All I can manage in this moment is getting her a flight home instead of a bus, and two whispered words as she slips out the back door. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” She hitches her messenger bag higher on her shoulder, and I glance around in case the cameras get frisky and try to get a shot of us.
“For not being there for you. For not being at your gallery opening.” For not telling you that I love you.
“I don’t need sorry,” Willa says, moving toward the back fence gate that leads to the alley. “I just need you.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Stella and Beryl meet me at Righteous Ink and we take a taxi to Kristina’s new digs. It’s new construction with a shiny cold lobby, no doorman.
Even though I know Kristina’s in Pittsburgh giving her statement to a judge right now, I still feel like a thief, so I don’t blame Violet for not wanting to come.
“How did you know she was lying?” Stella asks as we wait for the elevator. I’ve caught them up on most of the situation. “I mean, you said the lawyer was going for a plea deal. All signs pointed to guilty.”
My voice shakes as I tell them the truth. “At first I thought he was guilty too. He was so convinced of it. So scared. But the thing that kept coming back to me was the fact that everyone decided to believe Kristina about this when she’s been nothing but a liar.”
“But how did you figure out the red light picture?” Beryl asks.
“I didn’t even know they had it. I just remembered a time when I got arrested for tagging, and the cops had every reason to believe it was me—I had spray paint on my hands and cans in my bag, and I even told them I did it. But it wasn’t me. I was just along to watch.” We exit the elevator and find Kristina’s door. “I wanted to believe that Dave was better than what Kristina said about him.”
Stella takes the keys from me and unlocks the door. A thick floral smell hits us first, like too much fruity body spray. The place is crowded with boxes and furniture—nice stuff—and the floor is littered with high heels and packing paper.
“Suzy Homemaker, she is not,” Stella sniffs. She turns to Beryl. “What do we do?”
“You take the living room,” she tells me. “Look on bookshelves and inside vases or under display items. Stella, take her bedroom. Bedside table is obvious, but between mattresses and under the bed are also likely. Pull her dresser out from the wall and look under it. Top closet shelves too. I’ll start on the kitchen.”
We take our places and begin our search.
“What are we looking for, exactly?” Stella calls from the bedroom.
“Something bad.” That’s about all I could come up with as I flew home. “Something the band could use against her. We know she’s been collecting secrets on the band, so if we could find something she might use against them, that would be great.”
Beryl pops her head out of the kitchen. “Gavin’s exact words when he called me were ‘take her down.’”
There’s silence for several minutes except the sounds of drawers opening and items being shifted around. Stella comes out of the bedroom with a big wobbly dildo, purple and veiny, and parades around like she’s holding her cock.
I collapse on the couch with laughter while Stella giggle-snorts and Beryl pauses ransacking the kitchen to tell us that’s not even half the size of the sex toys she’s accidentally found in the homes of the rich and famous.
“I’d rather find a fake dick than some of the real filth I come across,” she says.
Stella just cackles and goes back to the bedroom, still wagging her fake purple penis and shaking her hips for emphasis. My stomach hurts from laughing and it hits me—these are my friends.
Real friends. I lived half of my teens on the streets with people who were friends only if they could get something from me. So far in my twenties I’ve been operating in defense mode. Now I’m struck by how Beryl and Stella and Violet have embraced me.
I’m just about to get all mushy and distracted from our mission when Stella yells “Holy shit!” from the bathroom.
Beryl and I rush over to see what she’s found. Strewn across the counter are cosmetics, hair potions, a flat iron … and more than a dozen bottles of pills.
Stella holds one up. “Vicodin. And that’s not her name on the bottle.” She paws through some more bottles. “Ativan. Adderall. Percocet. Xanax. This girl could open her own pharmacy.”
“She’s definitely feeling groovy.” I frown. This isn’t the smoking gun I hoped for. “Did you find anything else?”
“Not in the kitchen,” Beryl says. “Unless being a slob is a crime, in which case I’d give her a life sentence.”
“Nobody’s going to care about her sex toys and shit taste in clothes. She has the Jersey Shore cast’s wardrobe in her closet,” Stella says.
Beryl backs out of the bathroom and opens another door. Hall closet. She pulls down a shoebox on the top shelf, opens the lid, and rifles through it.
I open the last door in the hallway. It’s a second bedroom, but it’s crammed with a desk and at least two dozen boxes. I groan. “I’m going to be here a while.”
Stella finishes with the bathroom and joins me in the spare bedroom, yanking open boxes as I tackle the desk drawers.
My heart sinks lower with each strikeout. I don’t find journals or any written records that Kristina could use against the band, or that they could use against her. I don’t find a laptop.
Behind me, Stella’s huffing and puffing like the Big Bad Wolf as she shoves boxes away from the closet door. I hear the door open and Stella lets out a little shriek.
I whip my head around and freeze.
I can’t be seeing this.
“What happened?” Beryl races into the room. “What did you—?” She sees what Stella and I are staring at and she’s silenced.
Inside the closet, standing side by side like books on a shelf, are canvases. Maybe thirty are crammed in the closet on the floor, with another dozen leaning precariously on top of them.
