Killer Riff (20 page)

“More cause for laughter!” I said, happy myself that someone’s problems seemed fixable.

“So I’m a jealous shrew,” she sniffed.

“No, you’re a woman in love who’s frustrated that she can’t see her guy as often as she’d like.”

“Why am I so angry?”

“Because you don’t handle being vulnerable very well, not having had much practice. Hard not to be in the driver’s seat, isn’t it?”

“I’m going to ignore that question. By the way, speaking of driver’s seats, Olivia’s lawyer was a little reticent on specifics, since the estate hasn’t been administered yet, but Russell’s death doesn’t seem to improve Claire’s position at all.”

“Really?”

“Olivia and I told him we were interested in doing a multimedia project that would feature the music of Subject to Change, and in light of Russell’s death, we wanted to know who had to sign off.”

“Besides Claire.”

“In his original will, Micah left control of the music to Claire and Russell. Equally. But not too long before he died, Mr. Drug-Addled Rock Star got a little paranoid about who would control things further down the line. So he had the language amended so that upon Russell’s death, all control over the music would be redistributed equally between Claire and ‘the three children,’ as the lawyer referred to them the entire meeting.”

“Olivia, Jordan, and Adam?”

“Right. With Russell, she had veto power. Now, she’s one against three.”

“So Claire loses rather than gains.”

“And she didn’t know that, according to the lawyer, until after Russell’s death. But if she did know, it takes away her motive, doesn’t it?”

I actually shivered as I considered the implications but made one more try. “Unless she feels she can control the three of them. And couldn’t control Russell.”

“Hmmm … If we’re motive surfing, I’d think it more likely that one of the three of them wanted more of a say in things.”

She was right, of course, but that meant accepting the notion that Adam was involved in this, which I was still resisting for some intuitive reason I couldn’t force out into the light. “Thanks for going with her.”

“It was almost fun. I think I’d make an excellent producer. I don’t have to apologize to the scholastic siren, do I?” she asked without even taking a breath between the two thoughts.

“Have you called her names, flamed her Facebook page, or sold her identity to foreign nationals?”

“Remind me never to cross you.”

“You’ll have dinner with Aaron tomorrow night and all will be well.”

She sighed, but happily this time. “I knew I’d feel better after I talked to you. I should know better than to jump to conclusions.”

We agreed to touch base later in the evening and hung up. Gnawing on the inside of my cheek, I wondered whether I was jumping to conclusions or seeing the light with Olivia and Adam. It was easy to reassure Cassady because I wanted things to be good for her and Aaron. Was I resisting believing Olivia and Adam were together because I didn’t want to accept that I’d missed it or that Adam had played me for a sucker?

If Adam was involved in Russell’s death, Olivia couldn’t know—could she?

My contemplation of that horrifying thought was shortlived, because the doorman buzzed. But rather than Todd on the phone, it was Kyle. I could picture Todd cowering in the corner. “Tell me you haven’t eaten.”

I looked at the appallingly empty bag of chips. “I haven’t.”

“I’m coming up, and you better have red wine.”

I had a bottle of Barboursville Sangiovese, and he had lasagna, garlic bread, and chopped salad from a café around the corner from the precinct run by a guy he’d gone to high school with. I uncorked the wine while he opened the containers, but I watched him out of the corner of my eye the whole time, wondering if he was waiting for me to kiss him or if I was supposed to wait for him to kiss me. This whole going back to the beginning business, while intensely romantic, was also confusing.

“Am I allowed to kiss you?” I asked lightly.

“Encouraged,” he said, licking tomato sauce off the back of his hand.

I slid into his arms and kissed him slowly, savoring the taste of his mouth and the traces of tomato sauce. He smiled, holding me tight against him. “I’ve never kissed a celebrity before.”

I dropped my head back in mock anguish and he kissed the hollow of my neck, so he couldn’t have been too upset. “Did you see the picture?”

“Gotta check out the evidence,” he murmured against my neck.

“It’s not what it seems.”

“Never is.”

“There really is an explanation,” I said.

“You mentioned.”

“That mainly involves my being an idiot.”

He scooped my face into his hands and kissed me hard on the mouth. “Stop.”

“But I want to explain.” I also wanted to talk through the “Adam as killer” scenario with someone who’d be brutally honest—and force me to be, too.

“After we eat. The lasagna’s getting cold.”

Not wanting to stack the deck or come between a man and his pasta, I demurred. We jostled in my little kitchen while we dished up the food, bumping into each other on purpose, just generally goofing around. Even if this wasn’t exactly where we’d started the first time, it was a good place to start again.

