Chapter 39

Present …

Chelsea pushed the bedroom door all the way and flicked on the light switch. He was lying on the bed, crosswise, fully clothed. The room smelled of booze. The sound of the front door made her backtrack, and she went back to the living room. Pulling his luggage behind him with a gym bag slung over his shoulder, Andrew walked in.

“Chelsea?” his eyes widened when they saw her.

“Andrew, you’re back!”

He dropped his gym bag and leaned the luggage against the wall. “Yes, I came back last evening,” he said, thumbing towards Colt’s room. “He’s in bad shape.”

“The others, are they coming back too?” she asked, hopeful.

He shook his head and sighed. “No, they say they won’t be coming back. Tony wants to sign his own label, and the others are going along with him.”

“Thanks for coming back; he needs all the support he can get. Now, if we can get Reid back, maybe we can pull this off,” she said, still pulling on some hope.

“That’s right,” he agreed.

“What the fu …” Colt’s voice sounded at the doorway. His voice trailed off as Chelsea turned.

At first, he stared at her, then he blinked and stared some more. She slowly walked over to him as his eyes followed her. She stepped close, her nostrils burned from the stench of alcohol. She wrapped her arms around his waist, hugging him close. He stiffened before grabbing her arms, prying them apart.

“No, I’m not letting you go,” she protested, overlapping her arms behind his back.

“Let go,” he growled. “Go back home. You deserve better.”

“I love you,” she whispered.

His hands paused their prying. “What?”

She raised her head and looked into his eyes. “I’m not leaving, okay.”

“Okay,” he relented. “I’m too tired to argue with you; we’ll talk about it later.”

She breathed a sigh of relief that he did not hear her the first time. Baring her soul was too raw now. She was certain he was not in the frame of mind to hear that. She hugged him, and slowly his arms closed around her, tightly.

“Colt,” she wheezed. “I can’t breathe.” He let his hand drop and stepped back, a sheepish look on his face. “Now, you must take a shower, you stink.”

“Ah, yeah.” He chuckled.

Chelsea took the chance to call for the hotel cleaning staff while he was in the shower. It was obvious the room had not been cleaned in days. Now there was one other task that she wasn’t certain she could handle. That task of calling Reid. She stood by the living room window and stared at the phone with apprehension. Finally, she dialed and waited. After three rings, the line opened.

“Chelsea, are you alright?” Reid’s voice sounded concerned.

“Hi Reid, I’m fine,” she replied.

“What can I do for you? I have a lot of contacts; I can get something for you really quick,” he said.

“No, I have a job … kind of.”

“That fast? Where … with whom?”

“With you,” she said in a quiet manner.

There was silence for a minute, and then he said, “Chelsea, I no longer work with Colt.”

“I know,” she answered.

She began to pace the floor, nervous and anxious at the same time.

“Then you know I have no job as we speak, right?” his voice softened.

“I know, but Colt needs us and … he needs you.”

“What?”

“Please come back, Reid; you can’t just leave him after so long,” she pleaded.

“Chelsea, where are you?”

“At the hotel, and so is Andrew. He came back as well, so there is a chance we can do something to fix all this.”

“It’s not that easy, Chelsea. Colt is a loose cannon, and I’ve had enough,” Reid said.

“Please Reid, can’t you even come and talk to him, work something out? I mean, he lost his mother, cut him some slack will you?”

After a few moments silence, she heard him let out a long breath; she held hers in, waiting.

“I don’t know; we’ll see,” he finally said. “I’ll call you later.”

Well, she tried. That’s what she told herself. What more could she do? She couldn’t very well drag Reid back. If he failed to return, it would be difficult to rebuild a group. Reid was the one to glue things together. He knew the industry inside out. Without him, or someone like him, it was of no use. Colt, she could manage on her own, but she had no inkling on how to form a band, whom to call to even get auditions going.

The more she thought about it, the more she realized that she could get nothing done by just sitting and waiting. If Reid didn’t return, she still had to try. If he came back, then all the better. With that mindset, she checked the itinerary. There was another concert in Florida in a month, and then they were back to NY Maddison Square Garden.

Andrew was on keyboard, Tony had been on bass guitar, Mike on drums and Cory on the electric guitar. Colt played the guitar, so all they needed were someone on bass and drums. She first called Andrew, who was resting in his room. Colt came out after his shower, so there was no need to go into his room.

He came out shaven, with his damp hair hanging loosely about his shoulders. She felt his eyes burn into her from her position at the window. He leaned against the doorframe where he regarded her. She allowed her eyes to linger on his defined pecs beneath the white T-shirt. Her heart did a somersault and began to do its usual racing at the sight of him.

“Hey Colt, Chelsea’s got an idea.” Andrew was the first to speak.

Before Colt could respond, the hotel line rang. Everyone turned to the desk. The loud ring filled the room as everyone stared at it in silence. Chelsea hoped it was Reid, but her feet refused to move to answer it. It rang six times before Colt’s voice moved her into action.

“Are you getting that?”

She made three strides and grabbed the phone mid-ring. “Hello?”

“Hello, this is Detective Henry. To whom am I speaking?”

