Brian drew back with a frown. “I apologize. Did I offend you? It was just a spontaneous idea—”
Three knocks pounded the door, an angry sound that fried Helen’s nerves. Was a break-in underway?
“Get out here, Shepherd.” Joe’s distinctive, worked-up voice shouted beyond the wall. “You have got some serious explaining to do.”
Twelve
Hovering in the hotel room doorway, Joe, red-faced with a vein popping near his temple, yelled at Brian about some social gaffe he’d allegedly committed.
Helen shrank in the wake of the manager’s furious accusations. Screaming matches still rattled her, excavating memories of hiding in the closet of her volatile, toxic home. She wrapped herself in a hug, picking at the decal on her old sleeping T-shirt.
“I don’t owe you so much as a hello. As the matter of fact, you’re fired. Get out, bugger off, and leave me alone.” At Helen’s side, Brian shoved the door into Joe, pushing him into the hall.
Joe growled through a useless attempt to insist his way into Brian’s suite. His sausage fingers appeared in the crack between door and jamb, knuckles white and tendons straining, but he retracted them before the force of Brian’s weight trapped and smashed the digits.
“I’m sorry, mate. I tried to keep him away, but he was on a mission.” This from a third man. He spoke in an English accent like Brian’s but with a husky smoker’s gravel.
“Don’t do this, man,” Joe bellowed, but a tremor of fear shook his voice. “I’m going to tell you one more time that you need to do the right thing and abide these guys. For your band. Your career. Your daughter.”
Brian snarled, muscles feathering in his neck and jaw. His entire body tensed, and he emitted a scarlet, furious energy. In a big yank, he tugged the door wide.
Joe stumbled over the threshold, a feral look in his eyes. His shirt was inside-out and backwards, and he smelled fishy and foul. Dude came off like a complete shit show, which made his presence more worrisome. Desperation could act as a powerful drive, goading people into all sorts of abusive and hurtful acts.
With a hard shove, Brian pushed the manager back into the hallway. “If you ever, ever, threaten my daughter again, you are dead. Understood?”
The third man, handsome in a rugged way with brown waves grazing beefy shoulders, caught the manager before he collapsed. His hair and thick build rang bells, conjuring up memories of magazine covers. Thom James, the bassist whom Stacy had been with.
“I’m not sure he’s the one threatening your girl,” Thom said.
“The fuck you talking about?” Brian shot Thom a look of wounded confusion, then glowered at Joe.
“I’m warning you.” Joe panted. “It isn’t me. There are guys higher up than me, way higher. But I’ve made promises that I must honor. These guys have expectations.”
Who were “these guys”? Music industry cult members like Elwell? Helen better figure out what this slimy little orc knew and how much skin he had in the whole fucked up game.
“Who are you talking about?” Helen took a step forward. “You need to be more forthright, because we could all be in danger.”
Joe sneered at Helen. “You aren’t part of our ‘we,’ honey.”
“Leave her alone. You heard her. Start spilling,” Brian said. “Details. Now.”
Thom propped Joe upright and thrust a manila envelope at Brian. “He says someone slid these under his door. I was on my way to the ice machine when I saw him headed for your room. I said I needed to take a look.”
Face pale, Brian accepted the tan folder and unfolded its metal clasp. He slipped out a stack of black and white, eight-by-ten photos and flipped through grainy pictures.
None of the four people present uttered a peep. Time hardened into amber, fossilizing everyone in mute paralysis. Down the hall, a vacuum cleaner buzzed.
The first shot showed a headshot of a gorgeous teenage girl with a cropped pixie haircut.
Glossy paper made a whisking sound as Brian flipped. Same girl, sitting on a couch with several other girls, drinking coffee. In the third, she leaned over to buckle one of her sandals. The pose and lighting created a striking, unsettling sense of intimacy. Stalker-ish.
The fourth shot was a close up of the girl’s sleeping face.
The fifth, an empty cot in the middle of a dingy basement.
The sixth, a wormy pile in the center of a pentagram. Someone had knifed the word “sacrificium” in scratchy white streaks over the gruesome visual.
Nausea wrenched Helen’s stomach as bile vaulted up her esophagus. But the pictures could be a scare tactic, a deliberate manipulation engineered to induce panic. Best to remain as calm as the bleak situation would allow. She clenched Brian’s forearm. “We can’t say for certain—”
“Where is she? What have you done?” Brian shouted at Joe, agony tearing ragged holes in his voice.
Joe put up his hands. “She’s fine. This is a threat, a shot fired. But rest assured, they haven’t done anything yet. They want you. But they will retaliate. Which is why I’m telling you, you can’t back out now.”
“Oh, you best believe I won’t rest assured.” Brian ran to the bedroom. He returned hopping into jeans. A wrinkled T-shirt haphazardly clung to his torso, hiked up enough to show a dot of dark blue bruise above his hip. A creepy sensation tightened her skin. She hadn’t noticed the mark when he’d been naked minutes ago.
“What’s going on?” Thom scratched his head of mussed hair.
“I’ll explain later,” Helen said to the bewildered bass player. Brian’s bandmates could serve as allies, eyes and ears.
Cell phone pressed to the side of his head and pictures clutched in his free hand, Brian paced. “Tilly, thank God. Thank God. You’re at your Beverly Hills flat right now? Good. Good. Stay there baby, okay? Lock all of the doors and windows and get out your pepper spray. Call nine-one-one if anything suspicious happens, and
