Rock Wolf Investigations: Boxset

by Dee Bridgnorth

  “Adam…”

  “Just go.”

  He was practically shoving her toward the door and the steps that led from backstage to the front of the house and a tiny corner of the theater where stage left entrances were sometimes performed for a little bit of extra drama. Ellie felt horrible. She was shaky and worried and wished she could somehow turn Kari Jo into a person worth all of the trouble that Adam went to in order to keep her career on track when she seemed so determined to flush it all away.

  The audience was restless. Kari Jo was singing, but there was a lot of talking and getting up and down. People were trying to go down to the stage but the bouncers turned them away. Were all of these people suspects? How was it possible to figure out who was the one sending Kari Jo those letters when the young lady was so good at making everyone hate her?

  Time spooled by into an eternity. Ellie pulled out a pair of night vision binoculars. She had to turn them way down because of the stage lights, but it was the best way to keep an eye on their friend Westin Bainbridge and the pile of presents that seemed to be accumulating on the stage. Some of it was thrown. Stuffed animals, flowers, other items that probably shouldn’t have been thrown onto a stage by decent folks. Ellie kept her binoculars scanning the offerings on stage. She kept an eye on Bainbridge.

  Acting as one of the security personnel, Ellie went down by the stage and walked back and forth to get a good look at what had piled up. And when the last note was sung and Kari Jo moved toward the edge of the stage to shake hands with her fans, the surge of people was so great that Ellie had to help the security guys push everyone back. But at the end of it all, Kari Jo had exited stage right and there was no suspicious looking letter on the stage. No envelope with magazine letters on it and no hint of a threatening message.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Kari Jo Mounds was not necessarily the kind of person who engendered a lot of warm feelings. You didn’t like Kari Jo. She wasn’t very likeable. But right now, Adam was feeling the urge to kill her. Or at least to do something drastic enough that she might realize she had acted foolishly.

  “Do you have any idea what kind of mess you’ve created?” Adam jammed his hands on his hips and felt like the drill sergeant at one of those boot camps for spoiled teenagers. He imagined he felt some of the same futility as those drill sergeants did, too. “Kari Jo, you cannot pull stunts like that. It’s just not done. Not only that, but if it was going to be done, it would be staged because this is show business and that’s how it works!”

  Kari Jo gave him an insolent stare of annoyance in her dressing room mirror. She was busy taking her makeup off. She didn’t seem to be putting more on though, which was a switch. Usually she would be caking it back on so she could go clubbing. Perhaps the death of Aston Ryan had been more upsetting to Kari Jo than Adam had originally thought.

  “Don’t be such a bitch, Adam.” Kari Jo sounded absolutely blasé. “You’re acting like I didn’t just kill it out there.”

  “Kill it?” Adam was dumbfounded. “Do you realize you nearly made that audience stampede? And then you what? Managed to hijack the actual show headliner instead of doing your job as an opening act and helping to get the crowd warm. That’s your function, Kari Jo. I hate to break it to you, but you’re not a headliner yet.”

  “But I will be.” She swung around on her little makeup stool and glared at him. “You need to watch yourself, Adam. Do you understand me? I’m the star here. Not that idiot Ray. Nobody wants to see some tired old impersonator trying to sing the hits of a star who was over and done with before I was born!”

  “That’s the problem with you!” Adam shouted. “You don’t get it. You’re too full of yourself to realize there are pioneers in this business and there is a flow. We help each other! Don’t you get that? We do not stomp on everyone else around us in order to get to the top because when you get there, it will be a quick and hard fall to the bottom if you’ve made nothing but enemies on the way up!”

  She was looking at Adam as though he was speaking Greek. She didn’t get it. Not at all. Adam took a breath to say something else, to try to break it down for her, but he didn’t get the chance.

  The dressing room door swung open and Harvey Lightman stormed inside. “You bitch! You stupid little twit! How dare you do that to my show?”

  “Your show?” Kari Jo gave a derisive little snort. “It’s not your show, Harvey. It never has been. Since I first stepped on stage this has been my show and the rest of you just work for me.”

