Killer Riff

by Sheryl J. Anderson

  “Joke?” Gray recoiled from the artistic censure. “My music isn’t any joke.”

  Kyle and Tricia hustled down the hallway, trailed by several security guards. “She’s not in the club.” They’d done a thorough sweep while Cassady, Aaron, and I herded Jordan and the rest of our cozy entourage backstage.

  “Who’s not?” Gray asked.

  “Are you high?” Claire asked, stomping her foot so hard that she wobbled as her heel threatened to snap under the pressure. “Bonnie stole the tapes and gave Jordan the songs. Didn’t you hear him singing out there? Couldn’t you tell it was Micah’s song?”

  Gray gave Jordan a look brimming with nostalgic sadness. “I thought he’d finally tapped in.”

  Jordan sank into a chair, head hanging low between his shoulders, more weight than I could imagine pressing down. “So far from it,” he murmured.

  “You don’t remember that song?” Claire asked Gray insistently.

  “I’m lucky I remember that year,” Gray said frankly.

  “Where would your mother go, Jordan?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Jordan said flatly, still trying to absorb the magnitude of what his mother had apparently done. For him.

  “Flight risk,” Kyle said, pinching his bottom lip.

  “Can’t you send the police after her?” Olivia asked shrilly. “An APB or something?”

  “This doesn’t really qualify,” Kyle said.

  “We can throw down another kind of net,” I said quickly, sketching it out in my mind as I went. I hated to have to ask, but it was the best way. “Jordan, where’s your cell?”

  With a deep breath, Jordan sat up enough to look at me. The flat gaze told me that it wasn’t as much a matter of his trusting me as his not having the energy to fight me anymore. He pointed to the dressing room. “In my jacket pocket.”

  “Your mom’s number is in it, obviously?” He nodded. “Perfect. Olivia, grab it, please. Jordan, you need to get back out onstage. Play more. I don’t care who wrote the songs. Sing some Who songs. Just get out there. Gray, Adam, go with him.”

  “No way,” Adam said, eyeing Jordan warily.

  “Adam. Jordan. I really need you to look at the big picture here. This isn’t about all the years of jealousy and bickering and backstabbing and God knows what else your mothers put you through because you were the pawns in their self-righteous turf war.”

  “Just a minute!” Claire objected.

  I was not about to stop, even for Claire. “This is about doing the right thing for the men who loved you and who always tried to do right by you. One of whom died for you. So can you reach down deep inside and try to find some love for each other as brothers and some love for Russell and your dad?”

  Bracing myself for a cutting retort, I watched as Adam unexpectedly moved to stand beside Jordan, hand on his shoulder. After a moment, Jordan stood, patting Adam briefly on the back. However twisted their relationship, however deeply rooted their anger, they were still brothers at heart after all.

  Now it was Gray who frowned and shook his head, pointing at Adam. “We both play keyboard.”

  Adam sighed heavily, already propelling Jordan toward the stage. “Get a grip, Gray. You take the piano, I’ll take the Hammond.”

  Claire barred Adam’s way. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Listening to Molly.”

  Claire didn’t like that at all. “You don’t know what she’s planning. Why are you going along with this?”

  “Because she’s right about Dad and Russell. And she’s the first person I’ve met in a long time who judged me on my own merits, low as they may be. And I trust her.” Claire faltered, and while she groped for a comeback, Adam marched Jordan out onto the stage without a look back at me. Gray followed, dazed but itching to play.

  Collecting herself quickly, Claire demanded, “Now what?” over the noise of the crowd welcoming the boys back to the stage.

  “You’re going to make a statement to the press,” I told Claire.

  “I am not. This is a private, family matter.”

  “Nothing about your family has ever been private. By your choice.”

  Olivia dashed up with Jordan’s BlackBerry in her hand. “Molly, Jordan didn’t know, I swear it….”

  “I believe you. Now pretend to be Jordan. Text Bonnie and ask her where she went, that Claire’s about to make some big announcement about releasing the Hotel Tapes as a boxed set and she should get back here right away.”

  Olivia’s thumbs flew over the keyboard with impressive dexterity and speed. Claire thrust an imperious hand into the air. “Don’t you dare, Olivia.” Olivia, to her great credit, kept texting. “I don’t care what you say, I won’t be a part of this.”

