9
This is not right.
Anger had started to bubble inside him, acid eating at his insides. All these cops. All the chaos and worry and tears. As if Tom’s life had been worth something.
He had to hide it, this anger of his. He had responsibilities. People to talk to, decisions to make. Not to mention the monster man detective — Furlow—was about to question him.
This would not be a problem. No detective was going to trip him up.
He watched two cops conferring, his mind spinning back to the day he got out of prison. “Good luck,” a guard had told him as he walked out to freedom. He’d just smiled. Luck? He didn’t need it. He had his superior intelligence — and a purpose. A service to perform.
For the right amount of money, of course.
“Hey!” An officer swaggered over. They all swaggered. Thought they were so powerful. “Detective Furlow wants to see you now.”
“Sure.”
He turned and walked confidently toward his second session with the cops.
10
Over and over I asked Brittany what she’d sensed. But she refused to tell me. That ticked me off, and I told her so. As if I didn’t have enough on my mind already. As if I wanted to fight with my best friend.
“Shaley,” she finally huffed. “I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen, okay? Only that you need me with you this week. Because the tour’s going to continue, and without me … there’s danger.”
“There was danger before you got here. Obviously.”
“I mean danger for you. Personally.”
“We have three bodyguards; what are you gonna do?”
“I don’t know! But you kept bugging me so I told you what I felt. Stop taking it out on me.”
A huge sigh deflated my chest. I slumped over and stared at the carpet. “Sorry. I’m just … This is all so …”
“I know.”
Shortly before one o’clock, Mom came into the room, looking haggard. “Girls, we’ve been released to go to our hotel. The limos are waiting at a side door, and our suitcases have been loaded. Come on.”
I pushed to my feet, muscles prickly from sitting cross-legged too long. “What about the tour?”
“We’re going on with it,” she said tersely.
I exchanged a grim look with Brittany.
As we slid into our limo, guarded all around by policemen, her words trailed through my mind. Danger for you …
Kim, Morrey, and Carly got into the stretch limo with me, Mom, and Brittany. Bruce and Wendell climbed in last. The rest of the band went into a second car. As usual, Ross had gone ahead to check everyone into the hotel. Some of the personal attendants and others who traveled with the band drove with him. The driver shut the door behind us, and seconds later we began to roll out of the parking lot.
I pushed Brittany’s warning out of my head. It was only a threat if she didn’t stay. But she would — we’d make sure of that. Brittany couldn’t literally protect me. But we had plans while she was here. Maybe what she’d sensed would only happen if we couldn’t follow through with those plans.
“Oh, great.” Mom peered forward through the windshield. “Look at the crowd.”
Outside the protected area of the HP Pavilion parking lot reporters swarmed. As our limo crept forward, they descended upon us like wasps. Policemen fought them back with little success. Camera flashes split the night. Voices yelled my name.
Me? I turned wide eyes to Mom.
She put an arm around me, whispering, “They’ve heard you found him.”
I leaned into her. I hated these types of crowds. Even when separated from me by a car, the crush of people snatched air from my lungs.
Brittany cringed on my left, hands shoved between her knees. “Where did they all come from?”
Morrey made a sound in his throat. “They never sleep.”
Television camera lights surged on, spilling over shouting mouths and microphones, a man being shoved back by police, a disembodied hand holding a still camera high. Beyond the lights, dark shadows played over faces and shoving bodies, turning them grotesque and malformed.
Something pummeled the window. I screamed. Brittany sank her fingernails into my arm.
“It’s okay, girls.” Mom’s voice sounded tight. “They can’t get in. We’ll be through this in a minute.”
“It’ll be all over the news tomorrow.” Kim sat straight, unaffected. She was fearless in crowds. “You wait. I’m talking every channel. All day.”
We pulled away from the crowd onto the street. Our limo picked up speed.
“My mom will hear.” Brittany’s breath hitched. “She’ll make me go home.”
“Mom, do something,” I begged. “Brittany can’t leave.”
Onstage, Rayne O’Connor always looked confident and beautiful. A bundle of dancing, singing energy, feeding off the crowds. Now the corners of her mouth drew down, and her eyes were bloodshot.
She patted my leg. “I’ll call Linda tonight, even though it’s late.” Mom leaned forward to look at Brittany. “I promise — I’ll get her to let you stay.”
Brittany let out a hopeful sigh. If anyone could accomplish that, it was my mom. Hard to say no to Rayne O’Connor.
At the hotel, Wendell, Bruce, and Mick hustled us in a side door and up to our rooms. We met Ross on our private floor for our room keys and the night’s “code” — a list of names and room numbers, plus the password. For protection and privacy, only those in our party and a few key people on the buses had the code. Anyone else calling the hotel and asking to be put through to one of our rooms would be denied.
“You’re not leaving your room tomorrow, understand?” Mom said as a bellman opened her door for her and lugged in suitcases.
For weeks, Brittany and I had planned to go shopping on Saturday. I thought again of Brittany’s warning to me — the plans we should keep. At least that’s the way I interpreted it. Tomorrow would be plenty soon enough to argue with Mom about shopping. I could wear a disguise, and we’d have a bodyguard with us. We’d be plenty safe. But first things first—Brittany needed to be allowed to stay.
