Van Nuys, California

 

Jason was nearly home, his arm aching from the day and the effort of carrying Kat into the bedroom. He stopped at a red light and rubbed it, trying to relieve the bone-deep pain that wouldn’t go away no matter what he did.

There were pills in his medicine cabinet. They’d been there since he was released from the hospital two years ago. Vicodin. He could take one or two, and it would ease the pain. But then he’d have to take more, and he didn’t want that.

But they were there, just in case.

Instead, he rubbed his arm and thought of Kat, lying there with her hair spread out against the pillows. He’d never seen anything more beautiful in all his life. He could have sat there and watched her sleep all night, content just to lay eyes on that beauty. To be the lucky man who was allowed to do that. But he knew watching wasn’t where it would end, and he wasn’t quite ready to take it to that level.

The tune she’d played on the piano haunted him a little. It was beautiful and achingly sad all at the same time. He wondered where it had come from. Was she really that unhappy, under it all? Or was it just the grief inside of him that heard the melancholy in the chords?

The light changed, and Jason eased the car through the intersection. He was about to turn into the small parking lot behind his building when he realized there was a light on in his apartment. He hadn’t left any lights on.

He had a split second to make a choice.

Jason pulled into the parking lot and slipped his gun out of the glove box. Checking the clip to be sure it was fully loaded, he shoved it back into place and flipped the safety off. Walking as normally as he could, the gun held close to his side, he made his way to the narrow walkway that would take him up the short flight of steps to his apartment door.

The door was open just a crack. He pushed it with the muzzle of the gun, moving back to stay out of the line of fire. When nothing happened after a second or two, he quickly charged through the door, his gun lifted.

“Who’s there?”

A shadow moved at the back of the living room. A light came on, and Ricky Clarkson revealed himself, sitting in the dirty armchair at the back of the room.

“We need to talk.”

“Yeah? You think so?”

Ricky leaned forward, his eyes on the gun. “Someone’s trying to set me up, make it look like I’m trying to hurt Kat.”

“What makes you think that?”

Ricky reached into his back pocket, the movement inspiring Jason to slip his finger over the trigger of his gun. But all he pulled out was his cell phone. He gestured with it before setting it carefully on the floor. Jason hesitated, but decided he wasn’t in immediate danger. He kicked the door closed with the heel of his foot and crossed the room, setting the gun on the top of his old television, the muzzle still facing Ricky, the safety still off. He was going to trust him, but he wasn’t completely insane.

Jason snatched the phone off the floor and backed away, standing near the gun as he looked at the email Ricky had pulled up on the screen.

“What does this prove?”

“Read it!”

It was an email from the same address the emails sent to Tony Fachelli had come from. The body was just a few words:

‘It’s about to pay off.’

Attached were a couple of documents from an insurance policy. Jason didn’t get it at first, but then he zoomed in and found himself staring at a policy worth five million dollars that only paid off if Kat Carlisle died in an accident.

Ricky Clarkson was the beneficiary.

“What is this?”

Ricky shook his head. “Years ago, we were traveling in Asia, and we had a couple of close calls with the driver of our bus. Someone got to talking about all the accidents that had claimed singers’ lives—you know, Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, Patsy Cline—and someone suggested we all get accident insurance on Kat so that we would have an income even if she wasn’t around to play music with. It was a joke! I never realized Camille had really done it!”

“You had to have signed the paperwork to get this.”

“Sure. Camille was always giving us things to sign. Contracts and rental agreements and hotel receipts. She’d shove something in front of me, and I’d sign without looking.”

“That’s not a good idea.”

“You’re telling me.”

“Do you know who sent this email to you?”

“I called Alison. She swears she hasn’t used that email account in years.”

“Who else would have access to it?”

He shook his head. “Me. Her. Half a dozen people who worked with her at the production office.”

“She used it as a business email?”

“Mostly, yeah. When she was working as an assistant for this record producer Kat was contracted to five, six years ago. Before she joined the band.”

“Do you know this bank account?”

Jason set Ricky’s phone down and tugged his own out of his pocket, pulling up the information the tech guys from Mastiff had sent him in regards to the banking information they’d gotten from Tony Fachelli’s PayPal account. He held his phone up where Ricky could see it and watched the color drain from his face as he read the information.

“I had an account at that bank some years ago, but I’m sure I closed it.”

“Is this the account number?”

“Hell, I don’t remember! It was a long time ago.”

“Why would someone want us to think you were trying to kill Kat?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe someone found out I was stepping in as her manager now that Camille’s gone.”

“She fired Camille?”

“I would have thought she’d have told you.”

Jason crossed his arms over his chest. “She hasn’t.”

“A little over a month ago now. She’d been trying to fire her for more than a year, but Camille refused to take the hint. Kat finally had to pull in her lawyers, ask them to find a way to get her out legally. It wasn’t a pretty scene.”

“I can’t imagine it would be. That’s a hell of a way to fire your own mother.”

Ricky ran his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know what’s going on, man. I just know that I got that email this morning, and it freaked me out. I wasn’t even on set when the light fixture fell! I’ve been dealing with the record label over the new album. They want to release a month earlier than Chamberlain’s production company planned, and neither one is willing to budge. And the tour dates are getting all screwed up because she wants to stick to these smaller venues, but they aren’t prepared for the sort of response this is going to get from her fans, you know? She wants to have small, intimate shows, but she’s a huge star! I don’t think even she appreciates how big she is these days.”

Ricky was babbling, and the pain in Jason’s arm was growing more intense. He didn’t want to have this discussion just now, didn’t want this man in his apartment.

“Have you told anyone else about this?”

“No,” Ricky said. “Who would I tell?”

“Why did you come here?”

Ricky ran his hands over the tops of his thighs as he leaned forward a little, a small snicker slipping from his lips. “It’s going to sound like I’m insane, but I was afraid if I called you or if I went to Kat, someone would overhear, and it would come back to bite me, you know? Strange things happen in this business, and I’m not done here, you know? I want to keep playing the music, want to keep traveling with Kat. I like working with Kat. I don’t want to go to jail.”

“Yet, you came to me, the one guy who’s been tasked with protecting Kat? You think I won’t call my boss and have her send one of her old cop friends over here to take you in?”

Ricky stood, making Jason move back slightly, closer to his gun.

“I think we both care about Kat. And I think you’ll do what’s best for her.” Ricky dragged a hand over his scalp. “I’m going back to the hotel to get back on the phone with the record label, my conscience clear.”

Ricky started to walk past Jason, but Jason grabbed his arm. “Stay away from her until this is done. If I hear you even attempted to call her, I’ll have my operatives bring you in.”

“Yes, sir,” he said, flipping a disrespectful salute.

Jason stared at him for a moment, then let him go. Ricky grabbed his cell phone from where Jason had set it on the television beside the gun and disappeared out the door.

Jason secured his gun, slipping the safety back on and setting it out of sight in a drawer in the kitchen. He rubbed his arm, the pain growing more intense with every moment that passed. It was often worse at night, but this was particularly bad.

It was the stress of everything. It was Kat and the drama going on around her. It was the possibility of losing more than just his job if this case went wrong.

Was it possible this had something to do with Kat’s mother? Could Camille be so pissed about her daughter firing her that she was trying to kill her? Did Camille have a life insurance policy like Ricky’s?

He picked up his phone and sent an email to the research department at Mastiff. He needed to know where Camille Adams was, and he needed to know what she might be capable of. They’d find out at least part of that.