by A. C. Katt
“What about Conchita?”
“It’s okay, she went to bingo and stayed at her sister’s house. Go.”
Milo picked up his cell. An electronically disguised voice on the other end of the line said, “He’s back. Good, now you get to watch him die,” and hung up.
“They’re coming,” Liam said, shaking.
“Baby, you’re cold and so am I. Get me some sweats, bottom drawer, long dresser. If you need a pair, take one of mine. I’m going to call Sam.” He dialed.
“Sam, it’s Milo.”
“This better be good. It’s fucking four in the morning.”
“I know, we’ll make it up to you.”
“We will make it up to me? I take it things went well on the mountain.”
“Yes and no. We need some help. We just had an attempted break-in. What security firm do you use, and how soon can you get them out here? Someone has been working in the background against us for years, someone who knew us very well.” Milo summarized their suspicions to Sam.
Sam’s voice sharpened into focus. “Shit, Milo, are you telling me Rick may have had a hand in this? I’ll be there in a few hours. I’ll get a private plane.” Sam abruptly hung up.
Liam made it down the stairs just as the doorbell rang. He handed Milo his sweats. Milo put them on as he peered through the peephole. The police arrived.
He opened the door. “Officers,” Milo said. “Please come in.”
There were two of them, the younger one named Garcia. After talking with Milo, they searched the grounds and returned. “We found this rock with a note attached by a rubber band. We thought you should see the contents, but I bagged it as evidence, so don’t break the seal.”
Milo,
I’ll torture him while you watch, and then I’ll rape you before his eyes. It will be the last thing he sees before he dies.
Liam read over Milo’s shoulder, gasped, and crumpled to the floor. The second cop grabbed him and helped him over to the couch as he said to his partner, “Call an ambulance.”
Liam opened his eyes. “No, that isn’t necessary. I just need something to drink.”
“Do you have some brandy in the house?”
Milo ran and grabbed a bottle and glass from behind the great room bar and hurriedly poured Liam a shot. “Sip it slowly,” he ordered.
“Do you have any idea what this is all about, Mr. Stamis?” Officer Garcia asked.
“Yes. That’s Liam O’Shea, the musician. He has a stalker.”
“That’s right, you two founded Shattered Glass, with the Stein Brothers.”
“We think that this is the work of Bart Hedge, our former drummer. Officer, Liam is exhausted. He’s been traveling since early morning. I believe he filed an incident report at the airport rental car counter this afternoon.” The officer took his statement while Milo detailed what he knew. Liam sat with a stunned look on his face and sipped his brandy.
“Our manager is arranging for a security team,” Milo continued. “They should be here soon. Could you stay until they get here? And I’ll probably have more information for you in the morning. Hedge is dangerous. I believe he is both a user and a dealer.”
“We’ll be glad to sit outside until security arrives. We’ll search the grounds again.”
Milo took fresh donuts out of the fridge. “Take these. I’ll have Conchita buy more in the morning.” He saw the officers out and reset the alarm, then immediately went to Liam.
“I’m so sorry Milo, that I brought this to your door,” Liam said in a broken voice.
“Baby, you are right where you should be, in my arms. God himself isn’t going to take you away from me this time. Come on, I’ll help you up to bed. Is my room okay?”
“Yes, Milo, your room, your arms, that’s all I need right now. I promise I’ll deal better in the morning after I’ve gotten some sleep.”
Chapter 17
The sunlight shines on my window pane
No more darkness, no more rain
I remember now what happiness is
It all relates to being his
—Liam O’Shea, “Sun Rising”
* * * *
Milo had little sleep before Sam arrived about eight.
“Leave your bags in the foyer, Sam. Conchita made coffee. It’s in my study. Come up and sit down.”
“Hello to you too, buddy,” Sam said, following Milo to his study.
Milo didn’t respond. He started up the stairs, checking to make sure Sam followed. Milo closed and locked the door behind him. This was one conversation he didn’t want interrupted.
