Sarah must have been looking at Erin like she’d lost it, because Erin turned back to her and explained, “It’s easier to argue with him when he’s not here. He’s so pissed with us for telling you everything this afternoon. A few minutes ago, he tried to punch Owen and knocked over a crash cart and passed out again.”
Sarah winced. “I heard.” She stood up. “Call off your dogs and let me see him.”
Erin shook her head and pulled Sarah back down to sit. “Look, Sarah, he breathed a lot of Martin’s cigarette smoke, and then he got upset about you, and then he tried to kill Owen. He’s getting meds, but his lungs are very twitchy. We need to keep him calm. We can’t give him a tranquilizer because those drugs suppress the respiration. We just want you to stay out of there right now. It would be better if y’all worked this out after the concert, so he doesn’t have a relapse. He’s doing a lot better.”
“You mean he’s allergic to me?”
“No, it’s just—”
Another realization hit Sarah. “You mean you’re going to go on?”
“Hell,” Erin said, looking at her watch, “it’s only four. The show doesn’t start until seven. We had him on in three hours after he had an attack in St. Louis. We’re professionals.”
They eyed each other uneasily as a shout from Martin and another crash echoed up the hallway.
“I need you to do me a favor,” Erin said. “And if you do this for me, you and I can call it even.”
Sarah’s heart leaped, because she wanted Erin to be her friend. Skeptical Natsuko calculated who had actually committed more offense against whom.
“Q wrote you a note as he was passing out at the house,” Erin said, “and he gave it to me for safekeeping. He thinks I’m out here giving it to you now. Truth is, I lost it somewhere on the kitchen floor in the confusion.” A note of pleading entered her high voice. “I need to you to go back and find it for me. Q is so mad at me already.”
“You’re just trying to get rid of me,” Sarah said.
“That, too.” Erin nodded. “But you do want to read this note. And I thought I saw something else on the kitchen floor that might interest you.”
“Okay,” Sarah relented.
“Thank you so much,” Erin gushed. They embraced each other warmly, all awkwardness gone.
Sarah allowed herself a deep sigh with her arms around her friend. After a few moments, she sat back. “Did he really act with Karen like he acts with me?”
Erin stared at Sarah for a second, then remembered what she’d said that day at her guesthouse. “No.” She smiled. “I’ve never seen him act this way. Definitely not with me. That’s why Martin and Owen and I tried to collar him. Guess what? You can’t collar Q.”
They grinned at each other as they stood. But Erin’s smile faded as Sarah headed for the reception desk rather than the exit. The receptionists stood at the ready.
“Where are you going?” Erin wailed.
“I’m not leaving until I see him,” Sarah said.
Erin ran to insert herself between Sarah and the emergency room. “Girlfriend,” she said pointedly, “this is still my band. This is my Nationally Televised Whatever Whatever. At least for five more hours, until nine o’clock, when the show’s over and the fireworks start, this is my band, and Q is mine.” Her expression softened. “And then you can have him.”
Sarah escaped the paparazzi without making a statement except to say that the Nationally Televised Holiday Concert Event would go on as planned. With a sigh of relief, she slipped into the BMW, exited the parking deck, and accelerated onto Eighth Avenue South, the usually bustling thoroughfare all but deserted for the holiday. After five minutes, she pulled into Quentin’s driveway.
The door into the kitchen was ajar, with air-conditioning seeping out and hot humidity flooding the dark room. The usually maid-clean marble floor was littered with the leavings from the paramedics, plastic bags marked STERILE and ripped open. There were also a few small white sheets of paper.
She picked up one sheet. On it was scrawled, Sarah has it.
Sarah went cold, even with warmth from outside swirling around her. Quentin must have written this, and he meant the inhaler. Surely this wasn’t what Erin had wanted Sarah to see. If she was trying to make Sarah feel guilty, she’d succeeded.
Frantically Sarah grabbed up the other notes. 911, one said, and the next, Help, dumbass, which didn’t make her feel any better.
Her high-heeled sandal kicked something solid under the plastic bags. She stooped to find a jewelry store ring box.