  Harvey was sputtering as though he could not find the words to express the level of outrage he was feeling. Turning to stare at Adam, Harvey could not speak, he could only point.

  Adam snorted and shook his head. “Yeah, don’t look at me. Unfortunately, I am here to tell you I can no longer vouch for this client, Mr. Lightman. She is a total loose cannon. I would suggest you do something pretty drastic to punish her for bending the rules of her contract.”

  “What?” Kari Jo leaped to her feet. She was wearing nothing but a silk robe and it was gaping open at the chest with each of her energetic movements. Adam almost couldn’t look at her. “What are you talking about? Punish me? And what friggin’ contract did I break? I showed up tonight! I sang my songs. Hell. I killed it out there, Lightman. I made those fans so happy and whipped them into such a frenzy I bet they rushed the gift shop to buy my merchandise after the show.”

  “No kidding!” Lightman finally found his words and snarled at Kari Jo with enough bark to suggest he wanted to bite. “They were so frenzied that they didn’t stay for the last part of the show and swarmed the gift shop while Ray was still performing! That’s not good, Kari Jo. Do you get me right now? Do you understand what you’ve done?”

  She gave Lightman a look that screamed “duh.”

  “Uh, yeah. I stole the show! That’s what I’m supposed to do.”

  “No! You’re supposed to warm up the crowd for the headliner!” Harvey growled.

  He was looking at Kari Jo as though she was an absolute moron, which, for the most part, was true. Kari Jo had absolutely no notion of why they might be upset with her. She was utterly and completely clueless.

  Adam felt a pressure in his chest. A huge weight. He’d known this girl was going to be a handful. She was talented. Yes. But she was also conceited beyond belief and so convinced that she was destined to be the star of every show that she was almost handicapped by her own arrogance. He thought he could help her change that. Mold her a little. Show her how it worked. How you did your time on the bottom and worked your way up. At the moment, Adam was pretty sure Kari Jo Mounds was incapable of learning that important lesson.

  “When we signed that last six-month contract with Mr. Lightman,” Adam began with the last bit of patience he could muster, “I went over each and every detail of that agreement. I showed you the places where it detailed what you were agreeing to. I made certain you understood what it meant to give your word. And yet two months later you have completely forgotten everything.”

  Kari Jo glared at Adam. “There was nothing in that contract about changing the way I want to enter the building and go on stage.”

  “Actually, there is.” Adam glanced at Lightman. “There is a clause in there about changes to the show’s structure and format and if there is to be a change it must be discussed not only with Mr. Lightman, but also with the other acts and their representation, if applicable.”

  Kari Jo’s frown turned into a smirk. “Adam, you’re ridiculous. It sounds like you freaking memorized that or something.”

  “I did,” Adam told her quietly. “While you were on stage making an ass out of yourself, I got the contract out and reread it because I had a feeling we would be having this meeting with Mr. Lightman once the show was over.”

  Harvey Lightman was staring at Adam. It was a strange stare. As if he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing or seeing or maybe it was just that the guy was beginning to honestly realize Adam had absolutely no control over
his client—at all.

  “This wasn’t your doing?” Lightman asked Adam after a moment or two of silence. He was now ignoring Kari Jo.

  She waved her hand, her face a mask of disgruntled irritation. “Um, excuse me, but I’m right here. You need to treat me with respect and not talk about me like I’m not here.”

  Adam almost laughed out loud. You need to treat me with respect. Then he cleared his throat and gave Lightman a very long look. “You’ve known me for years, Harvey. Do I really strike you as the sort of person who would condone that sort of thing? Much less have to put a foot out on that stage to deal with an angry mob?”

  “You’re right,” Lightman finally said with a deep sigh. “I hate to do this to you, Adam, but I think you know that it has to be done.”

  “I do.” Adam pursed his lips. How awful was it that his mind was already going to the dancing violinists? “I think I know a way we can spin the transition into something that will makes good sense to the public as well.”

  “Good. I was hoping you would say that,” Lightman told Adam with a nod.

