“I’m coming, Oakley, but I can’t tell where you are.” Sherm’s voice came through her phone at last. She exhaled in relief. “Where are you?”
“Yeah, where are you, Oaks?” Hudson was with Sherm, and he was coming too. Hallelujah. But how soon?
Distinct warning signals went off in her brain and body. Her breathing sped up as she took step after step backward into the darkness, with Roman bearing down on her. She could hear voices nearby, but not close enough to call out for help. Everyone on staff was working frantically on getting things ready for Oakley’s song—if she ever got to sing it. But more than keeping herself safe, she needed a confession from Roman—or at least something, anything, that they could use to convict him. That was what Sherm had said was necessary.
Maybe Oakley could secure it.
“What did you mean, Mr. Levy, about the people trying to take you to court?” Oakley pressed her luck. “Are you worried they’re trying to pin a crime you? What crime would that be?”
“Fine.” Roman aimed his face straight at her camera’s lens. “You and your camera can just keep rolling because I’ll start by telling you to give that pathetic Oaks family a message, loud and clear.”
“What’s that?”
“That they’ll never succeed. There’s nothing they can pin on me directly or indirectly.”
“Is that right? Are you a hundred percent certain?”
“A thousand percent.”
Oakley huffed a sigh. “There’s no such thing as a thousand percent.”
“Don’t get overly literal with me, kid. I hold your future in my hands and don’t you forget it. But that brings me to my second point.”
“Oh, what’s that?” Now Oakley’s back hit a wall. All around her black curtains stretched high, and panel after panel separated her from the stage, hiding her from Sherm and Hudson.
I should have stayed close to the light. But Roman had backed her away, and she hadn’t realized how far she’d gone. Kind of like what had figuratively happened to all Hudson’s friends, and to Farley too, if she were right.
Voices sounded again in the wings. But whose?
With a deft move of her thumb, she switched her camera from video chatting with Sherm back to video recording mode—and then she sent up a prayer that Sherm and Hudson owned the voices in the wings, and not Farley or another of Roman’s henchmen.
“Astonish me with your second point, Roman.”
“I don’t know where you stole the unreleased music of Girl Crazy’s second album from, but I’ll have you in court for piracy and plagiarism so fast your head will spin. From now on, you and Jerica are going to be a perfect match today. Or else. Got it?”
“Do you suspect what all is on that thumb drive, Mr. Levy?” Oakley held her camera up closer to him. It was time—time to throw caution to the wind. Like a spray of bullets from an Uzi, she let her ammunition fly. “All your dirty secrets? Like how you stole money from the families of the band you used to manage? Girl Crazy?”
So what if some of her bullets were blanks? Though the jump drive didn’t actually contain anything beyond the song, as far as she knew, they still hit their mark, because Roman looked taken aback.
“What would you know about that?” Roman quit stepping toward her and hung back. “You’re bluffing. You don’t play poker well, young woman.”
“Am I?” His halt had emboldened Oakley. “I’m referring to how you arranged to name yourself beneficiary in Alfonzo’s and Nick’s deaths. You re-routed their life insurance away from their families and sent them into a poverty spiral. What if that’s on the thumb drive?”
“It’s not my fault if people don’t plan ahead. It’s not my problem if people don’t get along with their children.” Roman didn’t look penitent about this accusation at all. “It’s definitely not my fault if people don’t read contracts.”
There! He’d acknowledged something. Oakley nearly let her arm rest and made a run for it with this statement, but something stopped her. No, wait. He hadn’t exactly admitted anything. He’d stated an opinion.
Still, he’d given her a big aha. So it was true what Sherm had warned her about. Shysters in the industry did actually try to add things to contracts to bind musicians into bad situations. She didn’t have the nerve to call out and ask Sherm whether he was hearing this, not now, not with the way Roman was eyeing her like she was fresh prey.
But she was so close—this close to getting an admission from him. Oakley had to nab him somehow. The voices in the wings crept closer, but she still couldn’t see who they were. She thought she recognized Farley’s gravelly voice, but that was little comfort—he might still be in Roman’s pocket. She didn’t know. She ached to trust him but how could she? Thirty years was a long time to be loyal, and one scattered conversation with a know-nothing sixteen-year-old wasn’t likely to change that.
