Margo rushed forward. Had she shouted his name? Was she shouting or was it everyone else? When he’d started to sing, she wanted to shut him down, but he’d sounded fine.

Until he didn’t.

The blood. God. Someone pulled her back and she fought.

“They’re helping him.”

Security surrounded him. And because it was a general admission show, there was a paramedic on the campus.

Thank God.

He handled Simon. The white latex scarlet-tipped as the paramedic rolled him and cleared his airway. Blood puddled on the stage, splashed over Simon’s shirt, and streaked across his cheek.

She swayed.

“No you don’t. C’mon, you’re not that girl, right?”

Margo looked over her shoulder at Jamie DuCaine from Brooklyn Dawn. They were eye to eye, both of them tall compared to the other women on the tour.

Margo shook her head and swiveled to watch them again. A plastic tube flashed and she watched in horror as the medic forced it down his throat.

Simon thrashed and she tried to go to him again.

No.

Simon.

Didn’t they know they could be doing more damage? But at that point it was only oxygen that mattered. Then he was on a stretcher and whisked across the stage.

Lila reached through the crowd and grabbed her hand.

Margo tried to turn around to thank Jamie, but the crowd on stage swallowed her and she was on the move. Lila dragged her over cords, through trunks, and to the backstage side door where a car was waiting.

“Get in.”

Lila’s assistant jumped out from the driver side. “Do you want me to drive so you can do the phone thing?”

Lila nodded. “Good thinking.”

Margo climbed into the back of the silver Camry and they spit gravel as they fishtailed out of the side parking lot.

Traffic was murder, but Lila’s assistant had to have been an Indy driver in a former life. He jumped the curb, sped along the sidewalk, and then out to the main road. “Find me a side street to go around this.”

Lila turned to Margo and she caught the cell phone that Lila shot back at her. With trembling fingers, she found the map program and directed.

The hospital felt like it was a million miles away. California traffic was cruel and capricious, but this was home turf for the band. Once they were off the campus, Lila’s assistant knew where to go and what streets to take.

Lila was talking so fast that Margo couldn’t keep up. A call to Donovan, the hospital, the specialist that they’d already looked into.

Everything went so fast.

They pulled up to the hospital. She and Lila jumped out and their driver peeled away from the curb before security shooed them away from the loading area.

They rushed the ER. They didn’t want to give Lila any information, but since Simon didn’t have any family and Lila pulled out some paper, they were pushed ahead.

“What was that?”

“What?”

Margo swallowed. “What was that magic piece of paper that let us in?”

“Power of attorney, baby. In an emergency, I have it for those who don’t have family.”

She didn’t want to examine why that hurt her on a basic level. All she could focus on was getting inside and getting to Simon’s bedside.

Lila swore at what awaited them. The waiting room was full of people. Some were for their own emergency needs, but the bulk of the crowd was clearly reporters.

Margo gasped as even Kim Forrester from Music Life was there. How the hell had they gotten there so fast?

Kim spotted Lila and advanced on them like a tsunami on the coast. Margo stumbled back as two other reporters with cameras zeroed in on them.

“Is it true Simon Kagan collapsed onstage at the end of a sold-out show?”

“We were advised that it was laryngitis, but it seems far more serious than that.”

“Was it drug related?”

“Was he stabbed?”

Margo pushed her way out of the crush. What the hell? She understood it was big news, but not to this level. Oblivion was one of the largest bands around right now, and especially here on their home turf, but they weren’t quite the Beatles.

Not yet.

“Did he collapse because of the news of Snake’s death?”

Margo whirled around. Kim’s intelligent and gleefully bright gaze met hers, then moved onto Lila.

Lila stopped moving. “What did you say?”

Kim Forrester was the center of attention now. “William Scotsman was found dead this afternoon, an apparent accidental drowning. Or suicide.”

The reporters doubled their efforts and Lila grabbed Margo’s hand again. A small anchor in the center of insanity.

Nick and Deacon pushed their way through. Seeing fresh blood, Kim arrowed her microphone and her camera at Nick.

“Did Simon collapse at the news of William Scotsman’s death?”

Nick’s gold eyes widened as he advanced on the reporter. “What did you say?”

“William Scotsman, otherwise known as Snake, was found dead at the Santa Monica Pier this morning. He’d washed up with the afternoon tide. It’s unclear if it was a suicide or accidental.”

At Nick’s horrified face, Kim’s gleeful eyes lost a little of their sparkle.

Deacon pushed Nick through the throng of reporters and gawkers. Lila hooked her arm through Nick’s and they powered their way to the back of the waiting room.

Security muscled into the room and shouts of first amendment rights were drowned out by the swift and precise orders of very large orderlies and three officers.

Margo was jostled into a hallway and an eerie silence fell around her. People were rushing around a glassed-in room. She couldn’t stop herself from walking toward it.

Somehow she knew it was him.

Three men in lab coats and a woman with red hair and surgical scrubs surrounded Simon. His concert clothes had been removed and the cotton johnny coat sagged around his shoulders.

The redheaded doctor was shouting, but Margo couldn’t hear her above the white noise filling her head. The woman jerked the gurney away from the wall and shoved at one of the men in the lab coats.

Two nurses and the doctor in scrubs wheeled him into the hallway and Margo finally snapped out of it.

“Move!” The redheaded doctor’s blue eyes blazed.

“Please, he’s my…” Margo swallowed. What was he to her?

Just hers.

Mine.

He was so pale and that tube down his throat made her ache. She reached over the side railing and ghosted her fingers through his dark hair.

“We have to go, Miss.”

Margo blew out a breath. “You take care of him.”

The doctor nodded. “I’m the best.”

Then they were gone and the elevator doors closed after him.