  “Okay, fine. Olivia, change it to ‘Adam’s making some big announcement’ and we’ll let him be the hero,” I suggested. Olivia’s head never came up, just bobbed in assent.

  “What hero?”

  “The one that lures Bonnie back here and exposes her.”

  The band started playing again, a song off Jordan’s first album called “Dust of Dreams,” and the crowd whooped. Claire’s lips pursed, as though she were already tasting the sweetness of dethroning Bonnie after over twenty years of having to pretend she was happy to share the crown. “Change it back to me, Olivia.”

  “I never changed it to Adam. Forgive me, but certain relationship dynamics around here are predictable. But for my father’s sake, don’t screw this up, Claire,” Olivia said, tasting a little sweetness herself. She hit the “send” button in punctuation, then turned back to me. “So what happens next?”

  Cassady and Aaron went with Kenny to invite members of the press inside for the announcement.

  Tricia and Olivia went to talk to Risa and Peter and give each of them Bonnie’s number so they could text her and ask her why she wasn’t part of the deal to produce the Hotel Tapes boxed set.

  Kyle and I took Claire into the dressing room to collect herself and practice her announcement.

  “Do you have some brilliant plan B in the event this doesn’t work?” Claire asked tartly, fixing her makeup. Surprisingly, her hand trembled slightly as she relined her lips.

  “Blame it all on me,” I said, knowing full well that I’d be fired anyway if this train left the tracks.

  Jordan’s BlackBerry buzzed insistently in my hand. The message from Bonnie read: “BRB, keep Lying Bitch quiet.”

  Claire tensed, hearing the buzz. “Is that Bonnie? What’s she saying?”

  “‘Be right back …,’” I started, then decided to let her read the rest for herself. Turning the BlackBerry so she could see the message, I asked, “Is that what she calls you to your face?”

  Claire glanced at the text, then swatted my hand away and went back to primping. Kyle studied the toes of his shoes intently for a moment. “How exactly do you see this playing out?” he asked me.

  “The paparazzi’s already lathered up in anticipation of an announcement.”

  “What were you going to tell them?” Claire asked.

  “That I had uncovered the tapes. So you’d be forced to come forward and denounce me, saying you had them.” Catching her hate-filled look in the mirror, I shook my head. “Please. You can’t be shocked. After you bribed me and your boyfriend drugged your son.”

  Claire’s eyebrows shot up in genuine dismay. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

  I was going to express my opinion of the fact that she chose to take offense at that part of my statement, but Kyle interceded. “So the press is foaming at the mouth …”

  Taking a deep breath, I said, “So Claire goes out there, tells everyone she’s found the tapes and is going to release them, Bonnie makes a scene because she has the tapes, Tricia gets her security guys to sit on Bonnie, your friends in the local precinct come scoop her up and discover it’s all part of a much bigger story.”

  It sounded so simple.

  And it got off to such a good start.

  Posted outsi
de, Cassady called me the moment Bonnie vaulted out of her cab. Aaron unleashed the paparazzi who had remained outside, the ones who’d been told—by Cassady and Aaron—that there’d been a huge fight inside and Bonnie had stormed out, but the rumor was she was returning to settle the score with Claire. The crowd of photographers delayed Bonnie’s entrance into the club long enough for Tricia to give Jordan and Adam the signal to wrap up the song and for Jordan to address the crowd.

  “There’s been some pretty heavy stuff going down with me and Adam and our families lately,” he told the rapt audience with scruffy, self-effacing charm. “Things got a little toxic earlier, and we’re sorry about that. But we’re sure rockin’ now, aren’t we?” He grinned as the guests cheered. “And we’re gonna rock some more, but right now, I’ve got a really special announcement for you all from a true queen of the rock world, Claire Crowley.”

  Backstage, Claire didn’t move. I couldn’t tell if she was being stubborn or freezing up, but I put my hand on her back to nudge her along. “You can do this, Claire,” I whispered, more warning than encouragement.

  “Of course I can,” she said, and strode out, arms open to the applause, head tilted back, channeling Micah in some twisted fashion.

