscious rapper to the Foreign Secretary’s guards and Autumn Raine’s new boyfriend flailing on the floor.
‘Let him go! Mother! What are you doing?’
‘That’s it, I’m calling the police,’ one of the bystanders said, reaching into his jacket pocket for a phone.
Autumn read the look on her mother’s face, could see she was enjoying this show of her power.
‘Mother!’ she called again.
‘Let him up.’ Alison straightened her dress and watched Nathan get to his feet, pushing himself out into some space away from the heavies. ‘But I want answers from you, Mr Regan.’
Nathan let out a dry laugh. ‘Really? You want answers from me?’
‘What are you inferring?’
‘What are you inferring?’
Autumn looked at them both, her head turning from one to another as they verbally sparred with each other. Her concentration was only broken when someone took her arm.
‘Hey, Autumn girl, what’s going on with you?’ Blu-Daddy asked, his huge brown eyes bulging from his face.
‘I’m fine, Blu. Everything’s fine,’ she said quickly and smiled.
‘Everything don’t look fine right now, honey. Why don’t you and I get some air? There’s some stuff I want to talk about with you anyway.’ He linked arms with her.
‘I don’t know if I should,’ Autumn began, watching as her mother launched into another tirade about how security was paramount to her. Security, not her daughter.
‘I want to know what’s going down with you and Juan. I thought you two were the real deal. Who’s the new guy? He’s… alternative,’ Blu-Daddy continued, leading her away from the argument.
‘I know, he’s very different, but that’s good, isn’t it? I mean, did you know? About Janey and Juan?’ Autumn asked as they walked toward the doors.
‘Janey? And Juan? No way, girlfriend! What is that about?’
*
Where was she? She’d been standing right beside him and now she was gone. Alison yapped at him like he was a post-room boy who had forgotten to send a parcel, and her two goons had folded their arms in an attempt to look menacing. His head told him not to panic. Panic only made things worse and caused the same in other people. This party was full of the world’s rich and famous. It wasn’t the time or the place to have a full
security alert. His eyes scanned the room. He saw someone he recognized from the cast of Homeland. There was Jason Statham, but where was Autumn? His heart was thumping in his chest. This was not the time to lose control, but that’s how he felt. Control was slipping as every second he couldn’t see her ticked by. He had completely zoned out of the row with Alison, and now he was preparing to move. He couldn’t see Autumn in the room at all. He needed to find her.
He pushed past Alison, knocking her into a waiter, and hurried through the other guests toward the hotel lobby.
Janey was just returning to the function room and smiled at him. That fake, false persona was instantly on show. She was hiding something and he was becoming more and more convinced that it was more than just her relationship with the bald rapper.
‘Have you seen Autumn?’ Nathan asked, his breath coming out in bursts.
‘Yes, of course. You arrived together not more than forty minutes or so ago,’ she answered.
‘Listen, don’t get fucking cute with me. Where is she?’ Nathan blasted, sweat starting to bead on his forehead.
‘I have no idea. Has something happened?’
Nathan shook his head and moved forward. ‘Your boyfriend might need a little TLC right now, apparently you’re good with that where he’s concerned. Oh, and you might want to ask the kitchen for a steak for his black eye.’
‘Teo, this is Regan,’ Nathan spoke into the microphone under the sleeve of his jacket. ‘Have you got a visual on Autumn?’
The answer came through his earpiece.
‘Negative, Regan, but it’s all quiet out here.’
‘She’s missing. Jazz, can you see her?’
‘Affirmative, she’s out front with some big guy. All looks friendly though. Hold up…’
‘What is it?’
‘I’m not sure, give me a second.’
‘Give me something here, Jazz, or I’m going to blow this party wide open with the fire alarm.’ Nathan swallowed down the ball of anxiety in his throat.
‘Get out here, Regan, now! Everyone to the front. There’s a van!’
He didn’t need to be told twice. He sprinted down through the hotel lobby and out into the street, just in time to see Autumn wrestling with Blu-Daddy, who had hold of one of her arms while two other men pulled her toward a white transit van.
Nathan yanked out his weapon, but before he could fully draw, shots were fired. One… two… three. He tried to take a breath and focus on the scene before him. There were shouts, a cry, passers-by on the street were screaming and ducking for cover. Three men in familiar uniforms appeared. The unmistakable audio of automatic weapons filled the air. One of the assailants buckled from the shots and fell to the ground, pulling Autumn down with him.
*
The pavement rose up to meet the side of her body, and she grimaced as the pain jolted through her. Her face fell against the army boot of one of her assailants, and all she could hear was the sound of more gunfire. The only reference point she had to these sounds were action movies, fireworks, cars misfiring, an army fun day she’d once been to with her father where they’d let canons off. She didn’t know what to do. She closed her eyes, counted in fives, and waited for whatever was going to happen next.
‘Get their weapons, get the plate number, and get out of here before the police turn up,’ Nathan barked at the team of men.
Autumn opened her eyes and saw spent bullet shells and blood on the ground, but she could still hear the jazz band from the party playing from inside the hotel.
‘Autumn, are you hurt?’ Nathan slipped his arms underneath her body.
‘My hip,’ she whispered.
‘Okay, we’ve got to go now. Put your arms around my neck,’ he said, lifting her up.
‘What happened? Were they the men? The ones trying to kidnap me?’ she asked as Nathan ran up the side of the hotel toward the transport.