Milo, too upset to sit, paced the room as he talked. “Sam, I know now Bart set Liam up to look like he cheated. Why didn’t you tell me Danny had a boy dying of leukemia? Why didn’t you let me know that Liam tried to hurt himself, or that he was gang raped and beaten? I thought you were my friend! I trusted you.” Milo began to sob, this time letting it all out. “Why, Sam? What did we do that you let us both suffer for so long?”
“Shit, I should have known something was wrong when he insisted on doing the tour without Danny. And for the record, I didn’t find out the truth about Danny until a couple of years ago.” Sam sat as if the world weighed on his shoulders.
“I won’t lie to you. We think Rick was involved. If he was, he had a lot of help. Bart Hedge is our prime suspect. Didn’t Rick go with him to Roar after Shattered Glass disbanded?”
“Yeah,” Sam admitted. “So?”
“Bart was Rick’s dealer. Liam knew and tried to tell us, but Rick warned him he would lose me by breaking up the band. And Bart, he made very ugly threats. He had Liam so fucking scared, he didn’t have to be specific.”
Sam went still. Milo waited. He would wait forever for this answer. Did he finally get his chance with Liam, only to lose his friendship with Sam?
Forever passed in one-second increments. He heard a choking sound from behind him. He went over to the captain’s chair. “Sam, are you all right?”
Sam wiped his eyes. “I just heard I’ve been lied to for six fucking years, and causing unhappiness to a boy I helped raise as a brother, and you ask me if I’m all right, you moron? No, Milo, I’m not all right. I’m pissed. If I had Rick here, my hands would be around his neck and I’d kill him.”
Milo’s breath came a little easier. Sam hadn’t known.
“When did all this shit start? No, don’t tell me. Hedge, the fucking son of a bitch, started dealing as soon as he took my place in the band. But when did Rick get so hooked he started to act on Bart’s orders?”
“I figure it happened around Liam’s eighteenth birthday, after you left to study for the bar, and I picked up all the management crap for the band. I was blind. The bastard even took Minor and Major. I don’t want to know what happened to those cats because then I’d have to tell Liam.”
“How is Liam?” Sam gently asked.
“Like you said, he’s fragile, very fragile. But inside, he has a core of steel. He didn’t break, but he’s bruised and frightened. What did Rick tell you so you wouldn’t call me?”
After a pause, Sam said, “He said Liam hated you and wanted to get on with his life. Rick even said he dated occasionally. After his stint in the hospital, I rarely saw Liam until Rick went to rehab this last time. He didn’t seem happy to me. He seemed lost. No matter what Rick told me, he didn’t seem to be recovering. He carried the same kicked puppy look that you’ve been carrying around for six years.”
“Did you ask him if he cheated?” Milo questioned. “That would have hurt him, to have you not believe in him either.”
“I never asked him. You know I always doubted him, but like I said, I didn’t know the truth, at first.” Sam turned in his chair and watched Milo pace. “I took care of business after the suicide attempt and told Liam to grow up. Then I let Rick do Liam’s hand-holding. He made me so angry at him by hurting himself. After the beating, I became more concerned with getting him into counseling so he wouldn’t self-destruct right in front of me
. At least then he hit bottom. From then on, I let Patricia handle it. I should have paid more attention. But it seemed as if Rick wanted the responsibility. I thought I’d be helping Rick by giving him some and help Liam, too.” Sam hung his head.
“You couldn’t tell from his attempt at self-destruction that he wasn’t happy?” Milo’s voice sliced through the silence.
Sam looked Milo straight in the eyes and replied heatedly, “He didn’t act happy with himself. He babbled and told me he’d fucked around. How was I to know it was after you two split? I only recently found that he was raped. And, no, that I wouldn’t have told you without his permission. But you need to know now, if the cops are involved.” Sam sighed.
Milo came back and sat on top of the desk, facing Sam. “I found out about the rape last night.”
Sam shook his head. “If I knew then, what I know now…” Milo handed him his coffee, “Shit, I fumbled in the dark as much as the two of you. I love Liam, but I owed my loyalty to you, my best friend. I patched him up the best I could and sent him to a counselor I knew with a good reputation for dealing with celebrities. Any more and I would have felt like I’d betrayed you. If I told you, I would have betrayed him. That much I know for sure. He needed to tell you himself.”
