A Murderer Among Us, page 5
“Sorry!” she murmured. “I just—”
“You never need to be sorry with me,” he said softly.
She had to step farther back, make a much lighter situation out of it.
“Oh, thought you came here tonight so that I could give you a massive apology!” she teased.
He smiled. “Oh, trust me, I haven’t expected that for years.” His expression grew serious again. “I meant that you never needed to apologize for touching me.”
“Your grits!”
He turned to look at the pan. “Yeah. They’re still there.”
“Getting cold. I’ll get you a dish,” she said.
“Get yourself one, too.”
“I’m not hungry—”
“You’re never hungry until I’m eating and then you’re hungry. Get two dishes.”
She hadn’t realized it, but he’d made her smile again.
She got two plates.
He spooned the shrimp and cheese grits onto both of them, and they sat at the kitchen table.
“I wasn’t expecting dinner—”
“I already tried to tell you,” Sky said. “Dinner was hours ago.”
“I wasn’t planning on a meal—”
“You asked for one.”
“You might have refused. So this is nice. And still...”
“You came to warn me that I shouldn’t mess with the past, that doing so would be worthless,” Sky said. “I’m just singing.”
“Stop lying.”
“Just singing and playing the guitar.”
“Sky.” He looked at her while chewing and swallowing. He set his fork down and took a sip of his coffee.
She realized she had frozen, watching him.
He reached over and took her hand.
“You know, I love you. From the minute I first saw you, I think even as kids, I was in awe of you and in love with you. But that’s really neither here nor there as far as this all goes. Sky. Listen to me. Leave it alone. Sing, play, have a good time, honor your father. He wrote great songs. He reigned with the hottest band over several decades. But don’t do anything else. Don’t question people. Don’t interrogate the roadies. Leave it.”
“Why? If everything was so innocent—”
She was startled when he winced and slammed a fist on the table.
“Sky! Listen to me, damn it! Don’t you understand? If any of this was real, anything you suspect at all, then you’d be putting yourself in danger. Honor your father, Sky! How the hell do you think Jake would feel if you died because of him?”
Chapter Three
Chase had tried. He had tried everything in hell and in his legal power.
He couldn’t just knock her out, kidnap her and keep her away until after the show.
Well, he could. But it wouldn’t be legal. And that would definitely be something that she wouldn’t forgive.
“Chase,” Sky said, looking steadily at him, “trust me. I have no intention of getting myself killed. And the fact that you’re here tells me something.”
“That I’m a glutton for punishment?” he said dryly.
She let out a sound of exasperation. “No! You think that something is off-kilter, too. You know that what happened to my father was not an accident. You don’t know what happened, but you know that something was wrong. Very wrong.”
“Sky—”
“What? It’s okay for you to be there and suspicious as all hell but not me?”
“Sky, first—”
“There is no first.”
“Well, yeah, there is,” he told her. “You know what I’ve been doing. I got my major in criminology and I’ve kept at it—”
“Professional student, yeah, I got it.”
“No, you don’t. Yes, I’ve taken a lot of classes about poisons, blood spatter, DNA and fingerprints. But I’ve also spent hours upon hours at a shooting range. I know how to use a gun. I know how to aim. I’ve taken classes in self-defense—”
“And would a gun have protected my father from an amp that had been purposely set up with a frayed wire, something timed to go off after the show started? Was he going to shoot at the electricity?” Sky demanded.
“Okay, no,” Chase agreed. She had a point.
“I’ll be on stage, you’ll be on stage,” she reminded him passionately.
He sighed, looking down, shaking his head.
“Look at me, Chase, please!” Sky begged. “I know you, too, remember? I know that you suspect that someone on the stage that night—or near it, someone with easy access to the instruments and the amps—meant for my father to die. I can’t begin to understand why anyone would want to kill him. Everyone loved him—seriously. He—”
“Sky, stop. Yeah, he was one of the nicest human beings I have ever encountered. One of the best. But he was no doormat. He held his own when he had an opinion. And he was always a staunch defender of anyone he saw as downtrodden.”
“So,” she said slowly, studying him, “you do know that he was killed.”
“Sky, I don’t know—”
“You suspect. And you’ve figured out what I hadn’t—that he was probably killed because he was going to do something for someone and someone else didn’t want him doing it, or—”
“Sky, don’t you understand? That’s why it’s dangerous.”
She nodded. “I repeat. I’ll be on stage. You’ll be on stage.”
“I’m not going to talk you out of this,” Chase said.
She shook her head.
“All right. Then, do me a favor,” he said.
“Of course.”
“You let me know anything that you think, feel or suspect,” he told her.
“On one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“You let me know anything that you think, feel or suspect,” she said sweetly.
He let out a sound of aggravation.
“That’s the deal,” she told him.
“All right, then, I have another idea,” he said.
“Let’s hear it.”