Her stomach flipped. “Detective, it’s Chelsea,” she replied.

“Chelsea?” he sounded surprised. “I thought you left. I was going to call you next. It’s good you are there; I’m on my way up to see Colt. I’ll be there in two minutes.”

“Okay, see you in a bit.”

“Was that Detective Henry? Did he find anything?” Colt was beside her in seconds.

“I don’t know; he says he’s on his way. He said two minutes,” she informed him.

“I’ll go downstairs so you all can talk,” Andrew said, standing and stretching.

“No, I think you should stay, right Colt?” Chelsea looked pointedly at Colt.

He nodded. “Sure, why not?”

One of the many reasons why the other members felt that they could not stay with the band was because they felt left out of everything. Colt would always shut them out and keep to himself. He didn’t allow anyone to get close. He even hated rehearsals. It was a wonder that they were famous. As far as Chelsea was concerned, things would be different.

The knock at the door brought her thoughts back to the issue at hand. Andrew moved to let in the officer while Chelsea tried to still her unease. She didn’t know what it was. Perhaps it was the memory of her ordeal that made her restless or the anxiety that they did not catch the culprit. Panic froze her in the spot as Henry walked in.

“What have you got Detective?” Colt asked as soon as the man was through the door.

Henry took out a notebook and flipped a few pages. “How are you, Chelsea?” he asked, looking at her strangely for a minute. “Are you alright?”

Her stomach was queasy again, and the headache from earlier began to throb at her temples. “I’m fine,” she managed with a smile.

She could tell he was not convinced but dropped it. With a nod of the head, he turned to Colt. He flipped through a few more pages of his pad before speaking.

“Do you know a Casey Benson?” he asked.

A dark look crossed Colt’s face before he replied, “Yes.”

His jaws clenched. Chelsea observed his sudden change of mood. He moved to the window, where he turned his back to them.

“She’s Carl Benson’s sister,” he said. He turned and connected his eyes with her. “She committed suicide a few years back. Her brother blamed me for it.”

Henry raised his brows. “Who told you she committed suicide?”

“It was in the paper. Her brother has been all over me since. Where is all this going?” he seemed agitated.

Henry shook his head. “No, she never committed suicide,” he informed a surprised Colt. “There is a history of mental illness with the mother and later with her. The mother took her life a few years ago; maybe you got it wrong?”

“No, Carl has been hounding me for years, blaming me for her death. I didn’t get it wrong.”

“Then he lied to you, perhaps to make you feel guilty about his sister,” Henry replied, then turned to Chelsea. “Chelsea, did your friend describe that girl to you? The one you told me about?’

“What girl?” Colt cocked a brow.

“Molly told me that a girl she boarded had a lot of newspaper clippings of you and old photos. She said one of the photos looked like you at a younger age,” she said.

“How come I never heard of it?”

She inhaled and slowly let it out before answering, “Because I never got a chance to tell you. Many things happened since.”

“Oh,” he quietly replied.

“Do you think your friend would mind talking with me?” Henry inquired of Chelsea.

She shrugged. “I don’t see why not.”

“What’s all this about, Detective?” asked Colt.

“We’re checking on a few leads. Chelsea told me that she heard a male and a female voice, so we’re just checking it out. We’ll inform you when we have something concrete. Now on to more favorable news,” Henry said, flipping the notebook again.

Her heart rate had slowed somewhat, and she’d begun to relax. Colt was noticeably on edge and impatient. She closed the one-foot gap between them and stood close to him. What Henry was about to disclose might be about his mother’s case, and she knew he needed support.

“Your stepfather had an insurance policy that was claimed by your brother,” Henry started.

Colt cut him off mid-sentence. “He’s not my brother.”

Henry looked at him and back to his notes, “Stepbrother Jason ...”

“Wait, wasn’t he just a kid like Colt back then? How could he claim the insurance? Wouldn’t he need an adult to sign it?” Chelsea asked, curious about what Henry was saying.

“Exactly!” Henry agreed. “Moreover, his name was not the primary on the insurance. The guardian was Colt’s mother.”

“What are you saying?” Colt finally realized what was going on.

“We traced the insurance. Since your mother could not sign, we checked all the officials who were involved in the case. It just didn’t make sense that the insurance was claimed for a murder.”

Colt ran his hand through his hair and squinted his eyes. “So you’re saying that for the insurance to be claimed …?”

“The death has to be ruled as natural, and the DA’s office has to sign off on it,” Henry finished.

“It’s not making sense. If the DA signed off of the natural cause of death, why wasn’t my mother released?”

Henry smirked, “Good question. We’re now checking into that.”

“So Jason might have been involved in all this,” Colt murmured. “I could kill the bastard.”

“He’s disappeared as well. We’re looking for him as we speak. I also need to have a word with Carl Benson, the reporter. He has a lot of explaining to do.”

It seemed that the detective was putting all the pieces of the puzzle together, and perhaps Jason was at the center of it all. Chelsea wondered what else was hidden, and who else was involved. She also wondered about Carl’s sister and the relationship between Colt and her. There were so many unanswered questions that she was beginning to feel dizzy. Did she make the right decision coming back, or should she have gone ahead to New York?