“Okay. But remember, you have to call Brittany’s mom tonight.”
“I will. Just let me get settled.”
I hugged Mom hard before Brittany and I went into our own room next door. As typical, Mom and I had adjoining suites with a door in between so we could go back and forth without stepping into the hall.
Fifteen minutes later Brittany and I were in our pajamas, sitting cross-legged on our matching queen beds. Mom hadn’t called yet. I’d already dialed her cell phone to say, “Please call Brittany’s mother now. We’re waiting up to hear.”
Not that we’d have gone to bed anyway. Brittany and I had passed beyond exhaustion, now too wired to sleep. The chaos of police officers at the Pavilion and the crowds of reporters around our limo had momentarily numbed my pain. In its place — a simmering determination to find justice for Tom.
“I’m going to help the police solve this,” I declared.
“Yeah. I’m with you.”
Brittany flipped her long hair around and around her right forefinger — a sign she was thinking hard. “Know what? This is a little too convenient — shooting Tom on a night when Rayne isn’t performing the next day. Almost like the killer knew he could do it without stopping the tour.”
I pursed my lips. That was true. Many times Rayne would have to be in another city for a concert the very next day. With a delay like we’d had tonight, another concert in less than twenty-four hours may not have been possible. “But that makes it sound like someone on the tour did it.”
Brittany tilted her head.
“You think that, Brittany?”
“I don’t know.” She lifted both hands. “It’s just — Look, why would a local roadie do it? None of them know Tom.”
“Maybe the killer didn’t know him. Maybe the guy was after something in Ross’s office, and Tom came in at the wrong time.”
>
“But nothing was taken.”
I rubbed the pink silky fabric of my pajama bottoms. “Maybe the guy had to run out before he found what he wanted.”
“Like what?”
“I have no idea.”
Brittany considered that. “Does Ross carry secret information with him?”
“Depends on what you call secret. You saw those reporters — any one of them would love to know anything private about Rayne. Ross’s papers include contracts about performance dates. So, yeah, if someone’s just dying to know exclusive information, like all the special things Rayne O’Connor insists on having in her dressing room. The blue leather couch, the kinds of food, the size of the mirrors.”
“But no reporters could get backstage, right? You told me security guards are everywhere and that only local union workers got in that private back door.”
“True. So what if one of those workers wanted the information? He could sell it to a tabloid for a lot of money.”
Tabloids. I hated them. And their paparazzi.
Flopping back on my bed, I stared at the white ceiling. “It would be such a gamble, carrying around a gun like that. You’d have to stuff it in your pants or something, and what if someone saw it?”
Brittany had no answer.
I sighed. “If Tom was killed only because he saw someone in Ross’s office who shouldn’t be there, you’d think he’d be just inside the door. Like he stepped into the room to say, ‘What are you doing here?’ Instead, he was all the way in the room — behind the desk.”
“Maybe the killer dragged him there.”
I closed my eyes, picturing the carpet. Was it the kind that would show the drag marks of a body? I hadn’t seen anything like that.
Brittany’s cell phone rang. She checked the ID and winced. “Uh-oh. Home calling.”
“Mom probably talked to her.”
Despite my trust in Mom’s ability to convince, I held my breath as Brittany answered.
“Hi, Mom.” Her shoulders tightened, then hunched.
Please, oh please!
Brittany listened.
“Uh-huh. Yeah.”
I didn’t dare move. Had Mom’s call not worked?
Brittany bit her lip. “I know.”
My gaze fixed on her face, gauging every expression.
“Remember, Mom,” she said. “It happened here, in San Jose. And we’re leaving on Sunday anyway. Whoever did it must be someone local. So I’ll be just as safe going with the tour to Denver as I would if I came home.”
I had to hand it to Brittany—she could argue like a lawyer in court. Her mom always said she was destined to be an attorney.
She tensed again, then closed her eyes. “I will. I promise.”
I leaned forward.
Brittany’s eyes flew open. Her muscles relaxed. She nodded excitedly and gave me a thumbs-up.
My hands raised in the air. Yes!
Brittany promised her mother the world. No, she wouldn’t go anywhere without a bodyguard. Yes, she’d do everything Rayne O’Connor said. Yes, she’d check in with her worried parents twice a day.
Parents. Unexpectedly, the word bit. A reminder that I had only Mom — and an empty black hole for a father I never knew.
“Okay. Thanks so much! Call you tomorrow.” With triumph, Brittany hung up.
“Oh, thank goodness.” Weak with relief, I punched in Mom’s cell phone number. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. You did it!”
Mom managed a tired chuckle. “I know you need the company. Now you two go to sleep.”
“Yeah. Good night.”
Some time after three a.m. Brittany and I finally wound down. Yawning, we slid into our beds.
As sleepiness pulsed through my veins, I thought of Tom. My closest friend on tour. Like a big brother. Everyone liked him. Who would want him dead?
Tom, I miss you so much. I will find out who did this to you.
Whoever it was, that person would pay.
11
Mom and the band are onstage, performing their last encore song.