Milo made his own coffee as Sam continued. “Remember, it was only after I came to you to plead Rick’s case that I tried to bring you two together.”
“But you were his fucking manager. How did you manage him from a distance? Did you know he had no security on tour? That he traveled alone with one shitty suitcase? He had nothing. We did that to him. You and I and Rick did that to Liam. Bart just came along for the ride.”
“He no longer wanted to deal with me directly,” Sam argued. “He passed everything through Rick. How was I supposed to know Rick lied through his teeth? As far as this last tour, when I spoke to him, he insisted on going it alone. Do you think I feel good about this? This whole thing has been a royal fuck up from the beginning. If I’d known that taking the bar exam early would bring this on the band, I would have shot myself first,” Sam grumbled as he stirred his coffee.
“You needed the time to study.”
“Don’t be such a moron,” he snapped. “I was the agent, manager, and soon to be the legal representative of one of the most successful rock bands in history. When you guys split up, I personally lost a bundle of money. There were gigs, contracts, endorsements—things that needed to be canceled. Some of the contracts had hefty penalty clauses. But don’t worry, you paid your fair share of the penalties. It cost me some of my credibility as an agent. Credibility is not something I could buy back. I had to earn it all over again, and it took me upwards of four years to get back to where I was before the debacle. I resented the hell out of you and Liam. I thought Rick was an innocent bystander, just like me.” Sam abruptly put his cup down on the side table.
“So that’s why you approached Liam and me to help pay for rehab?” Milo kept his voice flat. “You came to us because you felt if we hadn’t split up the band, Rick would have been fine?”
“Yes and no. Rick wanted the reunion but yes, I’m afraid I did think exactly that. I thought I was exacting retribution. All of a sudden, you call me in the middle of the night and tell me that my brother and his addiction helped Bart Hedge to ruin not only Shattered Glass, but you and Liam and me personally. That’s hard to take. He’s my brother.” Sam moved around in the chair.
Milo no longer tried to control his voice. “Liam was supposed to be your brother, too. You promised Lily, just as I did. And while you were busy holding Rick’s hand and keeping secrets from me, Liam suffered—by himself. Goddamn you, Sam. I had you, and you had Rick. Rick had you and his fucking dealer. Who did Liam have to look out for him?”
“I’m sorrier than I can say, but it’s all water under the bridge now,” Sam said, trying to calm him.
“You sorry son of a bitch! It is not over. Once that bastard finds out he no longer holds sway over Rick, and that I’m wise to what happened, what do you think he’ll do? He’ll go after Rick, and after he gets Rick hooked again, he’ll make a play for Liam,” Milo screamed in Sam’s face. “My window wasn’t broken by a home invasion crew. They wouldn’t have run. This was someone with a grudge. They attached a fucking note, threatening him.”
“Okay, we both know you’re right. Stop the screeching and tell me what you want me to do,” Sam pleaded. “I’m already here.”
“We are going to find out what happened. You are going to drop everything and start digging. Hire whoever you need. I don’t fucking care about the cost, we can all damn well afford it despite your cries of poverty because of Rick. I know you. Once you finally saw how bad it was for Liam, you concocted this poverty tale to get us back together. Right?”
“Yeah. I knew what you were going through. I thought it was his fault, so when I realized I might be wrong, I took steps, but it was for Rick—”
Milo cut him off. “It seems that we are going to need more than steps, Sam. We need to run a marathon,” Milo demanded.
“I guess I owe you two, rather than the other way around. Although Liam is going to hear about it for not telling me about Rick and the drugs,” Sam growled.
“Sam, you are an asshole. Two grown men threatened the kid, one of whom was supposed to be as close to him as a brother. They threatened to take his whole life away, and he was still going to tell us. Before he got the chance, they did take his life away. He lost me, the band—which was the only family he had—his career, and his livelihood. If anyone should get his ass chewed, it’s your own fucking snake of a brother,” Milo roared.