  I started to slide around front to watch her, but Kyle grabbed my arm. “Stay back here. Better vantage point,” he said quietly, his eyes scanning the crowd. “You’ll want to track Bonnie from the minute she comes in.”

  “Good evening,” Claire said, her voice dropping down into the smoky, sexy register. “Aren’t these boys magnificent?” The crowd clapped in approval. “I’m so proud of both of them. They share such a special relationship and a unique musical heritage.” She held out her hands, and Jordan and Adam came to flank her.

  “Bingo,” Kyle whispered, pointing out where Bonnie had entered the club and paused at the edge of the crowd.

  “I hate to interrupt their show, but we all decided this was an ideal time to make a very important announcement. There have been rumors for so many years about recordings that their father, Micah Crowley, made while he was on the road.”

  “Wish I had binoculars,” I whispered to Kyle, but even without them, I could see Bonnie’s face twisting with anger.

  “Tonight, it is my honor and privilege to announce for the first time in public that those tapes do exist,” Claire said with an emotional vibrato building in her voice. The audience gasped in pleasure. “And with the help of Jordan, Adam, and Gray Benedek, I will be releasing them as a boxed set of CDs—”

  “Why is everything about you?!” Bonnie screamed from her spot at the back of the club.

  “Here we go,” Kyle whispered.

  I crossed my fingers, willing Bonnie to play her part the way I’d seen it in my head. The fact that she was the person in this group with whom I’d spent the least amount of time and I knew the least flitted across my mind and quickened my pulse for a moment, but I was sure it would all come together.

  The photographers in the club swung to take pictures as the crowd parted, even as its shocked whispers bubbled up into excited murmurs, to allow Bonnie to march up to the stage.

  Claire stepped away from the microphone to address Bonnie with the illusion of privacy. “Bonnie—”

  “‘Bonnie’ what?” Bonnie yelled, advancing. “‘Bonnie, let me have the spotlight’? ‘Bonnie, stay out of the way’? ‘Bonnie, you whore, your son’s a bastard’? What, Claire, oh-so-understanding rock star wife? So forgiving, so accepting. Lets everyone think it’s all fine. Queen Claire, rock royalty. Keeper of the flame. Keeper of nothing but lies. What do you want to say? What lie are you going to tell them now?”

  People had been on their feet, dancing, but now sat down in hushed attention, though I could see cell phones popping open everywhere. I wondered where Risa, Peter, Henry, and Eileen were and what they were making of all this.

  Claire cast a concerned look toward me as Bonnie swept around the side of the stage and came up the stairs, and I nodded encouragingly. Jordan stepped forward to meet his mother, but Adam and Gray pulled him back. Bonnie didn’t notice, she was so focused on Claire.

  “I’m not lying,” Claire said, returning to the microphone.

  “Of course you are,” Bonnie said, “because I have the tapes.”

  I wanted to throw up my arms in exultation but didn’t want to distract Claire. Still, Kyle squeezed my arm, on the same wavelength.

  “Now you’re lying,” Claire said, her face flushed and the audience forgotten.

  Bonnie hadn’t forgotten the audience. She turned to them, played to them. So here’s the insidious cultural legacy of reality television: No secret is too sordid, too shameful, not to share it when there’s an audience to entertain. Bonnie all but fluttered her eyelashes to emphasize her wronged position. “She was going to cut me out, just like she’s tried to cut me out of things my entire life. But who inspired Micah to his greatest work? Who gave Micah his talented son?”

  “She’s disrupting the concert,” Kyle whispered. “Tell Trida to get security on the stage. Now.”

  As I fumbled for my phone, Jordan approached Bonnie. “Mom,” he said, “don’t do this.”

  He reached out for her, but she stepped back, defiantly pulling a simple cassette tape out of the ruffled Yves Saint Laurent bag on her shoulder and raising it above her head. The audience oohed as though she were holding up a great religious relic, which I guess to her mind she was. “I’m glad you’re all here tonight,” she told the guests, “because Micah loved an audience.”

  “Like you know what Micah loved,” Claire scoffed.