The lasagna was amazing, though I didn’t want to think about what it was going to do to my cholesterol count, but the best part of the meal was that we ate it sitting side by side on my couch, feet up on the coffee table and ankles entwined. The moment was beautiful in its simplicity and even more so in its rarity, and I hated to be the one to let reality intrude, but as Kyle started to top off my wineglass, I had to. “Hang on. I have to go out for a little while at seven-thirty and I can’t be buzzed. Can you stay? I’ll hurry back.”

“Something for work?” he said, leaving my wineglass as it was and pouring more into his own. Guess that meant he was staying.

“Yes.”

“Adam Crowley?”

“Related. Literally. His mother. A command performance, and she did the commanding.”

“You in trouble for kissing her son?”

“I hope not.”

“Tell her it was research.”

“It was. I went to see him because things other people were saying about him weren’t adding up, but then he got all passionate with me—”

“Passionate?” He tried to arch his eyebrows, but it wasn’t an expression that came naturally to him, so he looked vaguely ridiculous.

“Everybody tells me something different about him, and I can’t get a good read on him—” I stopped because Kyle inhaled as though he were about to say something of some gravity, but he stopped. “What?”

He paused a split second, then said, “You’ve got satellite, I’ll keep myself amused.”

“What is it?”

He shook his head and picked up his wineglass. “Might even read a book.”

“You were going to say something and you stopped.”

Swirling the wine in his glass, he held it up to the light. “I know it’s supposed to cling to the sides, but I can never remember why.”

“What were you going to say?”

“Has anyone ever told you you’re tenacious?” he asked with a touch of sharpness.

“Why?”

“Because that’s really just a nice way of calling someone stubborn.”

“Is that something you’d like to do?”

He set down his glass firmly. “I was going to say something about your little friend, and I stopped myself because we agreed that we were going to stay out of each other’s work. So you need to let it go now.”

I couldn’t let it go, but I couldn’t ask him again, not after that pronouncement. Scraping at the last little bit of mozzarella sticking to my plate, I hoped the burning desire to ask him what he’d been going to say would pass, but it didn’t. I was about to sacrifice all the ground we’d gained by insisting he tell me anyway when someone knocked on the door.

I made what I hoped was a charming face as I went to answer it. “Which neighbor smelled the lasagna and wants to join us?” At the door, I looked through the peephole at Adam Crowley.

Swamped by a wave of conflicting emotions, I threw open the door. Predominantly, I was irritated that he’d come, doubly irritated that Todd had let him up without calling. The fact that Todd was standing at the elevator with a huge, google-eyed grin didn’t help at all.

“You know Adam Crowley! That’s so cool!” Todd enthused as he disappeared back into the elevator.

“Sweet kid,” Adam said, an odd tone to his voice. He leaned forward, apparently planning on kissing me, and lost his balance. It wasn’t until he thrust out his arm awkwardly to brace himself against the wall and almost missed that it registered that he was drunk. Plowed, actually.

“How did you know where I live?”

“I have the world at my fingertips,” he said, waggling the fingers of his free hand in my face. “Google.” He leaned in to give me a wink and nearly toppled over.

I pushed him back up into a vaguely vertical position.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“I need you,” he said, having trouble staying steady even while holding on to the wall.

“No, you don’t. You need to leave.”

“You’re the only—”

“Stop. Don’t jerk me around, Adam.”

“Don’t be mad….”

“You’re a liar.”

“No …”

Kyle’s hand brushed lightly across my back as he stepped into the doorway with me. He looked Adam over quickly and frowned in disapproval.

“Call a cab, I’ll take him back downstairs.”

“No,” Adam said thickly. “Need your … help …”

“Yeah, lean on me, brother, and leave the lady alone.” Kyle reached out to take Adam’s arm, and Adam pushed away, stumbling and flailing. The frown on Kyle’s face shifted quickly, and he grabbed both of Adam’s arms, peering into his eyes. “What are you on, Adam?”

“Nothing …” Adam tried to focus on Kyle’s face, but he didn’t seem to be having much success.

“Where have you been?” Kyle asked.

“Not sure …”

“Were you alone?”

“Maybe …”

“Were you given anything to eat or drink?”

“You think someone drugged him?” I asked.

Kyle didn’t answer, but Adam’s head tilted toward me oddly, and he might have nodded if he hadn’t been busy collapsing to the floor.

14

Showering with a man
is a pleasure I’ve experienced only a few times. Showering with two men is one I hadn’t even dreamed of. But had I dreamed it, standing under ice-cold water fully dressed and hoping that one of the men didn’t throw up on the other would not have figured as prominently in the scenario as they did in real life.