“Maybe you’re right, Roman. Maybe it’s not your problem if people don’t read contracts or plan safety nets like life insurance. But, their problem is your problem if you are the one who arranged the deaths of those families’ dear sons.”
At this, Roman gave the most evil laugh Oakley had ever heard. “There’s nothing on me anyone can prove, and everyone out there with their theories and far-fetched stories that have been circulating for the past twenty-plus years knows it. If there were proof, any proof at all, it would have come to light a long time before now.”
He’d regained his haughty stance, and with fists poised on his hips he looked ready to go to battle with Oakley again.
But Oakley wasn’t afraid. Her boots tightened around her ankles, supporting her and lengthening her legs and spine. She wasn’t letting him off the hook now.
“There’s just one thing I can’t figure out, Mr. Levy. What kind of motive would you have for killing them? Wasn’t that band your cash cow?”
“After they were dead, yeah. But their next album was the biggest pile of tripe”—he didn’t say tripe—“of any record ever produced in this history of pop music. If you’d heard it, you would’ve known that the kids’ careers were going down within seconds of that album’s release.”
“I’ve heard it.” That was an exaggeration. She’d heard “Lunch Lady” and that bad baseball song. To prove it, she started humming the melody of the chorus of the cafeteria song.
Roman’s fists dropped from his waist, and he went white again. “Where did you hear that tune?”
“Did you think I was going to sing redone lyrics of ‘The Eyes Have It’ on stage tonight? Don’t tell me that’s what you were so afraid of that you stole my thumb drive.”
“I’ll ask you again, Oakley M. from Oregon. Where did you hear that melody?”
Footfalls sounded on the stage floor nearby, and around the curtain stepped Hudson.
“From me, Roman.”
Oakley expelled a breath of relief. “That’s right,” she said, pushing him back with her stare, freeing herself from several layers of curtains in one giant step. “From Hudson Oaks.”
“Hudson!” Roman looked like he’d seen a ghost. And in a way, he had. “You’re not—you’re …”
Hudson took an aggressive step toward the older man. Roman had seventy pounds on Hudson, but Hudson had the strength of a young, wiry arm on his side—plus the adrenaline of revenge. Not only was Oakley not letting Roman off the hook, Hudson looked like he’d like to put Roman on the hook—a meat hook—for a good, long stay in the butcher’s freezer.
“You set up the plane to be crashed, and I know how.”
“Who are you?” Again, the confusion from earlier when he’d first seen Hudson flashed over his face. “Lookalikes don’t have any standing in court.”
“No, but families of murder victims do.” He stepped closer. “And so do victims of attempted murder.” He hung on the r of the word. It sounded sinister, just like Roman himself.
Oakley had always shuddered when she heard a chewed-on r.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. There’s
no evidence. No testimony.” Roman’s repetition from earlier didn’t have the same confidence this time around. His voice faltered, and Oakley thought maybe they were breaking him. She kept her camera rolling, praying that the battery held out long enough to secure a videotaped confession of some kind. Anything—they needed anything they could use to take him down.
“I think there will be testimony. Mine, for one.”
“Yours. Like I asked, kid, who are you?”
“You know who I am, Roman.” Hudson hummed a few bars of “Sweet Sixteen” and Oakley watched Roman’s tight face fall. “I was there that night. It feels like it was just last week. You said some key things to me, right out there on the tarmac—something about a copilot. I didn’t think much of it in the moment. We’d been arguing about the lyrics on the new album. It was raining, and you were under an umbrella and I wasn’t.”
“How could you possibly know that?” Roman’s voice was tight, as if every muscle in his body had constricted. Oakley recognized genuine fear in his face. “Have you been reading my private papers? I’ll have you jailed for breaking and entering, for invasion of privacy, for burglary, for theft of intellectual property.”
