“Oh.” Her heart beat against her chest walls, and her cheeks burned hot.
“I’ll let you know when we have word of Lizbeth.”
“Thanks.” Georgie walked away on trembling legs to go sit down.
As she walked away, she heard Rae ask, “What was all that about?”
“A private matter,” Wulfram said, his deep voice even.
“Oh, then it’s in the vault. I’ll just have to ask her.”
Georgie heard that bizarre chuckle again that sounded almost like how The Dom would laugh, if The Dom ever laughed.
Georgie curled up with her arms around her knees in a chair and waited to board the plane. Her hair drifted around her, annoying her by catching on everything, so she gathered it into a bundle and braided it, tying the end in a knot to keep it from unraveling.
She smoothed her hands down over Alex’s gym clothes that she was still wearing. They kept her snugly warm, despite the chilly air inside the terminal, and she felt a little like he was hugging her.
It was a nice thought, and she missed him.
Now, that was stupid, missing a guy who was just a wedding fuck.
Who was also an amazing musician, whom she could talk to about music, and who worked on his own music.
Who had saved her from the Russian mobster when she had needed help.
Who had played his violin for her, which she suspected was a rare and precious thing.
Who had not laughed at her for not wanting to walk through the lobby, and who had been very good at helping her escape unnoticed.
Who was very, very good in bed, and that was not something that should be discounted lightly.
Georgie was still stewing about Alex, batting him around in her head, measuring him against the absolute fact that she had no right to fuck around with anyone, when a voice announced in English that the von Hannover group could now board the plane.
Lizzy still hadn’t arrived.
Worry knotted in Georgie’s chest. Alex wasn’t the most important thing in her life at that moment.
Georgie borrowed a tablet from the cache at the front to read a book on the flight and watched for Lizzy.
A half an hour passed. A few more people arrived and took seats.
Wulfram walked from the back and conferred with one of his men in black. Georgie had known Wulfram for a few years, but she wondered absently if his security guy, Dieter Schwarz, was his brother from another mother. They were the same height, same blond military haircut, though Wulfram’s looked a tad more regulation-tight, and they might be able to borrow each other’s black suits if the need arose. The security guy had gray eyes, though, whereas Wulfram’s were that startling dark blue.
After a few moments of whispered, seemingly casual conversation, Wulf began to walk toward the rear of the plane again.
Georgie unbuckled her belt and stood, waving to catch his eye. “Lizzy?”
Wulfram leaned on the aisle seat and said, “They’ve found her, and she’s at the hotel. She’s fine. She’ll be on the later flight.”
Relief poured over her like ice water, and she dropped back in her seat. “Oh, my God. Thank God. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.”
Wulfram muttered, “Indeed,” and he made his way to the back of the plane.
Georgie could go home and sleep in her dorm room, and then she could muster the diligence to delete Alex G.’s number from her phone.
WHERE'S LIZZY?
Georgie
Monday morning, Georgie woke in her own narrow bed in the dorm after three inadequate hours of sleep. Daylight streamed in the row of windows set high on the wall, dappled with the shadows of leaves from the tall trees out there. Must be late.
Her neck ached from trying to sleep sitting up on the plane and generally failing, and fatigue still weighed her down from her early morning schlep out to the parking garage to find her car and drive home in the dark.
The other bed, the empty bed, still had no sheets on it from when Lizzy had stripped the bedcovers off to throw them over Theo’s car right before their frantic flight to Paris.
Georgie had been so exhausted from the flight that she had just dumped a couple blankets on Lizzy’s bed in case she stumbled home before Georgie woke up, and they were still folded and stacked on the bottom of the bed.
Lizzy wasn’t back.
She checked her phone, plugged in on her nightstand as always, but the alert line was blank: no messages or missed calls.
Shit.
Georgie sat up and tapped the screen. The call went straight to Lizzy’s voice mail, so she was either still in Paris, on a plane, or her phone was dead.
Or worse.
Georgie always considered the worse.