“Okay, we’re in this together, that’s what you want?”
“Demand is more like it,” she said casually.
“Then, we pretend that we’re a thing again. That way, I can be at your side. That way, I can at least attempt to protect you.”
She looked startled for a minute, and then as if she was about to protest.
But she didn’t. Instead, she smiled. “At least that way, maybe I can protect you.”
“Sure, cute, of course,” he said. “The point is we stick together and we have one another’s backs. How does that work for you?”
She nodded slowly. “There’s not a lot of time. I’ve made lists of everyone there—”
“I did, too.”
“But,” Sky continued, frustrated then, “we only have two more rehearsals and then the show.”
“Lunch.”
Sky’s face knotted in confusion. “Lunch? It’s past midnight, and you’ve just finished a nice big plate of cheese grits and shrimp and—”
“No. Let’s invite the guys to lunch.”
“Oh! Smart. Think they’ll come?”
“To the best of my knowledge, they have nothing else to do until the show. Brandon Wiley is the only other family member, and he’s here with Chris, so they’d be having lunch together somewhere anyway. Of course, every one of the guys—”
“We need the roadies, too,” she reminded him.
“They’ll come. It will be a free meal.”
“Okay, so...”
“Why don’t we send out an email invitation,” Chase said.
“We?”
He smiled. “Of course. We’re a thing, right?”
“I’ll write it or you’ll write it?” Sky asked.
“Doesn’t matter, we just need to get it out.”
Sky nodded, rose and walked from the kitchen to the dining room and back across to her office. She sat at her computer and started filling in addresses. “Okay, I have Chris, Mark, Hank, Joe and Brandon. Not sure I have all the roadies in my address book.”
“I’ll fill them in,” Chase said. “May I?”
She shrugged and started out of her chair. He was already sliding in before she could slide out. She moved quickly.
Chase entered the extra addresses and then a message.
Hey, guys! Rare opportunity! Lunch in the French Quarter—seriously! We’ll meet at Chase’s noonish, unless that’s too early for old rock stars.
“Your place?” Sky asked. “I thought you meant here.”
“My place is more convenient for those not living here—French Quarter.”
“Okay, whatever. But as for lunch...”
“Delivery. It will be great.”
Sky looked at him, nodding. A little blip caused them both to look at the computer screen. “An answer already,” Chase noted.
Sky stood to look over his shoulder. “Joe Garcia! He says he’s in. Excellent. And he gave us an LOL, telling us that old people have a tendency to be early risers!”
“We’ll have them all here, trust me,” Chase said. “And—”
He broke off. A dog was barking loudly enough to raise the dead. The sound was coming from somewhere nearby.
From right next door.
Chase leaped to his feet and hurried out of Skylar’s office to the front, throwing open the door.
He could swear he saw the gate at the front rattling. And the dog continued to bark. He hurried outside, looking just beyond the gate.
There was nothing. And the barking stopped abruptly.
“Chase!” Sky called, hurrying outside to join him. “Hey, people walk on the street. And that’s King from next door, a big old shepherd, but sweet as a baby. He’s—”
“He’s what you need,” Chase told her.
“Chase—”
“Let’s get back in. You need a big old dog like King.”
“I love dogs. But I travel too much. And, please, come on, Chase, this is getting ridiculous! No one is going to come after me here. I mean, why would they? As far as anyone knows, I’m filling in for my dad. It’s just a show, a show—”
“Unlike any other,” he said. “Damn, Sky, if I know what you’re up to, someone else may suspect that you’re looking for them, too. Move.”
“Right. And not you?”
“Jake wasn’t my dad,” he said quietly. “I loved him, but others loved him, too. Come on. Let’s get back in the house.”
“But seriously, I have the gate, you have to buzz to get in—”
“Or jump the wall.”
“King is out there,” Sky reminded him.
“All night?” he demanded. She wasn’t going to lie. She shook her head.
“But still—”
“I’m not leaving.”
“What?”
“I’m not leaving.”
“I’m not inviting you to stay!”
“You don’t even have your own dog.”
“I’ll get one tomorrow,” Sky promised.
King suddenly started barking again. Chase couldn’t leave her. Whether she liked it or not, he couldn’t leave her. And it would be hell all night, knowing that she was upstairs, that they were close, that years had dripped away as if they’d never been apart, and he couldn’t leave her.
“You have a lovely sofa,” he said.
“That’s not... I mean, the house has four bedrooms upstairs. Chase, you know that’s not the point.”
“Hey, we’ll put on a good show.”
What the hell did he have to do? Tell her the truth about what he now did for a living, the truth about who he worked for...
“Sky, I am worried for your life. Because someone besides me suspects that you’re not just singing with the band for old times’ sake, for your dad.”
King barked and stopped again.
“I would appreciate a pillow and a blanket,” he told her, prodding her through the entry to the parlor.