He was reaching with his threats of legal charges, and it was evident on his face. Even Oakley knew that, though she was only the daughter of a lawyer, not a lawyer herself.
“You said the flight plan had been changed,” Hudson said. “And that the co-pilot mentioned it to you. Usually Manny flew the planes alone. And, if he’d stuck to that rule of not having a co-pilot, everything would have been good for Manny that night. If he’d stuck to his rule of not letting you bully him into including in his cockpit your young protégé, your accomplice”—Hudson’s voice broke, but he cleared his throat and continued—“Manny would still be with us, doing the thing he loved the most—flying planes.”
Roman just blinked in return, and for a split-second, a look of anguish passed over his brow, but as soon as it came it left.
“Manny had a family, Roman.”
“No,” Roman whispered. “He wasn’t married.”
“But he had a fiancée, and she was expecting. He hadn’t told you.”
Roman took a step backward.
“You killed not just sons, but a father, as well.”
“I didn’t kill anyone.”
“Who was the copilot, Roman? I’m waiting for you to say it.”
“Copilot?” Roman’s voice was now the one cracking. “I didn’t know anything about a copilot. I deny everything.”
“You know, the one you paid to whack Manny on the head. The one who then parachuted out of the plane, saving his own life but destroying his leg in the process, Roman. That copilot. And thereby ruining his chances to ever get another job as a bicycle courier or a horse trainer, both things he used to love before meeting you. He can never get another job except working for you. You made sure of that.”
With blackmail, Oakley could have added, but for once kept her mouth shut. They still didn’t have the admission on film that Oakley desperately needed. And time was running out. Her phone’s battery started flashing red.
“Farley would never.” Roman got a faraway look. There! He’d said the name! It wasn’t a sure admission, but it was something. They had something.
No, it wasn’t enough. And the battery was at three percent.
After a couple of seconds, he peered at Hudson, his eyes narrow, his neck twitching. “Who is paying you to do all this, you young entrepreneur? Who set you up to pose as Hudson Oaks and accuse me of this? How much are they paying you? Is the payment four figures? Five? I’ll double it if you’ll come work for me, be Hudson. I can pass you off to the world as his ghost brought back.”
“Nobody is paying him,” Oakley said. “Not like you paid Farley to crash that plane.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he hardened again. “Farley is my most loyal employee. Most bosses wouldn’t keep a bodyguard on the payroll if he lost a leg. Farley knows he’s indebted to me.”
“Indebted?” Oakley snorted. “More like indentured!”
“How much did you pay him?” Hudson growled. “How much did you pay him to kill Nick and Chris and Al and Manny? He has admitted that blood is on his hands, Roman, but we all know it’s on yours even more. Farley will confess, in exchange for immunity.”
There. The coup de grâce. Roman trembled and went pale.
“Stop it.” He mashed his palms together. “You don’t know anything, kids. No one can prove that I hired Farley and set the whole thing up. There’s no evidence at all.”
Out from behind the curtain stepped Farley. “Except my testimony in court.” Two other men followed.
Roman sprang backward. Hudson filled the space, a rough snarl coming from his usually velvet-voiced throat.
“I didn’t tell you, Roman, but I brought along a couple of friends. Maybe you haven’t met Sherm Sanders, Oakley’s dad, but you’ve definitely heard the name Ignatius Torres.”
Standing on either side of Farley, with arms folded across their chests like they were bouncers in a nightclub and not lawyers from the rolling desk chair brigade, stood Sherm and a guy who must be Chris’s dad, the guy who hadn’t let this injustice drop for over two decades. He was the hero of this scene, Ignatius Torres. Oakley stared at his set jaw and jet black hair with pure admiration for everything he stood for: family, loyalty, justice, and determination.
Farley spoke up. “These guys have agreed to represent me. For free. And they’ve already made a deal with the district attorney’s office to get me immunity in exchange for my confession, just like your old buddy Hudson here said.”
From behind those three men emerged a bevy of other people, including Mom and Brinn and Clyde, Hudson’s whole family, some of the stage crew, and a few people Oakley didn’t recognize. It felt like that story in the Bible where the chariots of fire Elijah saw had suddenly appeared on the mountainside and were descending in their defense.