  Kari Jo’s face was turning a mottled white and red color. Rage. Adam could spot it pretty well now. “Will you two stop?” She grabbed a makeup compact and threw it at the wall. Tinted powder exploded into the air with a much larger poof than Adam might have expected from such a tiny container. “You’re talking about me like I’m not here!”

  “As far as I’m concerned, you’re not,” Harvey Lightman said coolly. “You have twenty-four hours to get your things out of this dressing room. After that, the door codes will be changed and you will no longer be welcome in the backstage area of my theater.”

  “What? What do you mean?” Kari Jo stood up and approached Lightman as though she might lunge at him. Adam balled up his fists and wondered if he could grab her before she did something stupid. “You can’t do that! I need my dressing room to get ready!”

  “For what?” Lightman was teasing her now. He was enjoying it. It was sick, but Adam could hardly blame the man. No doubt the entire theater would be having a party to celebrate the dismissal of Kari Jo Mounds. Lightman smiled at Kari Jo. “You’re fired, kid. That’s the end of it. Your days of dancing all over that contract are over. You’ve been nothing but a pain in my ass from the very beginning. If you ever think of using me for a reference, you’d better think again because I will happily tell everyone who wants to hear it the story of your inability to follow rules and play on a team.”

  “Team?” Kari Jo scoffed. “There is no team in being a star! Fine. You want me to leave? I will!”

  She turned on her heels and started to stalk out of the room. At the last second, she turned to look at Adam. “You need to pack up my things and have my mother come and get them. I’ve got better things to do with my time.”

  “I do, too,” Adam told her bluntly. “And as far as I’m concerned, you’re not my client anymore. I have no responsibility for you. If you want your stuff out of this room, you’re going to have to pack and transport it yourself. I would imagine if you let it sit here past the due date, Mr. Lightman will happily send it all to charity for you.”

  “What?” Kari Jo looked around. “But this is my stuff!”

  “Not the makeup table or the couch. They were here when you first came.”

  “Well, they’re mine now!” she protested. “I want them!”

  Lightman rolled his eyes and then looked at Adam. “I’m washing my hands of this bimbo. End of story. Come talk to me later about the other thing.”

  At least Lightman hadn’t openly said he wanted to talk to Adam about signing the dancing violinists. That would have been too much. Even Kari Jo would have realized her own agent was helping Lightman fire her and put someone else in her spot. Not that the rest of the world would blame them for the move. Kari Jo was done. There was no way to save this working relationship. She had been nothing but a pain in the ass and she’d given Harvey Lightman the out he’d needed to get rid of her. End of story.

  “Adam, what’s going on?” For the first time, Kari Jo looked worried.

  It was a strange expression on her face. But then, without the pounds and pounds of makeup, she looked far younger and more vulnerable. Adam tried to remind himself that it wasn’t a real state of being. It was an act. Kari Jo was an actress. And a liar.

  “Kari Jo, you’re done,” Adam told her firmly. Then he waited a moment to see if she tried to claim otherwise. Like she was going to mobilize her fan base and try to get her job back. But she didn’t and Adam decided to say one more thing. “You need to realize that Lightman was looking for a reason to get rid of you.”

  “But I sell tickets!”

  “Honey, this is Branson. Tourists buy tickets for shows that have been playing for over sixty years. They buy tickets because they’ve come to Branson and that’s just what you do. You vacation and you see a few shows and you rent a boat and waterski on the lake. You go to the amusement parks and the water parks and you play miniature golf and ride go karts. That’s what you do in Branson. There might have been people who enjoyed your show and they might even be your fans in the next phase of your career, but you don’t get to be a diva here. You just haven’t reached that level yet.”

  “That level?”

  At least she wasn’t yelling at him. That was good. But she seemed totally unable to grasp what he was saying. Adam gave an internal groan. This was going to be a disaster. He was going to wind up packing up her stuff and taking it to her mother’s place for her. Then he would have to present her with her walking papers from his office too. Talk about a clerical nightmare. At some point, Adam was going to have to come to terms with the fact he hadn’t really been making enough money on Kari Jo Mounds to deal with the headache of representing her.