Poised to open it, she saw that her hands shook, and Natsuko slapped Sarah around. There was no telling whether it was meant for her.
Inside was a freaking enormous diamond flanked by hefty emeralds.
It was for her.
She slipped its cool weight onto her finger.
That’s when she saw the last note, which had drifted under the cabinets.
SARAH
I love you
Don’t leave
Sarah sat down on the floor with the note. She read the six words over and over, ran her fingertip over the messy handwriting, touched I love you.
“Found something?” Nine Lives asked behind her.
Tonight would be a first for the Cheatin’ Hearts since they became famous. They would tell the truth.
In the emergency room, they’d all agreed—the rest of them talking, Quentin writing on a pad—that they would mention Erin’s pregnancy in the act.
Then Owen had suggested they nix the cowboy hats. Everyone heartily seconded this idea. Erin had always complained that the hats messed up her hair, and Quentin found them bothersome and sweaty at an outdoor concert.
Martin had told them that he would check himself into rehab as soon as the concert was over tonight. And when they’d arrived at Vulcan Park, he’d taken his long-sleeved shirt off in the heat, revealing the purplish track marks snaking up both arms. Quentin wondered whether he would keep the shirt off for the concert. He thought Martin might have gone off the deep end. But he hoped this was step one toward recovery: admitting to the world that he had a problem.
It was Martin’s turn to get drunk. He didn’t bring it up, and the rest of them were reluctant to push him, considering. Quentin didn’t volunteer because he planned to have a lot going on with Sarah after the concert. He figured Owen felt the same way about Erin. This would be their first completely sober concert in two years.
Quentin looked forward to the concert. He looked forward to playing it naked, so to speak, revealing their real strengths and flaws. It was nice to be himself again after two years of deceit. Even if, at the moment, being himself meant lying in the payload of Owen’s truck, flattened by asthma, staring up at Vulcan’s butt, pining for Sarah.
They wouldn’t let him go look for her. He needed to rest and recover as best he could for the concert. And Owen had taken his cell phone away so he wouldn’t be tempted to talk. Which was just as well. He’d left Sarah three voice mail messages before he had the attack, when he was searching for her. If he left her ten more, he might start to look pitiful.
He sat up for the millionth time and scanned the parking lot for Sarah’s BMW. Spaces were filling up fast for the Nationally Televised Holiday Concert Event, but security had been instructed to look for Sarah’s pink hair and let her back here, past the barriers. There wasn’t a sign of her. No flash of pink in the crowd. He waved halfheartedly to the Timberlanes and their butler, whom he’d gotten front-row seats.
Surely Sarah would show. If not before the concert, during. But he needed a plan in case she didn’t come. Maybe there was a red-eye flight from Birmingham to New York, or—hey, he had a big-ass truck! He could drive to Atlanta to catch a flight. He wondered how much it would cost to charter a flight himself. Usually he didn’t waste money on flashy stuff like that, but this was important.
Why didn’t she call?
Maybe there was something wrong with her cell phone. He could leave her an e-mail message in
case she checked her laptop. He slid out of the truck bed and headed for the large trailer functioning as a dressing room so he could retrieve his phone from Owen.
Inside the trailer, Martin reclined on a sofa with his eyes closed, lost in something he was composing on his acoustic guitar, shirt still off. Erin laughed with the woman piling and spraying her hair on top of her head. Owen sat in a chair across the room from Erin, grinning at her unabashedly.
Quentin pulled up a chair next to Owen and sat down. Without taking his eyes away from Erin, Owen handed over Quentin’s cell phone so Quentin could make sure it was set to ring and that Sarah hadn’t left a message. Quentin let out a frustrated sigh and started coughing again.
The hairdresser spun Erin around to spray the back of her hair. Now Erin faced Owen. Erin beamed at him. Owen’s smiled broadened.
Quentin tried to climb out of his mood to be happy for them. They both were so content, sharing sappy looks with each other across the room. But he only sank deeper into the funk, contemplating how he’d prevented them from being together for five years. Unknowingly, but he should have known.