“Your confession!” Roman spat. “Ha. It’ll just be your word versus mine. There has to be more than that. Something tactile. You ditched all the evidence in the river, your parachute, everything. Just like I ordered you to do. And, I’m telling you, Farley, you’ll back down now, just like I’m ordering you to do.”
Farley’s gaze slid sideways, and then to the ground, like he was actually cowed by this jerk, like the hold Roman had obviously choked him with for decades still strangled.
Oakley stepped around Roman, going to Farley’s side and setting her hand on his forearm again, like she had an hour ago.
“Farley. It’s going to be okay.” Oakley pleaded with him with her eyes, and he looked up at her.
Then, right before Oakley’s eyes, he straightened his spine, squared his shoulders and looked back over at Roman.
“All these years I haven’t spent a dime of that blood money you paid me. Maybe that meant I’ve lived in my car from time to time, even eaten from garbage bins behind restaurants.” The lowness of it pained Oakley to hear and she winced, but Farley didn’t quit talking. “But I’m not going to let you shove me around anymore, Roman. You arranged to kill those boys and that pilot. And don’t think there’s no physical evidence.” He pointed at his leg. “Trust me, they’ve found even more physical evidence than my lost leg and my word.”
Farley aimed a thumb backward. From behind the lawyers stepped another person, a man in a green button-down shirt, with a full beard and kind eyes.
“Hey, everyone. Hi. Yeah, um, I’ve got to add here that we at the U.S. Forest Service did locate remnants of a ripped parachute in the tops of one of the trees we felled near the crash site, just two summers after the plane went down.”
Who was this guy? Understanding washed over her like a boiling wave, and Oakley dropped her phone, and it clattered on the ground. U.S. Forest Service rang every alarm bell inside her.
Dad?
Scene 2: “I’m a Believer”
“Who exactly are you?” Venom dr
ipped from Roman’s words. “Your fake uniform is soooo intimidating.”
“Derek Marsden. U.S. Forest Service.”
Oakley’s heart was about to explode from behind her ribcage, it was pounding so hard.
Little of the rest of this terrible moment with Roman and Farley and the accusations seemed to matter. Not even the impending live TV performance meant a single thing in the world.
She’d seen her biological father. Face to face. Her knees shook, and only her boots kept her steady.
All these years, she’d wondered about him. Days ago she’d heard his name for the first time. Fewer days ago, she and Mom had gone the rounds on her decision to keep Oakley’s father’s identity a secret. Even fewer days ago, they’d gone over it again, and Oakley had finally come to terms with Mom’s choice.
Now there he stood, larger than life, and in full uniform. He looked official, but also sheepish at the same time. Was that even possible? It was a familiar sheepishness she recognized on his countenance though—it being one that had decorated her own face on countless occasions, like the time she stepped on that guy’s tuna sandwich, and the time she got frogs in her throat when she first sang on a stage.
Maybe she came by that sheepish look genetically from this bearded guy with kind eyes and a humble way about him.
Looking at him, here, hiding behind Roman’s broad bravado, she couldn’t help wondering just what her life might have been like.
Then, her gaze flicked toward Sherm. Something in Sherm’s face looked wary, maybe even worried, like that maybe now that Derek Marsden had appeared, he’d be sent packing from Oakley’s life.
In one minute or less, Oakley’s existence had turned on its ear—and she hadn’t even had ninety seconds to stop and examine it!
Roman shouted his way into her world-shakeup. “Your accusations won’t stick. It’s not enough! They can’t prove it was Farley’s parachute.” Desperation tinged his voice. “Besides, uh, besides!” Roman was breathing hard. “The statute of limitations—that’s up. And I can’t be accused of anything twenty-three years in the past. It’s over. You guys can take your criminal charges and your district attorney’s offices and your testimonies in exchange for immunity and go home. Ha!”
My 90s Boy Band Boyfriend: A YA Time Travel Rockstar Romance (Teen Queens Book 2) Page 32