  “Let me call my friend in Nashville,” Adam told Kari Jo suddenly. “Roger Jacobsen. He’s an agent for several big name country stars. He might still be willing to take you on.”

  Kari Jo still looked confused.

  “That’s what you wanted, right?” Adam gazed at her for a minute or two, waiting for it to sink in. “You wanted to leave Branson and really make it big. Right?”

  “I did,” Kari Jo said weakly. But there was almost no conviction in her voice. This was not going to go well. Not well at all.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Day three? Day thirty-three? Day three thousand and three? Ellie felt as though she could no longer tell the difference. They all ran together and made a mess. Her dreams had been filled with images of Adam Cathcart. It was so disconcerting. Not like her at all. Ellie didn’t have dreams. She went to sleep. She slept. She woke up again. None of this dreaming stuff where she woke up feeling tired and really rather giddy, which was weird because Ellie Pierce did not do giddy.

  She managed to make it out of the theater without incident last night. She’d left fairly early. Not that it had been her idea to leave early, but Adam had insisted and considering the total shit show that was about to go down between Adam, Kari Jo, and probably Harvey Lightman, there really hadn’t been much reason for Ellie to stay. After all, there had been no letter placed on the stage last night. Nothing. As if the stalker had been scared away.

  Ellie’s mind played through possible reasons for this as she walked back into the theater. It was hot and muggy outside, but today it wasn’t sunny. Thick black and gray clouds had rolled in and there was a mist hanging over the lake. The indoor Branson attractions would see tons of increased traffic as the potential for thick sheets of rain chased all of the lake users away from their boats and fishing poles and into the air-conditioned, dry shows, museums, and indoor fun parks.

  “Well, well, well, look what the cat dragged in this morning,” Margo said snidely from her usual place behind the front counter. She had a pile of paperwork in front of her and it looked like business as usual. “Come to pick the bones clean eh?”

  Ellie frowned and stopped walking for a moment. “What does that mean?”

  The smug e
xpression on Margo’s face suggested a few things, but Ellie wasn’t about to jump to conclusions based on the facial stylings of a woman like Margo. She seemed happy enough to let Ellie stew about it though. She did not look up from the paperwork in front of her and spoke in a maddeningly slow tone of voice. “Yesterday was just full of surprises, wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” Ellie drawled, deciding to give Margo a bit of her own medicine. “I’ll admit I was rather shocked to discover you and Hilary Allenwood are an item.”

  “Were,” Margo said quickly. “We were an item. But we’re not now because Hilary is a judgmental bitch and that’s the truth of the matter. End of story.”

  “I see.” Ellie did not smile. There really wasn’t anything to grin about. She just kept staring at Margo and waiting. “Are you going to explain your cryptic statement or are you just going to sit there and pretend you know all and see all?”

  “I do know all and see all and you would do well to remember that,” Margo snapped. Then she cleared her throat and tossed her hair back behind her shoulders. “But what you really missed was the way Lightman lost his mind about what Kari Jo did last night. The man lost it. I’ve never seen him so mad before. So, I’m sure you can guess what happened.”

  Ellie pursed her lips. Yes, she had a pretty good imagination and it didn’t take that to guess what had probably happened after Ellie left last night. “So, he fired her, did he?”

  “Among other things,” Margo said teasingly. “But I’m not going to say anymore. I wouldn’t want to be spreading gossip, now would I?”

  “Oh, no. Definitely not,” Ellie snorted. “Well then, I guess I’ll go in search of whatever is left of my client and my case.”

  “Your case.” The strange note in Margo’s voice left Ellie feeling strangely off balance. “Now, that’s a joke. You need to realize that Kari Jo gets what’s coming to her. The woman is a slut. A good old fashioned whore. She couldn’t stay with one lover if you paid her millions to do it. She’s too—what’s that song she sings? “My Cheating Heart?” That’s autobiographical. I’m telling you. And girls like that?” Margo continued without looking up and almost as though she was having this discussion with herself in her head. “Girls like that get what they deserve, Ms. Pierce. That’s the end of it.”