After a few minutes of silence except for Martin’s guitar and Erin’s animated laughter, Owen said quietly to Quentin, “Don’t be sorry. I should have said something or done something. I was afraid of chasing her off, and I wanted to be near her. Anyway, it doesn’t matter now.”
Quentin typed a text message on his phone and handed it to Owen: Vonnie Conner.
Owen looked at the screen and handed the phone back to Quentin. “Vonnie Conner,” Owen muttered in disgust. “Q, Sarah is nothing like that. Vonnie Conner led you on. Behind that poker face, Sarah feels and sees. She had my number from day one. That’s why I avoided her. Every time she looked at me, I felt like she was coming up and punching me in the chest.”
Quentin nodded, because he knew what Owen meant.
“I thought all along that it was a shame you couldn’t break Rule Three,” Owen said. “You’re perfect for each other. Surely she sees that, too. You’ll have a great life together. She’s just held up somewhere.”
Quentin sighed and nodded again.
Owen said, “I like it a lot better when you can’t talk.”
The trailer door opened. Quentin sucked in his breath, knowing it was Sarah at last.
Then coughed, because he’d breathed too deeply. It was only Rachel.
She stopped and put her hand through Martin’s hair. Then she came to stand in front of Quentin.
“Did you find her?” he whispered.
She shook her head no. “But I have a confession.” She eyed Owen, and then her gaze slid back to Quentin. “I’m the one who called her down here.”
“What?” Owen asked sharply.
She turned to make sure Martin hadn’t heard, then gave Owen a reproving look. Quietly she told Quentin, “I really did agree with you that we couldn’t get Martin in rehab secretly if he didn’t want to go. And if we went to Owen and Erin to talk about an intervention, they would kick him out of the band, which would be the end of him.”
Owen’s mouth twisted in guilt.
“What I didn’t agree with,” Rachel said, “was that the problem would work itself out. I had to do something. I’d heard of a PR crisis manager who’d saved Lorelei Vogel’s career a couple of years ago—remember what a mess that girl was? But I didn’t want to call this PR lady and explain Martin’s problem. My contract says you guys could sue me if I did that.”
“I wouldn’t—” Quentin started to protest.
Rachel held one finger up to his lips. “You haven’t been yourself since Thailand. I wasn’t going to take that chance, not when I’m supporting my sister and my brother. Anyway . . . ” She took a deep breath. “I called Manhattan Music and told them the band was about to break up because you were jealous of Erin and Owen. They panicked, predictably. I made them promise not to say who called, just to convey that message, and I suggested the crisis manager. I figured when she came down to straighten you out, she would discover Martin’s problem and solve it. If anybody could have finagled a way out of that mess, it was her. But she was on maternity leave, so her company sent Sarah.”
“Was it Wendy Mann?” Quentin asked hoarsely. When Rachel nodded, he looked up at the metal ceiling and sent a silent thanks to baby Asher for entering the world at just the right time, so Sarah would be sent to save them all.
“I just wanted you to know,” Rachel said sadly. “I’m glad it all worked out for us, more or less. But Sarah’s thought the whole time that you’re in love with Erin. And if she’s angry about being lied to, that might be why she’s still missing.”
Quentin hugged Rachel, letting her know without words that she’d done the right thing, and she was a lot smarter than him.
Then he crossed the trailer, stepped into the setting sunlight, and slammed the flimsy door behind him. With one last glance around the parking lot for the BMW, he slid into the payload of Owen’s truck and composed an e-mail message to Sarah.