‘That was two of them,’ he answered. He breathed hard as she bounced up and down in his arms.
‘You mean, this isn’t it? They’ll try again?’ Emotion threatened to overwhelm her.
‘I thought after tonight, I’d know, but I don’t,’ he stated, still running.
‘Is Blu okay? The van just appeared and these men leaped out and started shouting at us. Then they grabbed me.’
‘He’s dead,’ Nathan told her.
‘What?’
‘Teo’s men killed the first guy. The second guy got a couple of rounds off before he was put down, too. Your record producer took the hit.’
‘No,’ Autumn said.
Grief burst like a bubble inside her, and she howled while her whole body shook.
‘Listen, it’s another hundred yards. I can’t carry you if you keep trembling like that.’
‘You heartless bastard! My producer’s dead! He was my friend, a loyal friend, a good man. He has a wife and children!’ Autumn screamed, attempting to get down out of his arms.
‘So, if he was a good man, what was he doing taking you outside of the hotel at the very same time the kidnappers turn up, huh?’ Nathan queried.
‘He wanted to talk. He wanted some fresh air. He doesn’t like the heat. He sweats a lot… he sweated a lot.’
It couldn’t be true! Blu couldn’t be dead. They were just talking about the IMAs and Blu joining her in her performance of her bestselling hit, the one they had co-wrote, the best song she had ever written.
‘You left my side, Autumn. You left my side without a second thought.’ Nathan set her down on the ground.
‘You were arguing with my mother. What was she even doing there? She never comes to my parties. Why did Janey invite her?’
‘I’d like the answer to all those questions, too, but not yet. We need to get out of here. We need to get back to the house.’
‘No! I’m going back there. I’m going back there right now to be with my friend, until someone comes, the police or an ambulance. Has anyone called them, do you think?’
‘I can’t let you do that.’
‘I have to. I mean, if I don’t, what happens to him? We can’t just leave him there, in the street… like trash.’
‘The police will come. They will deal with it.’
She shook her head as all the memories of Blu-Daddy flooded in and the grief began crushing her thought process.
‘I can tell the police what happened, what I saw. That will help them catch whoever did this,’ she attempted again.
‘It’s more important that you’re safe. If you go back there, you’re not just putting yourself in danger, you’re putting me and Teo and Jazz in the firing line. The people I work for, they aren’t governed by the police. We work by an entirely different law.’
Tears were escaping her eyes as she tried to decide what to do. Her record producer was dead, it could have been her.
‘You’re my priority, Autumn; I have to keep you safe.’ He inhaled and put his hands to the back of his head. ‘I should have been at your side when those men turned up.’ His tone was laced with guilt, and he hid his eyes from her.
‘Yes, but I shouldn’t have left the hotel. I promised you I’d do as you said, and I didn’t. It was my fault.’
‘Regan! We must go now!’ Teo shouted.
Police cars wailed in the distance, and Nathan hurried Autumn over to the awaiting Jeep.
‘I can do what you say. I’ll listen. I’ll try harder,’ she said as she pulled up her dress to climb in.
Nathan climbed in after her. ‘Yeah, maybe I need to do that, too.’
Eighteen
Tawanda met them at the front door, and, before the woman could even speak, Autumn ran to her and flung herself into her arms. She began to wail, then the wail turned into loud sobbing, until finally, after much coaxing and soft, well-chosen words from Tawanda, the woman managed to get Autumn into the house and onto the sofa.
Nathan went to the fridge and found it full. Tawanda had obviously been to town for supplies. He took out a bottle of beer and looked for something to
open it with. His hands were shaking. They hadn’t done that for a long time, not since…
He closed his eyes as the memory filled his head. Marie’s face, her cries, the explosions.
He ripped the top off the bottle and it fell to the floor. He drank the liquid down as if it were life-giving fluid.
*
‘You need to know, child, that your friend, he is in a better place now. A place where there is no fighting, no guns, no evil people, only perfect peace,’ Tawanda said.
She unpinned Autumn’s hair and brushed it over and over as she removed the grips.
‘Do you really believe that?’ Autumn asked, looking over her shoulder at the older woman, tears glazing her eyes.
Tawanda paused brushing. ‘Of course I believe it! Don’t you?’
‘I don’t know. I think I want to. Then something like this happens, and… well, it can’t be right. There can’t be someone up there deciding who lives and who dies,’ Autumn stated.
‘You are too scared to believe in something you can’t see. You believe in iPhones and iPads and too much eye make-up,’ Tawanda said as she looked deep into Autumn’s heavily made-up eyes.
She smiled in return, but the expression didn’t reach her eyes. All she could think about was Blu-Daddy and what his death would mean for his family. He wasn’t quite on the Rich List yet, and without a steady income, his wife would be living on royalties. She had to make sure his family was looked after, that the record company didn’t suck every penny out of his music for itself. But what was she thinking? When his wife heard the news, she wouldn’t be thinking about money. She’d lost a husband; their children had lost a father! What the hell was money compared to that?
Her heart contracted in her chest as she thought about her own father. How had she felt when her mother had told her he was dead? She remembered feeling like a light had gone out in her life. She felt cold, numb, empty. It was like part of her had died with him. That’s what grief was, an empty hole where someone special used to be.
‘It’s my fault he’s dead,’ Nathan spoke through the silence that had descended.
