Or not.
My heart did a funny little skip as I noticed the black Mustang parked at the curb and the dark-haired man standing next to it. The man was wearing a beat-up gray sports coat while chatting up the policewoman who was currently shooing cars away from the curb. Well, all cars but his. Because he was a fellow cop. My mystery driver was none other than Prospect Glen’s own answer to Law & Order—Detective Michael Kaiser.
His curly hair blew in the breeze as he scanned the area with those dark eyes that more often than not looked at me with a mixture of annoyance and desire. But when those eyes landed on me, I saw only a mild pleasure. Pushing aside the irrational disappointment swelling inside, I headed over with a wave.
“You look surprised to see me,” he said, sliding my bag off my shoulder and stowing it in the trunk.
Buckling in, I admitted, “Aunt Millie didn’t tell me you were the one picking me up.”
“That’s my fault.” He waved to the policewoman and pulled away from the curb. “When she asked if I’d be willing to give you a lift to your house, the audition, and back to the airport, I warned her you might not be excited about the idea, since . . .” He shrugged. “Well, you know.”
“Since you told me you thought you were in love with me and stopped returning my calls.”
Mike laughed and flashed a boyish grin. “I’ve missed the way you’re never afraid to pin me to the wall.” His eyes turned serious as he watched me in the rearview mirror. “I’ve missed you.”
The simple sincerity with which those words were said made me bite back the snarky comment that immediately sprang to mind. Calmly, I said, “I’ve been here. You were the one who stepped away.”
“Guilty as charged.” Mike glanced over at me and then back at the road. “I’m sorry about that. There were some things that I needed to think through.”
“And you couldn’t think if you answered my phone calls?” The hurt I’d buried had bubbled up.
“I told myself I couldn’t.” He changed lanes and hit the gas. “That was probably a lie, but it was easier to believe than the truth.”
“What truth?”
Mike sighed. “This wasn’t the way I pictured having this conversation. I was going to take you out to dinner and explain what happened.”
He changed lanes again. His eyes were focused straight ahead, but I could tell by the way they narrowed that he was thinking through the situation. Calculating what to say and how to say it to get the reaction he was looking for. Two things that as a homicide detective he was trained to do.
After what seemed like an hour but the clock on the dash claimed was only two minutes, he blew out a breath and said, “I was scared.”
I blinked. “Scared? Of what?” Killer? If that was the case, I could understand Mike’s fear. Having to come to a house where the dog pretended to be Cujo was bound to freak out most sane people.
Mike smirked. “For a smart lady you can be awfully dense. You, Paige. I was scared of you.”
“Me? Why?”
He zipped the Mustang onto the exit ramp, hung a left, and steered the car into the McDonald’s parking lot. Putting the car in park, he shifted so those dark eyes were now focused squarely on me. “I’ve dated a lot of women. Most of them liked the idea of being with a cop. I guess there’s something exciting about dating a guy with a gun.”
I’d never thought that, but hey—it took all types.
“I always figured I’d get married someday in the future when I found the right woman. Then I met you and realized the joke was on me. For the first time a woman had gotten under my skin and made me think about settling down, only she wasn’t interested in settling.”
Mike looked as if he expected me to comment. Too bad I was totally lost. Since honesty was the best policy, I said, “I don’t understand.”
“Why did I know you were going to say that?” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I knew you were a singer. The background information I’d dug up on you after we first met told me you were good at it.”
“You ran a background check on me?” Yikes.
“You were a primary witness on a murder case and a potential suspect. Of course I ran a background check.”
Well, when he put it that way. Still, I couldn’t help feeling a little wigged out. The man probably knew everything about me down to my credit score and underwear size. All I knew about him was that he drove a muscle car and didn’t arrest me for my forays into snooping no matter how angry I made him.
“My point is that I thought I understood what you did for a living and what that meant. Then I heard you sing.”
Um . . . “What’s wrong with my singing?” With the biggest audition of my life tomorrow, I wasn’t sure I could handle a no-holds-barred critique, but I’d opened the door and now Mike was walking through it.
“I don’t know jack about classical music. No one dresses in fancy clothes for the concerts I go to. Give me Bruce Springsteen over a bunch of snooty songs any day. But when I heard you practicing at your aunt’s house . . .” Mike took my hand in his and held it when I tried to pull away. “I can still hear that song and feel what I felt. Your aunt used to sing your praises and tell me how wonderful you were. I figured she was exaggerating. But she wasn’t. You’re better than she described. And you were better still the night I watched you on that stage. That’s when I knew.”
“Knew what?”
“That you were out of my league. And that someday soon you were going to get your big break and you’d leave Chicago and me behind. Which is why I left first. Dealing with emotional issues has never been my strong suit.”
No kidding.
“So what do you think?”
I had no idea what to think. A half hour ago I’d never thought I’d see Mike again. Now here he was telling me that he not only believed that I would make it as a singer, but that he wasn’t good enough for me. The change of direction had given me whiplash.
