Falling Angel

by Carmen Richter

  The card had a generic picture of a dog on the front of it, like this person had gotten it from one of the newspaper stands that were on every other corner here in the city. When I opened it, I saw a picture of Daphne that had obviously been taken backstage at Madison Square Garden, and she looked like she was on the verge of tears. If I’d had to guess, I would have said it was probably taken at the first show, after I walked out of her dressing room. My heart broke seeing it, knowing that I’d been the one to put that look on her face.

  And then I read the message, and my blood ran cold.

  Don’t be sad, beautiful. Everything is almost ready for us to be together, and then I’ll keep that heartbreak beat you’re feeling away forever. Just keep being a good girl until I get there.

  God damn it. I was almost positive she was right. If this person had been able to get that picture of her, it was most likely someone on the crew.

  And that meant that they’d know “Heartbreak Beat” wasn’t on her normal set list. Luckily, it didn’t seem like they knew she’d performed it for me, and it didn’t seem like they knew about our newfound relationship either. Granted, I’d seen her randomly throw new covers into her set lists from time to time on this tour—usually when someone she knew was in the audience—so doing that hadn’t been completely out of left field for her.

  But I had a much more pressing concern than whether or not they knew about us. This message scared the hell out of me. What exactly was this person’s plan? What were they getting ready for?

  Whatever the hell it was, I’d be damned if I was going to let it happen. And that meant I needed more help. I needed eyes both backstage and in the audience every night, and I couldn’t spread the six of us any thinner than we already were. I pulled out my phone and dialed Hector’s number.

  “Hey, man. Everything okay?” he answered.

  “No. No, it’s not,” I told him. “Can you meet me at Daph’s suite in twenty minutes? I need to talk to both of you before we leave.”

  “Okay. See you then,” he replied without question.

  Before going back to Daphne’s suite, I made a trip back to the front desk and waited for the girl who’d handed me the envelope to be done checking a guest out. Flashing my badge, which was pretty much good for nothing except to let them know I was a security guard—though, if you didn’t look closely at it, it did sort of look like a police badge—I walked back up to the desk.

  “Can I help you, sir?” the girl, whose name tag said Heidi, asked.

  “That envelope you gave me for Miss DeVille. Can you describe the person who dropped it off?”

  “I’m sorry. It was there when I got in this morning.”

  If I’d had time, I would have seen if I could get them to give me their security camera footage, even though I wasn’t supposed to. But I didn’t have time. Hector was meeting me at Daphne’s suite in five minutes. And even if he wasn’t, it probably would have taken me hours to go through all of the footage to figure out who this was, and we had to be on the road in two hours. This asshole was smart. I’d give them that.

  “Hey,” Daphne said as she let me back into her suite. “You okay?”

  “No,” I admitted, handing her the card as I sat on the couch. “And I’m not sure if you are either. Hector’s meeting me here in a few minutes, but I wanted you to see this first.”

  As soon as she looked at the card and picture, she promptly dropped them on the floor, her hands shaking. I knelt down in front of her, putting the card on the coffee table. I took both of her hands in one of mine, using my free hand to tilt her chin up so she would look at me.

  “Listen to me, angel,” I said softly. “I don’t know what this person’s plan is, but I do know I’m not going to let them get away with it. Not as long as I’m still breathing. You’re safe. I promise.”

  She nodded, but didn’t say anything, and I saw a few tears brimming in her eyes.

  “Come here,” I murmured, moving to sit next to her on the couch and pulling her into my arms. “I’ve got you.”

  “Why me?” she sniffled into my chest. “What did I do to make them want me?”

  “I don’t know, baby,” I sighed. “I wish I did.”

  “Now you’re definitely coming with me for the trip. I feel safer with you,” she mumbled.

  I smiled. “That’s my job. Good to know I’m performing well.”

  She snorted. “I could take that somewhere you didn’t intend for it to go, but I won’t.”

  “Miss DeVille! I feel scandalized,” I teased.

  That made her giggle, and I pressed my lips to her head. God, I loved that laugh. And I didn’t hear it nearly often enough.

  A knock on the door interrupted us, and I tilted her chin up for a quick kiss before getting up to make sure it was Hector on the other side of the door.

  “What’s going on, man?” he asked as we walked back over to the couch.

  Daphne immediately curled into my side again, sliding her arms around me. I returned the embrace, dropping another kiss on her head and combing my fingers through her hair. Hector raised an eyebrow at me.

  “If you asked me to come here to tell me you’re not going to be joining us for the trip down to New Orleans…well, no offense, but you’re a terrible actor. I figured that out the second I saw your face during the encore last night,” he said with a smirk. “And then there was you not coming back to our room last night and your radio dying this morning.”

  I let out a weak chuckle. “No, that’s not why I asked you to meet me here. Check out the card on the coffee table.”

  He picked it up, then sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose as he looked at it.

  “I think Daph’s right. I think this person is someone on the crew, and I also think we need to bring on a few more guys. We need to step up the security, and the six of us are spread thin enough as it is,” I told him. “I’m not sure what good it’ll do, but I’d rather be safe than sorry.”

