her, and he never saw Daisy that day. He’d been tracking down gigs for us.”
“He said we didn’t need her,” Cara added. “That she was overshadowing us.”
And it would give him a way to get his lover into the band.
“Did any of you tell my brother any of this? What Daisy told you about Sherman?” I asked, my eyes skipping from one face to the next. They all shook their heads.
“He’s our manager,” Josie said. “We need him.”
“You need to tell my brother what you know,” I said. “What if Daisy was right? You’re taking his word against hers, and the Daisy I knew wasn’t a liar. You can always get another manager.”
None of them looked as though they believed me.
“She
The big security guard stuck his head in the door. “Five,” he said, then disappeared.
I thought about Ainsley the blogger. Also dead. And I remembered what Tim had asked me.
“What’s Ainsley’s last name?” I asked.
They all looked at me as if I had three heads, but Cara said, “Wainwright. Her name is Ainsley Wainwright.”
I couldn’t breathe for a second. Okay, so that could not be a coincidence. And it probably wasn’t a coincidence that Ainsley was conveniently missing the same day another Ainsley Wainwright was found dead in her apartment across town. Since blogger Ainsley was dead, it only figured that Sherman’s Ainsley had taken her identity for some reason. But when had she taken it? Sherman Potter seemed like he’d known her longer than just a day or so, which was how long the blogger had been dead.
I needed to let Tim know what was going on, what these girls had said about Daisy and Sherman, and about Ainsley Wainwright.
Before I could take my cell phone out of my bag, though, yet another burly security guard stepped into the room and nodded at the girls. They all shuffled to their feet, Josie’s drumsticks now tapping the air.
“We’ll talk after,” Melanie promised as they left the room.
Jeff and I stared at each other a second before that first security guard came back in. “I can take you to your seats,” he said gruffly.
“I need to make a call first,” I said, now pulling my phone out and punching in Tim’s number. The guard didn’t look all that happy with me.
“You can’t stay in here,” he argued.
I shrugged at Jeff, my phone to my ear, as we allowed ourselves to be herded out. It was louder out here, though, the music blasting, and I could barely hear the phone ringing. We turned a corner, and I thought I saw someone familiar up head. Familiar in that she was a tall redhead. Walking very briskly away from us, so I only saw her back.
I dropped my phone from my ear and cocked my head toward her, asking Jeff, “Look familiar?”
He didn’t seem to hear me, since he was one step ahead of me, sprinting forward, but he didn’t get too far before the security guard stepped in front of him.
“Can’t go down there.”
If looks could kill, the guard would be so dead. But he was a lot bigger than Jeff, and it seemed that he clearly meant to keep him from going farther. Jeff’s mouth set in a grim line, his fists clenched, but he didn’t try to get past the guy.
The security guard flicked his wrist, to indicate we were to follow him. The sounds of the arena faded as we went through a side door and down a long hallway. We hadn’t come up this way, and it seemed that he was purposely leading us away from the woman we’d seen.
I felt like I was living that scene in
Just when I thought we would never see any other human being again, we turned a corner and the security guard pushed open a door.
And shoved us out into the night, slamming the door shut behind us.
Jeff and I stared at each other.
“What’s up with this?” I asked, trying to pull the door open again. It was locked tight.
“It was her,” Jeff said.
I knew whom he meant. The woman he’d met who’d been impersonating me. But I didn’t think so. Ainsley Wainwright was supposed to sing tonight. Her debut as a Flamingo. But why would she be lurking around the arena rather than out on stage with the rest of the band? Maybe she’d shown up while Jeff and I were talking to everyone. It would make sense that she’d run from us; she probably recognized me. She probably managed to get the security guard to make sure we wouldn’t see her. Having met her, I could see how she’d be able to do that. I’d seen how she behaved with Harry. She was a vixen, that one.
I put my phone back to my ear. I’d lost the call, but I redialed. It was quiet out here, so I could actually hear.
No answer.
I tossed the phone back in my bag. Jeff was surveying the door, his expression blank.
I checked out where we were: in a back parking lot. A Hummer limousine sat about fifty yards away. A chain- link fence surrounded the whole lot, probably to keep the riffraff out. Since we were on this side of the fence, I’d like to consider us anything but riffraff.
But then I saw the riffraff. And heard them. There must have been twenty or thirty of them. Young girls and guys, having a sort of tailgate party just beyond the fence. A portable iPod speaker blasted music-the Flamingos- into the still night; they danced with their arms high in the air, hands holding beer bottles that sloshed liquid as they moved. Stuck in the ground were five plastic pink flamingos, dressed up with Hawaiian leis and pink boas. One even wore a rhinestone tiara.
Fans. Who probably couldn’t get tickets to the concert so they were hanging out back here, waiting for it to be over and for a possible glimpse of their favorite band as they headed to the limo.
Jeff didn’t pay any attention to them as he started toward the limo.
“Where are you going?” I asked after him.
He shook his head and continued walking. I jogged to catch up with him.
“Aren’t we going to try to get back in?” I asked.
He shrugged me off as we reached the limo. He knocked on the driver’s side window. It came down a few inches. A pair of eyes stared out at us.
“I can’t help you,” a disembodied voice said ominously.
“We need to get back inside,” Jeff said.
“Yeah, they all say that.” His eyes flicked to the right, toward the party that was going on.
I didn’t want to be mixed up in the company of those kids. And I was willing to bet Jeff really didn’t want to be mistaken for a crazy Flamingo fan, either. Although if they were really fans, they would’ve gotten themselves tickets one way or another. I had not been above sleeping overnight on the sidewalk for a Springsteen ticket.
I shook off the thoughts. We needed to get back inside. Someone didn’t want us in there for some reason, and I wanted to find out why.
Jeff was talking to the limo driver, who had let the window down another couple of inches but not enough to show his entire face yet.
“Just give them a call and say you’ve got trouble back here,” Jeff said. He cocked his head toward the groupies outside the fence. “Maybe you could insinuate that they’re storming the limo.”
I could tell the guy wasn’t quite sure what “insinuate” meant.
“Hey!”
The shout came from the party. Jeff and I turned to see a girl in a tight shirt and even tighter jeans holding up