“Really? If you’re insisting, there are guest rooms—”
“No, I’ll be down here. Where I’ll know if someone is fooling around with the house.”
“Super hearing? After being a drummer?”
“Cushioning earplugs. Hank told me too many of his friends have gone deaf. You need someone else here. Sky, what the hell. This is real. Someone could break in. With a gun. You need protection. Tonight, I’m it.”
“And what are you going to do if someone breaks in with a gun?” she asked.
“Shoot him,” he said flatly.
* * *
CHASE WAS DOWNSTAIRS. Sky had provided him with two pillows and a blanket. The furniture in the large living area that consumed the center of the house was old—dating back to the 1800s—and she doubted that there was any way anyone could sleep comfortably on the one sofa that sat with a group of upholstered chairs in front of the fireplace.
But he was there.
Of course, she couldn’t quite figure how she hadn’t realized that he was armed. But she didn’t know anything about guns. She’d never wanted to know anything about them, even when crime rates had gotten higher in many of the country’s major cities.
And yet now...
She’d asked him, of course. With a shrug he’d explained it was all part of the classes he’d been taking in criminology, right along with blood spatter and fingerprints.
She’d provided him with the little he had asked for and he’d escaped.
But she knew he was there. And it was hell.
And then again, it wasn’t.
While she was in a turmoil of hell where the past had come to life, she also felt...safe. She believed him. He knew how to use a firearm, and she figured he probably knew a lot more. He’d always been—perfect. Tall, broad-shouldered, lean-muscled, agile...a diver, a guy who could ski, skateboard, swim, kill it on a football field.
It had never occurred to her before to be afraid; she had simply been determined. In fact, even being her father’s daughter, she’d never been afraid. The house was in a great quiet residential neighborhood, not too far from Lafayette Cemetery, Commander’s Palace and a place she loved, Garden District Book Shop. Still close to a few iconic places, but private and off the beaten path. When she had turned eighteen, her parents had put the house in her name. When her dad had died, her mother had started traveling and when she was home, she liked to be in a little condo she’d purchased down in the French Quarter near Café du Monde.
Both of her parents had always been low-key, friends with their neighbors, quiet in their lifestyles when they weren’t performing. They had loved being together. And yes, while he was recognizable, as he’d often explained with amusement, it just wasn’t like being a movie star. The good majority of people in the world would have no idea of who he was when he walked down the street.
And she wasn’t well known at all, so there had been no reason...
Of course, she could have done a few simple things. Like having alarms installed for the gate and the house. That might have meant that Chase McCoy wouldn’t have insisted on spending a miserable night on her sofa.
And she wouldn’t have spent the night knowing that he was there.
So much distance between them. Years! But...
When she was near him, all that they had shared might have been yesterday. She could remember the subtle way his scent, clean and masculine, could wrap around her: it was as if she could breathe him in. She loved the sound of his laughter, the look in his eyes...
And it was ridiculously tempting to walk down the stairs, just squeeze next to him, look up at him and pretend that time had not created a wall between them, a wall that she had somehow pushed into being.
But it was there. He was here because he was afraid for her. And because he had loved her father. And for no other reason.
She winced and tossed, plumping her pillow. She had to grow up. She couldn’t erase the past, but it was behind her. She had to behave like a normal human being with him, except...
They were playing a game. A dangerous game. Pretending they were a couple who had simply fallen back together so that others might not suspect anything amiss if they whispered to one another, slipped together as a couple if they saw or heard something...
She had to grow up. Play the game. And for a minute, she was a little amused. Chase and all his criminology classes and work—doing whatever it was he did with most of his time.
Undercover!
Undercover in plain sight. And if it got her the answers she wanted, total justice for her father, well then, it was worth whatever she had to do.
Decided. Simple. Done.
And it was still the wee hours of the morning before exhaustion claimed her. Because he was there, downstairs, so close, and she didn’t understand herself why she had thrown away such an incredible man, such a beautiful relationship.
* * *
SKY HAD STILL been sleeping when Chase called; he could hear it in her voice. He wondered if just maybe she’d had as much trouble falling asleep as he’d had. No matter. It was late. Time to move.
“Hello?” she murmured, curiosity in the very sleepiness of her voice.
“Time to rise and shine up in the... Sky!”
She groaned. “Oh, that was bad.”
“Yeah, I know. But you need to wake up.”
“Wait a minute. You’re calling me—from downstairs?”
“Seemed the best way to wake you up,” he told her.
“Okaaay.”
“We need to get to my house.”
“Um, the lunch thing, right. But it’s still early.”
“I know you want to shower. And then at my house, we’ll have to check our RSVPs and order the food in, I’ll need to shower, and I’m hoping there’s time for us to go through a few things.”
“A few things?”
“Our suspect list, what we know about each of the players, the band, the roadies, anyone who might have been close. If what happened was more than an accident, there had to have been a reason.”