“I’m not sure what to say.” Which was perhaps the understatement of the year. “I thought you’d lost interest and didn’t want to tell me. I moved on.”
“I know.” Mike’s fingers tightened on mine. The vein in his left temple began to twitch. “When your aunt called to ask if I’d meet you at the airport, she mentioned that you and Devlyn have gotten serious. She’s expecting you to announce your engagement any day.”
“My engagement?” I shook my head. “But—”
“I figure I’d missed my chance, but I wanted you to know how I feel before you decide to walk down the aisle.” He pulled his hand away and reached for the gearshift. The set of his jaw told me he considered this case closed even though to me it had just opened. Now I had to decide what the verdict would be.
It took until Mike steered into Millie’s neighborhood with its sprawling, meticulously cared-for lawns for me to sort through my feelings. Joy that Mike thought I was talented. Resentment that he made the decision to walk away without ever asking me what I wanted from my future. Anger that it took Aunt Millie’s fictionalized account of my relationship status to get him to speak up. And nerves. Because the fluttering in my chest and the hopeful yearning I felt told me that Mike and I had a whole lot more to talk about.
Mike parked the car in Millie’s driveway, got out, and grabbed my bag out of the back. When I slipped the key in the lock and turned the handle, he handed me my duffel. “Your aunt said your audition was at nine o’clock but that you’d like to arrive early. I figure if I’m here by seven fifteen, I should be able to get you downtown in plenty of time. But if you want to leave earlier, let me know.”
When he started to walk away, I asked, “What about dinner?”
Mike stopped and turned. “What about it?”
The annoyed confusion on his face made me smile. “You said you planned on talking to me over dinner.”
He jammed his hands in his pockets and gav
e a halfhearted shrug. “You need to focus on your audition. I know how important it is.”
Mike was right. I needed to focus. The audition was important. But so was this. “Well, then, I expect a rain check because we still have a lot to talk about.”
“Like what?”
“Like this.” I stepped forward, stood on my tiptoes, and brushed my lips against his. Taking a step back, I almost laughed at Mike’s stunned expression.
“I don’t understand.”
Now I did laugh. “My aunt might have exaggerated my relationship status a bit.”
Mike’s eyes locked onto mine. “By how much?”
“Are we measuring in miles or kilometers?”
Mike moved fast. Before I had finished speaking he had closed the distance. His lips touched mine with a fierceness that made my head spin and my body hum. The kiss lasted only a couple of seconds, and when Mike moved away I put my hand on the door to steady myself.
For a moment we just looked at each other. Finally, he flashed me a smile. “Get some rest,” he said as he headed for his car and slid behind the wheel. “Tomorrow’s a big day.”
He couldn’t be more right. Once I shut the front door, I made a beeline for the living room to sing through the pieces I’d selected. If I wanted to make a change, now was the time to decide.
I propped my repertoire book on Aldo’s shiny grand piano and sang a couple of scales to warm up. Then I plunked out the opening chord to Musetta’s aria and started to sing. Since I always performed better with an audience, I directed my attention to the four glassy-eyed dogs reclining near the French doors.
Like Killer, they had all been champions on the dog show circuit. Unlike Killer, their teeth could no longer do damage since the animals in question had passed to the great beyond some time ago. Determined to keep their spirits, if not their bodies, alive, Millie had had the dogs taxidermied. Millie thought the dead dogs were adorable. Killer thought they were creepy. On this point, Killer and I were in complete accord. Still, the dogs made a respectful audience as I hit the high B-flat, portamentoed down to the final note, and flipped to the next song.
By the time I went to bed, I had sung my pieces twice, eaten the leftover manicotti Aldo had made for Sunday dinner, and picked out my audition attire. I had also talked to Millie, who swore the kids were all tucked in their rooms despite the earlier excitement.
“Excitement?” I asked. “What kind of excitement?”
“I probably shouldn’t have mentioned anything. I don’t want you to worry.” Uh-oh. “The hotel staff interrupted the very end of rehearsal because housekeeping found the door to your room unlocked and the room trashed.”
“Someone trashed my hotel room?”
“Well, technically nothing was destroyed. Just thrown around a bit.”
Oh. That’s all.
“Larry and Jim think the kids in the band had something to do with it since they were the last ones to have your extra key. They swear they left it in on the drum case in our staging room, but when Larry and I drove over there to check, we couldn’t find it.”
“You’re not convinced that the kids were behind this.”
Millie paused. I could tell she was weighing her need to gossip with my need to focus on tomorrow’s audition. Gossip won out every time. “Let’s just say I think lots of people stopped by the staging room before we came back to the hotel.”
“But why would they take a hotel room key out of the room and how would they even know which room it went to?” The hotel key cards were all identical.
“Larry and Jim spent a long time debating whether the instruments should be stored in the staging room or go back to your room at the hotel. Someone could have overheard them.”
If Larry and Jim used their normal decibel level to discuss the matter, I’m certain everyone within twenty square blocks heard them.