17
Sarah, I love you. Please come back to me. I’m so sorry. Rachel was the one who called you down to help Martin. The story about me was fake. She didn’t tell me any of that until just now. And I’m sure the denouement you witnessed at my house was a freak show. I didn’t mean for you to find out that way. I was going to tell you everything about me this afternoon, and all the rules, but you weren’t at your hotel or my house, and you didn’t answer your cell. I had no idea Erin was pregnant. If I had, I wouldn’t have let you go on thinking the baby was mine. I swear I had nothing to do with it. I last had sex with Erin two years ago, on Memorial Day. I remember this specifically because we played a gig in Auburn, and there was a row. I do love her, but not the way you meant the day you asked in the emergency room. Honestly, Sarah, I know I’ve hurt your feelings over and over in the last ten days, because I thought I had to for the band. It’s killed me every time. Please don’t go to New York. If you’re there, please come back. If you don’t come back, I’ll come get you, but tell me your travel plans so we don’t chase each other back and forth across the continent. You know I could take that Fawn guy, and he will never, ever make you aloo gobi. They’re waving to me. I have to go. I’m getting a little desperate here, Sarah. I’d skip the Nationally Televised Holiday Concert Event to come find you, but then I’d be in worse trouble with you if you got fired. Right? Now I really have to go. This is driving me out of my freaking mind. I need you back. Where are you? Please come.
For long periods, Sarah would lie on one of the sofas in Quentin’s den with her head in Nine Lives’ lap, staring up at the cat-eye contacts that hid his pupils, dilated from methamphetamine. His story, terrifying the first time she’d heard it almost nine months ago, was familiar enough now that she could tune it out. She was out to get him, Manhattan Music had it in for him, the proceeds from his album sales were being used to bribe the TV entertainment news shows into calling him a has-been. He flipped through the channels, trying to find one of these shows to make his point to her. For some reason, each time he gave up, he stopped the TV on a NASCAR race. Whenever he paused, Sarah responded calmly, “Mmmm-hmmm. I understand what you’re saying.”
Then he would jump up, take a swig of vodka from his flask, and pace around and around the coffee table as if he couldn’t figure out how to escape the U of sofas, ranting about the very real offense Sarah had committed against him. The food was bad in jail, and it was hard to get sushi and meth brought in when Sarah had cut off his money.
The cycle went on for hours while Sarah plotted a way out of this. There wasn’t a phone in the house. Her phone was in her bag in the BMW. That was her only hope, really: 911. There was no escaping in the BMW. Even if she managed to dash out to the driveway and slip into the convertible without Nine Lives catching her, his bodyguard would be waiting down at the gate. With a crowbar, because the bodyguard planned ahead.
Nine Lives pounced on the sofa. “How long did you think they’d keep me in Rio, Sarah?” he
purred close to her face. “It’s fine to bribe the police, but when you leave, they start taking bribes from someone else.” His hot breath was on her cheek. He was near enough to bite her.
She tried to concentrate on NASCAR. “I was scared, Bill,” she said. “You cut me with your ring when you hit me.”
He smiled grimly and rubbed the scar in his plucked eyebrow. “And you need to be more careful with that shoe.” He leaned even closer. His lips touched her cheek as he growled at her, “Have you ever gotten stitches in a Brazilian jail?”
His soft hand with the long fingernails filed to points grazed her rib cage and headed south. She tried not to tense. This NASCAR race was actually pretty exciting.
His fingers reached her hand guarding her lap. His nails rasped across the diamond-and-emerald ring. He started back, then picked up her hand to examine the stone more closely. “Speaking of rings,” he said. “You’re in the national gossip columns with this singer from the Cheatin’ Hearts. And they call me your ex-boyfriend. Did he give you this ring?” He moved his soft hand to her throat. “And the necklace? What happened to the ankhs I gave you?”
“You know it’s not like that, Bill,” she said with reproach. “I’ve told you I never date musicians.” This wouldn’t have been a lie ten days ago. “It’s business. New musicians, new jewelry.”
Nine Lives sniffed. “I have something special for you, too.” He pulled a tiny bottle and a packaged syringe from his pocket and showed them to her. “Kryptonite.”
Sarah hoped this wasn’t a new delusion. She said carefully, “I’m not Supergirl.”
“Figuratively, Sarah,” he said. “Do you think I’m crazy? It’s bee venom. You made the local paper with your little problem.”
“Bee venom,” Sarah repeated emotionlessly. “Where did you get bee venom?”