“They’re mine,” I choke out a whispery cry, strangled by so much emotion.
My art.
My work.
The one canvas facing us is a vibrant cityscape, one of my favorites, a red and orange sky behind indigo and teal buildings. I painted it on a happy day, the day when Nancy came in for her second tattoo, when she gave me the ticket that would change my life.
The ticket took me to Paris.
Seeing the paintings in the Louvre and Orsay, and learning the artists’ stories of struggle, inspired me to keep making street art.
And that led me to Violet.
She led to the magazine feature.
The article led to the art show. Like dominoes lined up, a perfect chain reaction.
And now this. It takes my breath away. How can one person be so consumed with elation and anger at once?
Beryl steps forward to see the paintings more closely but Stella snaps, “Don’t touch!”
“Why not?”
“It’s evidence,” Stella says. “If we tip the cops that Kristina stole these, she’ll get busted for that.” Then an evil grin stretches her face. “And the police will be very interested in the pills, too.”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
I’m cleaning up after my last client of the day when the bell tinkles, signaling another customer. Thomas is up front so I just keep cleaning.
A pair of strong warm hands gently squeeze my shoulders.
“Willa.”
I whirl to embrace Dave, tears pricking my eyes. His dark eyes are clear and bright and full of hope.
Nothing like the shadow I met a few weeks ago. The haunted, hunted look is gone.
“It’s done?” My voice reflects the hope on his face.
He nods. “I’m cleared. I called you the minute it was done but you were in with a client, so I hopped on a plane and came straight back.”
I bury my face in his neck and squeeze him with relief. And we just stand there, swaying a little, clinging to each othe
r like we’ve been to hell and back.
We have.
He pulls away a little but cups my face in his hands. “How did you know?” His voice is hoarse with emotion. “How did you know to look past the evidence? I thought you’d … given up on me.”
The image of the slamming door, the go to hell I shouted just before I slammed it, sends a physical pain through my chest. “I doubted you. I’m sorry. But I won’t do it again.”
He bends and his lips brush mine softly. “You saved me. Not just from jail, but from letting me quit, and letting her win.” His fingers thread through the short hair at the back of my neck, fist closing to tug at the pink strands.
I sigh and he brings his mouth down on mine harder this time, a flood of want that sends shockwaves through my body.
He kisses the breath out of me, pressing me to the wall, our bodies blending like two colors, mixed so thoroughly that they make something new. I wrap my arms and legs around him to be closer, to feel him across every inch of me.
“I’m heading out. Locking it up.” Thomas’s voice from the front of the shop cuts through the heat between us and Dave releases my mouth.
“Almost done,” I squeak through the closed door of the room. I am so, so, so busted.
Thomas just laughs and I hear the doorbell tinkle when he exits.
Dave gives me a grin that’s almost predatory. “Now we have the place to ourselves.” He looks over his shoulder at the padded table I just finished cleaning. “There’s a horizontal surface that’s calling my name.”
My mouth forms a speechless O, but then Dave adds, “Too bad we can’t use it right now.”
“We can’t?” My heart is pounding, my lips are kissed raw, and my ladybits are screaming for action in a way that’s practically obscene.
Dave runs a hand up my arm, then traces my shoulder and collarbone with a finger. “Trust me, I’m every bit as disappointed about that as you are. But the gallery’s closing soon.”
Dave explains a crazy mess of phone calls he’s somehow managed between his arraignment and travel back to New York. He worked with the lawyer who reviewed my gallery contract and got my paintings released from evidence.
And he’s got a plan for how to sell them differently.
We walk to the gallery holding hands and I catch myself watching him as he tells me about working through the red tape.
Confident. Strong. Proud.
It’s part of the guy I fell for—like somehow I knew he was there under all of the poor-me bullshit.
We walk in the gallery and some of Dave’s magic rubs off on me, because I stand tall, confident even though I’m wearing exactly the same thing I did on the day I was told sorry, no public restrooms.
“Willa, I’m so glad you could make it in,” Patricia Alton’s voice oozes sweetness as she shows us to the glass-walled conference room and offers us a drink. “I understand from Dave that you now have more work available for us to sell?”
Dave frowns. “That’s not precisely what I said on the phone. I said she has more work available. Forty-two canvases.”
Patricia’s brows lift so fast I’m afraid they’d fly off her face. “Oh, my, that is good news. And when will you have them here?” She points to the gallery beyond the glass wall, where my art hangs. Next to every work is a little white card with the name of the piece, its materials and price, and a round red sticker that indicates “sold.”
“We’re proposing a new contract,” Dave says. “We’ll offer you first rights to Willa’s set, if you’ll give her another opening show, and a better percentage from the sales.”
“Oh, I’m not sure we can do that. The rate is quite standard in our industry,” she says.
This time, it’s Dave’s turn to lift his brows. “Really? Because the Jensen Gallery and the Wooten Fine Art Collection were both eager to talk to us on these terms.”
Patricia’s lips thin. “I see. And when can I see these new works?”