“Do you remember who you saw around while that was going on?” I had no idea what would cause anyone to toss my hotel room. It was easier to think a bunch of rowdy high school boys had done it as a prank, but just because I wanted to believe something didn’t make it true.
“The handsome coach with the tan face stopped by with Donna Hilty. I was going to ask for Donna’s autograph, but she didn’t look like she was in the mood. Although she looked pretty happy when she heard you’d left town.”
I wasn’t surprised. Scott and Donna would probably be happy never to see me again.
“Who else?”
“Nikki dropped by with another director whose team made it to the finals. Larry and Devlyn also talked to a couple of people who are involved in running the competition. The head honcho looked annoyed to hear you’d gone back to Chicago. If I had to put money down, I’d say she was the one who broke into your room.”
Christine? “Why?”
“She asked a whole lot of questions about where you were going, when you’d be back, and what you took with you when you left. She was intense, and the questions felt a little strange. From the look on her face, I’d say the other competition official she was with thought so, too. I bet if I talked to her, she’d give me the scoop on her boss.”
“That’s not necessary,” I said.
“I know, but I can’t help being curious.”
“Well, keep your curiosity in check until the competition is over,” I warned. “Christine McCann has already threatened to have the team blackballed once. I’d rather not give her reason to do it again.”
“Don’t worry. Nothing is going to happen. Trust me. I won’t give Christine McCann a reason to penalize these kids. Now, get off this phone and get some rest so you can knock the Lyric Opera’s artistic director off his feet.”
Despite the travel and show fatigue, sleep was slow to come. My mind was too revved from my encounter with Mike and the mystery of the glass jar boxes to settle down. Why would LuAnn bring boxes marked as belonging to her team’s high school to this competition and store them in the loading dock only to have them picked up and taken away?
Huh. Maybe it wasn’t just this competition she brought boxes to. I hit the lights and walked over to the ornate desk where my laptop was sitting to call up the same search I’d done on LuAnn down in Nashville.
From what Nikki said, despite Nikki’s assurances that the team did not need the help, LuAnn had traveled to all six regional competitions this year. Two were located in Tennessee. The others took place in Kentucky, Ohio, North Carolina, and Texas. Feeling like I was on to something, I did a search for the other activities with which LuAnn’s children had been associated. All the sporting teams and social organizations her kids participated in required a high amount of in-state and out-of-state travel. And from the lists I found on various websites, LuAnn always appeared to volunteer as chaperone. Either she was parent of the year or she had an ulterior motive. I knew which one I was betting on.
If I had to wager a guess, I’d say LuAnn had a side business. One that required her to transport boxes like the ones Marshall saw from Memphis to various places around the country. Normal people used FedEx. Unless, of course, the shipment contained something illegal that the shipper didn’t want being searched. Then it would make sense to transport the items yourself. And what better cover for lugging boxes around the country than traveling with a show choir or sporting team. If my speculation was correct, it would explain why LuAnn was desperate to snag the Central Memphis High School assistant coaching gig. Her daughter would be graduating, taking with her the excuse for the travel. Being a coach was the only way to continue with business as usual.
My brain told me this explanation was far-fetched, but deep in my gut I thought I was right. If so, the next question was what was the clear liquid in the jars? Millie used to drink homemade wine out of those kinds of containers, but homemade wine wasn’t illegal. However, a quick Google search told me that while brewing homemade alcohol wasn’t necessarily ill
egal, selling it without the proper federal and state permits was. Doing so could result in hefty fines and jail time. Transporting it across state lines could raise the penalties a whole lot higher. LuAnn could be using the show choir and her kids’ other travel teams to do both. If so, she must be doing pretty well at it considering she was able to quit her social work job and still afford her impressive home.
Assuming I was correct, I had to ask myself whether someone could have learned about LuAnn’s illegal transport and sale of the alcohol and killed her to put a stop to it. Or could she have been run down by one of her alcohol operation associates? Nikki’s conversation with the young man who knew LuAnn seemed to suggest that she might know about the business and that she might even want a cut of the action. But Nikki had been onstage when the light bar dropped. Could someone else be behind the falling beam? And what did any of this have to do with LuAnn blackmailing Donna and Scott or my hotel room getting ransacked? Sadly, I didn’t have any of the answers, but I was determined that after I finished my audition tomorrow and got back to Nashville, I would help the police find them before a murderer had the chance to strike again.
Chapter 23
Somehow I managed to get enough sleep. Either that or I was so caffeinated and filled with nervous energy that I wasn’t feeling fatigued as I hopped into the shower to wash my hair and do my vocal warm-ups. The old saying that everyone sounded good when they sang in the shower was true. With all the tile and glass, bathrooms were acoustically ideal for singing. Where carpet soaked in sound, tile and other hard surfaces reflected it, making every note sound rich and full and fabulous. Bathroom singing was the ultimate confidence builder. I just had to hold on to that confidence until I finished singing for Sir Andrew David and I’d be set.
A Chorus Lineup Page 22