It was almost eight o’clock. The other plane had been supposed to leave an hour after theirs. She had expected Lizzy to call from the airport when she needed a ride home or get a cab or something.
Georgie’s phone buzzed in her hand, but Rae’s face lit the screen. Georgie answered, “Hello?”
“Georgie?” Rae said. “Is Lizzy there? Please tell me that she came home.”
“No. She’s not here. Has the other plane landed yet?”
“Yes, hours ago. I was just hoping this was a mix-up and she was home with you. Oh, my God.”
“What mix-up?” Georgie’s voice rose. “Is she okay?”
“I just got off the phone with Wulf. I’m on my way to class, and all this happened after I was already in the car. He’s leaving for Paris in a few minutes. Dieter lied to him when he said that they had found everyone. Lizzy and Theo were left behind. There was some sort of a problem, a kidnapping—”
Panic pounded through Georgie. “What?”
“Supposedly, they’re both safe now. I can’t believe that we left them. Theo is in the hospital, in intensive care. He was shot.”
Georgie stood, driven to her feet as if she could somehow run to Paris. “Is Lizzy okay?”
“Wulf is going to go there to sort it all out. I don’t know if she’s okay. He said that she’s been discharged from the hospital but that she’s staying with Theo. Luca Wyss is with them. He’s a good guy, and there are five other security guys there, too. They’ll take care of them until Wulf gets there. Wulf said he’ll be back within a few days, and he will have them with him. He had that imperious voice thing going. He’ll make sure everything’s okay.”
“But Lizzy’s okay,” Georgie prompted.
Rae said, over the phone, “I’m going to see if I can get in touch with her now. I’m only a few minutes from school. If it’s anything worse than bumps and bruises, I’ll call you right back and pick you up, and we’ll be on the next flight.”
“My passport is still in my purse,” Georgie said. “I’m ready to go.”
“I’ll let you know.”
In the ten minutes after she talked to Rae, Georgie showered and pulled her bug-out bag out of the closet, checking the deep backpack to make sure that it held appropriate clothes for her and Lizzy in addition to its usual first-aid kit, ten thousand dollars in cash, a fake I.D., power bars, energy shots, running shoes, and a disposable cell phone with a card to activate it.
A similar bag was stuffed far back in the trunk of her car.
Georgie’s usual phone rang, but the screen didn’t show Rae’s smiling face, just an unknown number.
Georgie answered it, “Hello?”
A tiny, raspy girl-voice said, “Georgie? It’s me, Lizzy.”
Georgie almost dropped the phone, but she juggled it and caught the tiny thing. “Mary, Mother of God, where in the nine levels of Hell are you! Are you okay?”
“I’m still in Paris. I’m okay,” Lizzy’s voice said through the phone.
Panic boiled over in a froth. “Wulf said that you were supposed to be on the next plane but you never came home!”
Lizzy’s voice was shaking, maybe from exhaustion or fear. “He didn’t know. There was a miscommunication. He thought we were fine. He’s actually coming back here, now.”
“Is Theo the Medium Guy okay?”
“He’s doing better.” Lizzy whispered, “Mannix shot him, and he lost a lot of blood. He almost died. The doctors keep talking about total organ failure, and he’s got dark circles under his eyes and he sleeps most of the time. His kidneys still aren’t working very well.”
Georgie hoisted the backpack onto her shoulder. “Oh my God. Do you need me to come?”
“No. Just call Professor Pojman and tell him that I can’t make our appointment this week, okay? I’ll reschedule when I get back.”
Georgie sat on her bed and let the backpack drop to the floor. “I’ll call him, and I’m glad to hear that you’re coming back. I missed you.”
“I missed you, too, Georgie.”
Georgie told her about the phone messages from the reporters, hoping things could get back to normal someday.
Lizzy said, “I’ve gotta go. I’ll keep in touch and be back as soon as I can,” and hung up.
Georgie held the phone in her hand, still shaking. At least Lizzy was okay physically. They would deal with anything else when she got back.