“Calm down. You’re right. I’m being defensive. What do you need?”
“I want more than last night’s temporary rent-a-cops. I need full-time security here immediately. I want to know where that fucking Bart Hedge is now, and I want to know who he is working for. Don’t let Rick out of rehab. That bastard will be waiting. Does Rick know Liam is here with me?”
“I might have told him,” Sam replied.
“We are going to get to the bottom of this. I will not put Liam in any more danger. And Sam, for publication, I’m out and proud. If Liam will have me, I’ll be with him forever. I just need to convince him.”
“That’s going to take a miracle, Milo. He didn’t even want to talk to me.”
“Then it’s the season of miracles. We haven’t made love, but he’s sleeping in my bed.”
* * * *
Liam woke when the light hit his eyes, and for a moment he didn’t recognize his surroundings. He looked around. Milo’s room, in Milo’s bed, he remembered with joy. The reason he slept so deeply was they’d spent the night in each other’s arms.
His eyes widened. The mountains lit up before him. The sun rose over the peaks, spilling light over the crevasses and foothills as it tinted the cliffs a subtle shade of pink. He rose and walked out the door, onto a deck that led to a terraced courtyard. From the courtyard, he saw that Milo’s garden covered the hillside.
Outside of the bedroom suites, he saw strolling paths, which branched off into private arbors. He stepped off the balcony onto one of the slate pathways. A security guard startled him, but not before he noticed the tulips, daffodils, and snow crocus in full bloom, along with lilies of the valley and some native plants he could not name. Liam figured Sam must have arrived because the security was out in full force. He felt safe for the first time in what seemed like forever. He nodded to the guard and continued fifty feet down the path when he saw something that stopped him cold. There sat their bench from the Red Bank Antiques Center, displayed prominently.
Liam walked up to it and noticed something different about it. A small gold plaque on the back read Liam’s Bench. Liam sat and started to cry. Every time he thought he had no tears left, Milo managed to pull out some more. Happy tears though, this time.
Milo found him sitting on the bench sometime later. “I heard you got up. Do you want some coffee or tea, baby?”
&nb
sp; “Tea would be great. My stomach hasn’t tolerated coffee very well for the last few years.”
“How about we get you some breakfast?” Milo persisted.
“I don’t know. When I eat, I get nauseous,” Liam answered.
“I think you get nauseous because you don’t eat. You must have lost twenty pounds since I last saw you. Your ribs poked my chest last night. Conchita is here and ready to prepare breakfast. Come eat, Liam. You can have some Coke with your breakfast and it will stay down. You know Coke settles your stomach,” Milo coaxed. “Besides, you need to get a move on because the police want to talk to you about yesterday’s incidents, and Sam has the head of the security company coming at noon.”
“What time is it?”
“Nine thirty, sleepy head.” Milo leaned down and lightly brushed his lips over Liam’s. “That is a down payment on later, I hope.”
Liam stood and took Milo’s hand, giving it a tight squeeze and a kiss on the wrist. “So is that.”
Oh Lord, Liam thought. It felt so good to wake up in the morning and have someone care whether he ate or not. Then he prayed for the first time in years.
Please, Lord, make it real and not a dream. If it is real, let it last this time. I won’t survive if it doesn’t last. I need him so badly. I am only half a soul without him.
He’d been afraid for so long, and now his fear vanished. He couldn’t say he felt invincible, but he no longer felt at the complete mercy of his tormentor. Since he and Milo compared notes, it became obvious that Bart spread the lies and with them destroyed the band, probably with Rick’s help. It was safe to say the threatening phone calls and letters he’d received and the ugly packages might all be tied in with everything else.
* * * *
He took a quick shower in Milo’s magnificent bath and dressed in a pair of soft, well-worn blue jeans and a T-shirt. He slipped on a pair of Nikes without socks and hurried downstairs to where Milo waited.
His nose led him straight to the kitchen. At the stove stood a short, round woman of Hispanic descent. Although he didn’t normally do coffee, it smelled delicious. Not wishing to startle the woman, Liam cleared his throat.