“You’ve seen them. They’re what you initially reviewed in Willa’s apartment. They’ve been … recovered.” Dave pulls a short stack of papers out of a file and slides them across the table to her.
While Dave and Patricia go back and forth on contract clauses and details for the opening, I sit back in my chair and just enjoy the moment. Dave’s a little bit scary as he works his manager magic. With the sums they’re talking, the price for each piece could be well north of five thousand dollars.
It takes me a few minutes to do the math.
A quarter-million dollars. That’s how much these paintings are worth.
When Dave and I leave, he takes my hand again. “You saved me again. You know that?”
“How?”
“Taking your paintings is felony theft. Even if the cops can’t prove who stole them from you, at least they’ve got Kristina on possession of stolen property.”
We put together the pieces of how Kristina did it as we walk to my apartment. She tracked his phone to my apartment and Righteous Ink. When she called me street rat in the bar, she knew more about me than we realized.
She might beat the charges for hit and run, but this is enough to destroy her.
“There’s a clause Eric threw in the contract that was supposed to buy her silence,” Dave adds. “No legal contract could prevent her from reporting a crime. But the contract says if she lied about me, I’d never give her another cent.”
I’m staggered. “She gets—nothing?”
“Better.” Dave’s smile lights his face, lights me up inside. “She gets what she deserves.”
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
We’re tuning instruments and talking about the crazytrain that Kristina’s become when my phone rings. I click to answer just as my brain processes the caller ID.
“Don’t hang up.”
Chief’s voice is almost the last one I want to hear right now. My finger hovers over the button to disconnect. “What do you want?”
I hear him take a big breath. “I’m calling to apologize. I know you hate my guts, but music is a small community, and I don’t want there to be any bad blood between us.”
I snort. As if I could accept this apology.
“Dave, please. I heard about what happened with Kristina. What she tried to do to you.” Chief waits but I refuse to fill his silence. “She called me.”
“What did she want from you?”
That gets a chuckle out of him. “You know her so well. She wanted bail money. You shut off her credit cards and she didn’t have anyone else to go to. And she asked me … well, I just wanted you to know I told her she could rot in jail. Or hell. I don’t care.”
I can’t help my smile and I glance up. Gavin’s listening in to my end of the conversation and I give him shrug. “Neither do I. Thanks.”
“There’s something else.” He pauses for a moment. “I just wanted you to know I think you’d be a really good manager. You were always on my ass when I took over. I mean, I didn’t like it, but you were always thinking three moves ahead of anyone.”
“Thanks,” I say again, not sure why he’s telling me this.
“I saw that girl drummer who replaced you for the concert in Pittsburgh. And she’s good—better than you, even though I know you’ll hate me even more for saying that. But what I wanted to say is that you’re good, too. You were a great manager. Maybe it’s time for you to step out of being a player and into being a coach.”
I’m silent on the line, chewing it over. What do I say to that?
“Anyway, I’ve said what I needed to. If you ever need anything, I owe you one.”
***
We’ve played through a few songs at Tyler’s loft and I’m feeling good, the beat pulsing through me, when Ravi shows up with the babysitter.
My pretty-damn-good mood takes a dive.
Gavin cuts us off and we circle up on the couches. Everyone takes the same places we sat when just a few weeks ago Jayce gave me that ultimatum. Either Kristina goes, or we break up the band.
Bu
t now Ryan’s sitting with us, all prim in some old school dress, and it feels like we’re still about to break something.
“Let’s talk release.” Ravi walks us through plans for the release of Wilderness, which he declares ready for primetime. “The question is, how are we going to position the band? We’ve got new material, different than the fans are used to, and now we’ve got Ryan.”
She looks down at her hands and fidgets. I glance around to the rest of the guys and Jayce and Tyler are nodding.
“I think you should consider hiring her as your drummer,” Ravi adds. His voice is quiet, patient, just like it usually is, but that statement lands on me like a grenade.
So much for me getting rid of Kristina. The band’s getting rid of me.
“Is this what you want?” I demand of my bandmates, and again, Jayce and Tyler nod.
Gavin hesitates, turns to Ryan. “We really appreciated you sitting in for recording, and at the Pitt concert.”
She nods, silent and still fidgeting, her face pale and a little scared. I guess my expression is pretty scary right now.
Ravi holds up a hand before I can speak. “Before you say Tattoo Thief doesn’t need two drummers, let me tell you that it’s been great to work with you as your interim manager, but now that we’ve got the album ready and the first sequence of tour dates nailed down, I think it’s time for me to take a step back and focus on producing.”
“You’re quitting?” Tyler asks, alarmed.
“Stepping back. If you’d still like to work together, I’m open to it. Besides, you’ve already got a great manager.” He turns to me. “I think that’s your happy place anyway, Dave. All this bitching and chafing when things aren’t going the way you’d direct—that’s your instinct coming out to manage the band.”
“But they don’t want me.” I jab my finger toward Jayce in particular. “They’d sooner have Chief.”
Jayce holds up his hands. “Not true. You were the best manager we’ve ever had, present company included.” He nods to Ravi. “When you weren’t stressing out over all the shit from Kristina, you were actually really fun to work with.”
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