The air in the dorm room around her seemed too still. Just a few weeks ago, Lizzy would have been snoring in the next bed, loath to get up even a few minutes before she had to, and Rae would have been knocking on their adjoining door to drink some coffee and get away from her cousin-roommate, Hester the Repressor.
Everything was changing so fast.
Georgie stood to start calling people. She had contacted a bunch of their mutual friends last week to get their notes for Lizzy’s classes that she had missed. Georgie would make sure that, when Lizzy got back, at least her notes for the next few days were waiting for her.
And after she called people, even though it was already eight o’clock, Georgie needed to hit the music building to get on a piano. Her hands felt irritable, like a fresh horse bucking in its stall for lack of exercise.
She wanted to explore “Alwaysland” a little more before she let it go.
Every time she played it, she found something more to admire.
A TEXT LIKE A LIFELINE
Alexandre de Valentinois
Tuesday night, the cell phone in his hand displayed the text: I can’t stop playing Alwaysland. The screen glowed in the dark, throwing sharp light through the dark tunnel with black curtains at the end.
Alexandre smiled, slowly, at the phone number displayed above the text. The area code was the same as Wulfram’s cell phone, so he assumed that it must be Georgie. A thrill ran through him: part victory, part pure pleasure that Georgie liked his song.
I’m glad you like it, he texted back. How many times have you played it?
Her text pinged back immediately: 100s.
Hundreds? Most likely Georgie. He recognized that peculiar form of OCD that was necessary to become a consummate musician. He texted, Does it sound anything like what I wrote anymore?
Nope. Better.
Definitely Georgie. I play a version on the violin, too. I should play it for you sometime.
Yeah. Right. I live in McClintock Hall at Southwestern State University, Room 328. Come on over.
Alexandre laughed, even while he marveled at the text, but then thought better of it. So-private Georgie, who wouldn’t even give him her phone number, surely wouldn’t just hand him her address, not a man known for his romantic, impulsive nature, or at least that’s what Rolling Stone reported.
But she wouldn’t know that, would she?
He texted, Is that real?
Yes. Really. Ask Rae von Hannover.
Fascinating.
He probably should confirm that before he acted on it.
Alexandre peered between two black, heavy curtains. Beyond them, the audience seethed, nearly rioting to the thumping beat of the recorded music blaring over the speakers.
Their energy almost caught him, almost transformed him, but he looked down at the phone in his hand. Alexandre typed, What would you do if I showed up?
You’re somewhere in Europe, right? Monaco or London?
Miami, actually. Somewhere like that.
Then I would take you to a private piano room in the music building where no one could hear us, and we would play a Beethoven sonata for piano and violin, and our secrets would be safe.
Beethoven. Yet another composer who had been dead for centuries. Or I could write something for us to play.
He almost held his breath until she answered, I’d like that even better.
His heart flipped a jubilant triplet. Then I’ll be there soon.
Sure you will.
I have to go now. I have a— He glanced at the stage, where the darkening house lights were dousing everything in darkness. —business meeting.
Isn’t it the middle of the night in Europe? And aren’t you a despicable, idle rich man?
“Far from it,” he muttered. Alexandre Grimaldi is a wastrel. Just ask anyone. I’ll talk to you later.
The recorded music died away, and the house lights dimmed to darkness.
Alexandre drew a deep breath, and the blinding stage spotlights flew through the air and flashed in his eyes, standing in the stairwell that served as their backstage in the arena.
On the stage, Cadell hit a long, keening note on his guitar that staggered Alexandre and sent the audience into a frenzy.
Everything coalesced around him like he was summoning magic, and he handed his phone to Jonas, the band’s manager, to toss in his runner bag.
Jonas asked, “How are those new songs coming along?”
“Swimmingly.” His voice sounded confident.
“We’ve already asked the record companies to postpone the meeting once.”
“I’m aware of that.” He stretched his hands, warming them up, and hummed to warm up his voice.