  “Yeah, I agree.” He looked at Daphne. “Daphne? This is your call.”

  “I’m trusting you guys. If you think you need more people, then bring them on,” she said. “I’ll make sure Hugh and Josh sign whatever paperwork you need them to.”

  “Okay. I’ll make the call before we get on the road,” I decided.

  “I don’t give a flying fuck how much it’s going to cost!” Daphne screamed into her cell phone as she walked onto the bus. “This is my safety we’re talking about! You didn’t see this note. If you did, you’d understand.”

  There was a pause as the person on the other end of the phone—I was assuming Hugh, who I had yet to have the displeasure of meeting—spoke, and I could practically see the steam coming out of her ears.

  “Okay, you know what, Hugh? I’m going to make this really simple for you. Sign that fucking paperwork and send it back to Eagle within the hour, or you’re fired! And stop calling me ‘doll!’” she growled, then hung up and flopped down next to me on the couch. “He’s such a fucking prick.”

  I didn’t think I’d ever heard Daphne drop so many F-bombs in such a short time frame before. Well, with the exception of last night in bed, but that didn’t count. In any case, a blind man would have been able to tell she was upset right now. So, I guessed my mission for the next twenty or so hours was to cheer her up. And I had a few ideas about how to do that.

  “I’m not trying to pass judgement, but why do you still work with Hugh? You obviously don’t like the guy,” I wondered.

  “Because I was duped into signing a five-year contract with him when I was first starting out, and if I terminate it early, he gets…well, more money than his entire salary for all five years combined. It’s not worth it, not when I only have like a year left.” She sighed. “I honestly don’t know why the lawyer I had look at it said it was okay. I don’t work with him anymore, and I’ve shown the contract to the lawyer I work with now to see if there was a way out of it. She said it’s ironclad unless there’s extreme negligence on his part, and
she never would have let me sign something like that. But if he doesn’t sign the paperwork your office faxed over, I’m sure my lawyer can find a loophole to prove negligence so I don’t have to pay the severance fee.”

  Damn. Hugh was a sleazy bastard, but he was smart. I wondered how many other people he’d tricked into signing similar contracts. He shouldn’t have been allowed to manage anything, period. It seemed like Daphne managed her own shit more than he did. She was the one who had scheduled all of her meet and greets and interviews, and she’d worked out her own schedule for show days. As far as I could tell, the only thing Hugh had really done was book the venues and arrange transportation.

  I folded my arms around her. “I’ll check in with the office in an hour and make sure they have the paperwork and are working on getting us the extra guards. I already made recommendations for who I wanted, if they’re available.”

  She nodded. “Okay. Um, did you get your luggage from the security bus over here okay?”

  I gestured to the floor, where my duffel was sitting. She looked, then snorted and turned beet red.

  “Wow. Am I really that out of it?” she mumbled.

  “You’ve got a good excuse,” I told her.

  She got up and headed over to the kitchenette, opening a cupboard and pulling out a completely full Keurig pod holder. After spinning it around slowly for a minute, she put a pod in the Keurig on the counter and grabbed a cup out of the cupboard.

  “Want some coffee? Or tea, or hot chocolate?” she asked. “I’ve got pretty much everything.”

  I went over to stand behind her, winding my arms around her waist. I swear, I physically felt the muscles in her back relax as she leaned back against me.

  “Take some deep breaths, angel,” I murmured. “You’re safe. I swear to God, I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  “I know you won’t,” she sighed. “I’m going to head back to the bedroom for a while. After this thing is done making my chai.”

  “That an invitation?” I teased, kissing her neck.

  “Absolutely,” she chuckled.

  Five minutes later, Daphne carried two mugs—one full of chai, the other with coffee—into her bedroom, while I followed with my duffel bag. I couldn’t help smiling as I saw the space she’d customized for herself. It was…very her. There was a queen-sized bed, covered with not one, but two comforters and at least six pillows. In one corner, there was a recliner; in the other, there was a professional-looking keyboard mixer with a piano bench and a small desk next to it. And the full bathroom was actually a lot bigger than I thought it would be, including a roomy shower stall.

  Hanging on the wall above the keyboard was a huge picture collage of a bunch of people applauding and cheering, and some couples kissing in the midst of it. In the center of the collage, there was a picture of Daphne on a stage with her hand covering her mouth, like she was in shock. And at the bottom, there was a caption.

  You should love yourself as much as your fans love you.

  “What’s that?” I asked, pointing at the collage.

  Daphne turned a little pink. “Last year, I came out publicly at a charity concert for an organization that supports LGBTQ teens. Reagan was there as my professional photographer. She took a ton of pictures of the crowd’s reaction and made that for me. Told me she was proud of me for being so brave, and she wanted me to see myself the way everyone else saw me.”

  I smiled. “She sounds like a good friend. I haven’t spent a whole lot of time with her because I haven’t seen Aaron in a while, but she seems sweet.”

  “She is. I met her when she and her best friend, Olivia, came to one of my gigs in college. She was taking pictures and came up to me after my set to give me the memory card. She recognized me from the school newspaper because I was a journalism major before I got picked up by my record label. I met the rest of my friends through her too, and they’re the best friends in the world. I wouldn’t be the same without them,” she told me.