After the concert, I peek out from backstage and see my father sitting in the front row. Even though I’ve never seen him before in my life, have no idea what he looks like — somehow I know.
Breath backs up in my throat.
Everyone else in the arena is leaving, but he claps on, tears of pride in his eyes for Rayne O’Connor. He thrusts a hand up toward her. Suddenly in his fingers — a single white rose wrapped in green cellophane and tied with a red ribbon.
Mom leaves the stage, oblivious.
My heart beats so hard it’s about to lift me off the floor. I shuffle onstage, legs trembling. Roadies are breaking down the set around me, but I pay no attention. I only have eyes for my father.
He looks at me, and the wrapped white rose crumbles to nothingness in his hand. Emotions move across his face. Recognition … shock … understanding …
Love.
His arms rise, held up toward me. He moves forward, and so do I. After all the years, I can’t believe this is happening. I’m meeting my dad. The missing, vital part of me.
We are twenty feet apart. I am so deliriously happy, I can’t even feel my legs moving.
Fifteen feet.
He smiles at me. I smile back.
Ten.
As high as the stage is, somehow I know he’ll jump up on it with no problem. Because he wants to with all his heart. Because he won’t let anything keep us apart—ever again.
Even my mother.
We are five feet away from each other. His face is a blur through my tears. I hear, “Dad, Dad,” and realize it’s my own mouth calling him.
Two feet.
His muscles coil to make the huge jump. He bounds into the air like a deer.
The scene jars into slow motion. One of his legs drifts up off the floor, then the other, his hands floating, hair lifting in the breeze. His mouth creaks open, my name forming — Shhhhaaaalllleee …
His body hangs in the air, rising … rising … He is inches away.
Someone yells to his left. His head rotates toward it.
Terror stabs through me. “Daaad,” I scream. “Donnn’t!”
A shot splits the night. I see the bullet parting air in slow motion, aiming straight for my father. I want to stop it but I can’t.
My body turns to ice.
As if in water, my father’s limbs struggle to change course.
It’s … too … late …
The bullet slams him in the left eye.
His head turns toward me for one last look. I see the black of his empty socket, his right eye shining with love for me.
Light fades from that eye. Fades … fades. It flattens in death.
He sinks to the floor and out of my sight.
Grief cuts me in two. “Nooo!” I wail. “No, no …”
A rattled scream in my throat jerked me awake.
My heart raced, and sweat coated my forehead. For a moment I couldn’t even think. I stared up at the ceiling, fighting to see something, anything. With the heavy curtains closed, the hotel room was nearly pitch dark.
I could hear Brittany breathing as she slept.
My body wouldn’t stop shaking.
Just a dream, I tried to tell myself. Just a dream.
But it felt so real. My father seemed so real.
No matter how many times I’ve begged, my mom refuses to tell me who he is. Someone she dated in high school is all she’ll say. Someone she loved very much. Who gave her single white roses wrapped in green cellophane and tied with a red ribbon as a symbol of his love. By the time she was seventeen and gave birth to me, he was out of her life. He can’t even know for sure that he’s my father, she insists.
The dream echoed in my mind. I wanted it back. I wanted to see my father again.
It isn’t fair for Mom to keep him from me.
“How can he not know about me?” I’ve asked many times. “Didn’t he see you pregnant?”
When she
learned about the pregnancy, he was already gone, she says — always with lowered eyes and pain in her face.
“Do you know where he is now?”
“No.”
The answer never changes. Still I ask. Because I don’t believe her. I think she does know. I think she doesn’t want to tell me.
What is she protecting me from?
A moan slipped from my mouth. I didn’t want to wake Brittany. I rolled on my side away from her, buried my face in the pillow, and cried. For Tom, the friend I had lost that day, and for the father I had never known. And then, irrationally, but terrifying all the same, for what I might lose tomorrow.
Part 2
Saturday
12
Iwoke slowly, fighting the day. Fresh grief over Tom weighted me to the bed. How I wished his death had been only another nightmare.
By the time Brittany and I got up, it was past eleven. I felt almost drugged, like I hadn’t slept at all.
Brittany cocked her head and surveyed me. “What’s wrong? I mean, something new.”
I rubbed my face. “I had a dream.”
“About what?”
The scene rushed over me, trailing all the emotions. My father’s face. His love. The white rose. The gunshot. I focused on the floor. “My father.”
“Oh.”
Maybe it was the violent loss of Tom. Or my determination to help solve his murder. Whatever it was, at that moment I no longer merely resented the fact that Mom wouldn’t tell me about my father. I hated it.
And I was old enough to do something about it.
I gave Brittany a wry smile and shrugged. “You hungry?”
“Yeah.”
We ordered room service—two personal pizzas and salads.
I hung up the phone and turned on the TV, flipping to a cable news station.
Tom’s face filled the screen, followed by footage of our limo, surrounded by reporters, driving from the arena parking lot.
“Oh!” Brittany drew to the TV like a magnet.
Clutching our arms we listened to the reporter’s story.
Behind the darkly tinted glass of the limo, our faces were dim. I caught a glimpse of my own features, Brittany’s ducked head.
Always Watching Page 4