  “He loved me. He felt sorry for you,” Bonnie said, turning to give the guests a special smile, acknowledging that she knew they were on her side. Chuckles fluttered through the audience, the tension level dropping as people sat back in anticipation of the next fight on the night’s card. “I loved him most of all, so I should be the one to bring his music back. I deserve it.”

  “No, you deserve this,” Olivia said, stepping up onstage and pointing a pistol at Bonnie.

  The tension level rocketed back up through the roof. People screamed and ducked under pillows, flashes exploded, and Adam dragged Claire out of the line of fire. Jordan froze, his gaze fixed on the gun, and Gray pulled him out of the way. Knowing security would come of their own accord now, I raced onto the stage, half a step behind Kyle. When he stopped ten feet from Olivia, I assumed that he had an excellent, field-tested reason for doing so and stopped next to him.

  “Olivia, put the gun down,” I said as firmly as my quaking voice would allow.

  “Everyone really needs to stop telling me what to do. You included, Molly,” Olivia said with wholly inappropriate calm.

  “I want to help you protect the tapes, that’s all,” I said.

  All three women looked at me as if I were the one acting crazy. “What?” Olivia asked.

  “Everyone’s here because of the tapes, right?” I wasn’t looking for an audience reaction, but I got one: a smattering of applause and some whoops of agreement. I flashed a strained smile at the crowd to be polite, but Kyle gestured brusquely for me to keep focused on Olivia. “So it would be a huge shame if you took a shot at Bonnie and missed and hit the tapes.”

  Bonnie huffed in offense, but otherwise she didn’t move, her arm still above her head and her eyes locked on Olivia’s gun.

  “Why don’t I take the tapes?” Claire offered.

  “Don’t move, Claire,” Olivia warned. “You’re hardly a neutral party here.”

  “How about I take the tapes?” I offered, taking a tentative step forward.

  Bonnie pinned the bag to her side with her elbow. “I am not giving up these tapes.”

  “Over your dead body, huh, Bonnie?” Olivia said. “The same way my father felt, but that didn’t stop you.”

  “I didn’t kill your father!”

  “Don’t you lie to me!” Olivia took a step closer, steadying the pistol at nose level on Bonnie.

  “It
was an accident!” Bonnie blurted.

  With everyone gasping at the same time, the air pressure in the club had to have dropped several points. I could swear my ears popped.

  Bonnie pressed on, eyes still focused on the gun. “Russell wasn’t supposed to know anything about our plan, and then Jordan had to play him his new demo tape, beg for his approval.”

  “Stop it, Mom,” Jordan said, his voice dark and heavy.

  “But Russell thought he recognized the song and wanted to compare it with the Hotel Tapes and realized a few were missing. He was so angry, he went a little crazy. Jordan called me, I came right over and tried to calm him down. I just mixed him something to make him settle down and give me some time to think. I didn’t realize how much he’d already had. Olivia, I’m so sorry.”

  There wasn’t a sound; not a single flash went off. People throughout the club froze in the face of naked emotion and the magnitude of the confession. Only Claire was smiling, her blatant joy at her rival’s collapse disconcerting.

  So Bonnie had taken a couple of Russell’s tapes, hoping he wouldn’t notice. Then once he was dead, she’d gone back and taken all the tapes so no one else would be able to play them and expose Jordan as an actual copy of his dad.

  “Give me back my tapes,” Olivia said, yanking the bag off Bonnie’s shoulder with her gun-free hand.

  Bonnie caught the purse strap. “No, don’t take the tapes. It’s not like I did it deliberately.”

  Claire threw herself at Bonnie as Bonnie yanked back on the purse strap, throwing off Olivia’s center of gravity. For a moment, I thought she might bobble the gun, but she tried to use the purse strap to pull herself back upright against Bonnie’s weight. The strap flew off Bonnie’s shoulder and the purse crashed to the floor, disgorging its load of nearly a dozen tapes. Bonnie landed right beside them, Claire on top of her, screaming and kicking and biting. Olivia toppled over, the gun skittering away from her.

  Patrons attempted to storm the stage, whether to help or to see better, I wasn’t sure, but then others pulled them away or perhaps pushed them away in their own flight toward the doors. The party disintegrated into a multilevel meltdown.