  “I’m sure they wouldn’t be the same without you either.”

  “I don’t know. They all do so much for me, and I feel like I barely do anything for them. I miss so many important moments with them. Like now, not being there to meet Sabrina.”

  Okay, this had taken a depressing turn. And my goal was to cheer her up. I needed to find something to distract her with. Luckily, there was something right in front of me that would work perfectly.

  “Do you play?” I asked, nodding in the direction of the keyboard.

  “Yeah. I’m actually classically trained,” she explained. “I’ve played at a few charity concerts. And I write most of my songs sitting at my baby grand at home. This is the closest I could come with the limited space on the bus. And it’s actually kind of cool because I can experiment with how different instruments would sound and make rough demos if inspiration strikes me on the road. But Hugh won’t let me play during my normal shows. I’m a brand, didn’t you know? And people want to see this brand sing and dance, not play piano.”

  She set her mug down on her nightstand, then walked over and sat on the piano bench, powering up the keyboard.

  “You don’t have to prove it to me,” I said.

  She smiled. “Playing piano has always calmed me down. Unless you’re sick of hearing me sing.”

  I laughed as I kicked my shoes off and reclined on the bed. “I don’t think I could ever get sick of hearing you sing. And if it’ll help you decompress, I will happily listen.”

  Daphne hit a button on the mixer and started playing the first several measures of The Who’s “Baba O’Riley” with a synthesizer setting, then took her hands off the keyboard. The mixer kept playing what she’d recorded on a loop, and she hit another button on the keyboard before starting to play the piano part on an actual piano setting. When she started singing, adding her unique, edgy voice to the mix? Holy shit. She needed to record a cover of this.

  When the song was over, she smiled meekly as she looked at me.

  “Damn,” I said. “Why haven’t you recorded a cover of that song? That was amazing, Daph.”

  She chuckled. “I’ve thought about it. It’s one of my all-time favorite songs. About time I did one of mine instead of one of Taylor’s.”

  “What?”

  “I recorded ‘All the Girls Love Alice’ for him. Elton John’s his favorite, and that’s one of his favorite Elton John songs. He still can’t believe I did it. Probably because that was my first big hit.”

  Maybe he couldn’t believe it, but I could. Easily. After seeing their friendship in action over the last couple of days, I knew they’d do anything for each other. And I was glad for it. Daphne needed people like Taylor in her corner.

  “That’s why you dedicated it to him a couple of nights ago,” I realized.

  “Yep. But this song, I will never record a cover of. Ever,” she said as she hit a couple of buttons.

  I furrowed my brow in confusion…until she started playing “Never Gonna Give You Up.” I laughed, and she flashed those dimples in an adorable impish grin before starting to sing.

  “Did you just Rick-roll me?” I snickered.

  “Possibly,” she giggled as she came over to the bed and climbed in next to me. “Does it count as Rick-rolling if he’s not the one singing the song?”

  “The song was still being played,” I teased.

  Daphne reached over me to grab her chai and the remote control for the TV, then pulled up Netflix.

  “Can I play the sympathy card and put on a chick flick?” she asked.

  “You can put on whatever’s going to keep that smile on your face,” I told her, turning her face toward me and stealing a kiss.

  Most of the time when I toured, I tried to stay in hotels that were a little bit off the beaten path, so I could avoid getting mobbed by fans. But there were two cities where I made that exception: New York City and New Orleans.

  When I was in New York City, it was because I knew it would take me way longer to get to the venue tha
n it was worth for the relative privacy. Not that I didn’t love Times Square, because I did, but it really was more for the convenience than anything else. Okay, and the Junior’s cheesecake. I always bought a few whole cheesecakes to take on the road with me whenever I was there.

  What? I shared. Sometimes.

  But New Orleans? I just loved the culture, and I wanted to be in the heart of it. So I always made sure we were booked in a hotel in the French Quarter, and I always made sure Hugh made enough time on the schedule for the crew to stay here for an extra day either before or after the show so we could explore the city.

  That was what Ezra and I were doing right now. Our hotel was right around the corner from Café du Monde, so when I mentioned wanting to go there and get a very unhealthy breakfast to bring back to the hotel, he insisted on joining me. He said he felt like he owed me an actual date, and the French Quarter was so busy that as long as I kept my hair covered and a pair of sunglasses on—my “Unabomber getup,” as Taylor liked to call it—no one would be able to pick me out of the crowd. Plus, he wasn’t letting me go anywhere without an escort because of my stalker.

  “God, I love New Orleans,” I said as we walked back down Decatur Street toward the hotel, cups of coffee and takeout containers full of beignets in hand. “I wish I could live here.”

  “Why don’t you?” he asked. “You could live anywhere you wanted.”

  “I couldn’t stand being so far away from my friends. I know that’s a little stupid, but they’re my tribe. My chosen family. I’m not that close with my real family, really. Not since I was forced out of the closet in high school,” I admitted. “My cousin Jillian was the only one who didn’t act like I was carrying the plague after that happened.”