“We only need six demos,” Jonas pressed.
Which was four more songs than he had in his notebook and six more demo tracks than he had recorded. “We’ll be fine.”
“Full house out there tonight,” Jonas remarked.
“Sell out?”
“Almost.”
“How many tickets did we fail to sell?” Did I fail to sell, he meant.
“Only a couple hundred. It’s still a moderate profit.”
A couple hundred empty seats meant that there would be dead spots all over the arena, and if the trend continued, Killer Valentine would be playing smaller clubs soon instead of the arena circuit.
If he didn’t write those songs soon—if he didn’t reach down deep in himself, grab a fistful of guts, and throw his bleeding heart on the page—the record companies were going to lose interest, and Killer Valentine would remain an indie band that might have a few more albums but would soon flame out.
If he didn’t go out there tonight and put on a hell of a show, word would spread. The next concert on the tour would sell fewer tickets. Fewer concert-goers would convert to the kind of die-hard, crazed fans that a band needs to survive.
Everything was a feedback loop like a shrieking microphone that he clutched in his hands.
From behind him, he heard, “Hey! Are you ready to go on, or you just going to stand there with your dick in your hands?”
Tryp Areleous, the drummer, stood shirtless while the swirling lights splashed the tattooed roses and vines on his skin blue and green instead of vibrant scarlet and black. He twirled a drumstick across his knuckles. “Well?”
The roar of the crowd infused him with a manic energy that he could not resist.
Xan Valentine shook back his long hair. His guitar was onstage, waiting for him. “Fuck, yeah. Let’s blow the roof off this fucking arena.”
DRUNK DIAL
Georgie
Blaring, loud blaring, first inside Georgie’s dream about an enormous piano that she couldn’t reach and then in the dark. Her phone cast bright light onto the ceiling of her dorm room.
She grabbed the phone and swiped the dot. “Hello! Lizzy!”
A man’s hoarse, wrecked voice said, �
��It’s Alexandre. Did you mean what you said?”
She scooted up in her sheets and glanced at Lizzy’s empty bed. “What time is it?”
“I’m not sure what time it is there. When you said that we would play a duet, piano and violin, my music, somewhere where no one could hear us, did you mean it?”
“Yes. Of course. I can’t get ‘Alwaysland’ out of my head. It’s like it’s haunting me. You sound awful. Are you sick?”
His voice broke when he said, “We’ll play the duet?”
“Yes. Are you okay?”
“I’m drunk. But I’ll be there. Soon.”
“Alex? Don’t drive.”
“I won’t. Call me Alex again.”
“Alex?”
“Yes. Like that.”
“Or Alexandre.”
He sighed. “Both. I’ll be there soon.”
A click sounded through the line, and Georgie dropped the phone back on her nightstand and fell asleep hard, wondering if that had been a dream.
DORM INVASION
Georgie
The next morning, Wednesday, Georgie slapped open the door to her dorm room after her early classes. She had collected more class notes for Lizzy from their friends, all of whom had barraged her with questions that she couldn’t answer, and the huge stack of looseleaf paper in her arms was slipping and about to crash to the floor.
She juggled, dropping her purse, but held onto the paper so it didn’t splash across the thin carpeting.
She flopped the papers on her desk, right next to a suspiciously thick, black guitar case that leaned against it, and a garment bag emblazoned AV hung over the back of her desk chair.
The door to her bedroom was closed.
So the phone conversation hadn’t been a dream. Huh.
She called out, “Alex?”
Georgie pushed open the door to the darkened bedroom, a little wary that he might do something impulsive like pounce on her, but a large lump in her bed didn’t move. He lay on top of the bedspread like he had only meant to lie down for a few minutes. His stockinged feet hung off the end of her twin bed, and blond hair fluttered in the air conditioning blowing from the ceiling.
Every Breath You Take (Billionaires in Disguise: Georgie and Rock Stars in Disguise: Xan #1) Page 10