Kyle had swept Adam off the hallway floor and into the bathroom before I could even process that he’d collapsed. By the time I joined them, Adam was vomiting furiously into the toilet as Kyle hung on to the back of his jacket with one hand and cranked up the shower with the other. When Adam’s stomach seemed to have emptied itself, Kyle hauled him into the shower, barely allowing me to strip off Adam’s leather jacket, which had to have cost more than my rent. I tossed the jacket into my bedroom and doused the bathroom with Lysol spray. Then Adam lurched and fought him a bit, so even though there wasn’t really room for all three of us, I stepped in to do what I could to help. It was easy to be noble knowing that everything I was wearing was machine washable.

“Good thing you got him in here before he started getting sick,” I said, squinting against the water.

Kyle shrugged, oblivious to the water and the cold. “I induced vomiting.”

Adam moaned. I started to ask Kyle how, then knew I didn’t really want to know, so I clamped my mouth shut. Adam moaned more loudly, eyes struggling to open, flailing a little.

Kyle smiled. “I won’t even make you tell me what you were going to ask that time.”

“You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din. Or at least a wetter man.”

“I’d applaud, but I might drop your buddy.”

“No buddy of mine. He made a fool of me, to throw me off course,” I said, angrier than I’d be willing to admit.

“You think he’s involved?”

“Excellent chance.”

Adam roused a bit more, trying to free himself from Kyle’s grasp and getting nowhere. Kyle squinted at him. “Maybe I should drop him.”

“Just do it hard.”

“Not that he’d feel it. He’s not just drunk, he’s on something. Question is, what?”

“Oh no,” I said, my own stomach lurching as an awful thought hit me. “Valium and Jack?”

Kyle recognized the song and remembered the stories about Micah and Russell, but I hadn’t told him about the concert. I filled him in while we hauled Adam back out of the shower and I pulled every towel I had off the shelves. “A combo like that, anyway.”

Adam was awake enough to sit on the toilet while Kyle stripped off wet shoes and shirt. “You seen him naked?”

“Of course not,” I said indignantly.

“Keep it that way. Step out and let me do this. Grab that old blue-and-white bathrobe of yours, I’ll throw him in that.”

“What about you?”

“My old—” He stopped, smiling ruefully. “I don’t have any clothes here anymore, do I?”

We’d been so close to living together that he’d had a nearly complete wardrobe here, but it had all left with him. All but one piece. “Actually, there was a pair of sweats that I never got back to you.”

“Good planning.”

By the time Kyle guided Adam out of the bathroom, I’d changed clothes, too, putting on my favorite Ralph Lauren linen pantsuit, my lucky armor for tough interviews. But as I tried to fluff my damp hair into some sort of shape, I almost changed back into my jeans. What was I thinking? I couldn’t go meet with Claire Crowley while her drug-laden son crashed in my apartment with my boyfriend.

“Why not?” that boyfriend asked. “She doesn’t have to know he’s here. In fact, it’d be interesting to find out where she thinks he is, if she gives any indication that he might be in trouble.”

Propped up in my leather armchair, a flannel throw tucked around him, Adam looked oddly vulnerable. As he struggled back to coherency, it was impossible to see the charming and seductive fellow who had danced me around earlier in the day. The image of the tortured artist, the bad boy with a song to sing, was gone completely. All I saw was a damp, shivering mess. But now that he’d shifted over to the suspect list, I couldn’t feel sorry for him. “Do you think he did this to himself? Another Crowley OD?”

Kyle, on the other hand, looked even better than he had when he’d arrived, although his wet hair was a little crazy and he was wearing gunmetal sweats and an old flannel shirt of mine that he hadn’t gotten around to buttoning yet. Another reason I didn’t want to leave. But Kyle was practically shoving me out the door. “My gut says no, but I’ll sober him up while you’re gone, try to find out.”

“What if he killed Russell?”

“I’ve been around murder suspects before and survived. And if he confesses while you’re gone, I’ll write everything down, I promise.”

“You’re sure he doesn’t need a doctor?”

“I’ll call at the first sign of trouble. I know the number.”

“Mine or the paramedics?”

“Molly, do you trust me?” Kyle grabbed the door and swung it half-closed so I couldn’t go back into the apartment and check on Adam again.

“Of course I do.”

“Then go do your job. I’ll take care of him.” He said it with firmness bordering on irritation, so I backed away from the door.

I didn’t know how to thank him for his help without making it sound as though I thought he was working with or for or through me or whatever. I opened my mouth to see if something lovely and inspired would come out, and he pointed to the elevator. “Go.”

Todd scrambled up to me as I came out of the elevator, babbling something about never having seen a rock star up close and was he going to be staying long. I cut him off. “Do not tell anyone he’s here. Anyone. If word gets out, I’ll know it was you, Todd, and it won’t be pretty.” Todd stood at attention and mimed locking his lips and throwing away the key. I felt so safe.

The true feeling of danger didn’t wrap its icy hands around my digestive tract until Claire Crowley was facing me, sitting on the other side of a dining room table that could double as a bowling lane, given its sheen and length. A fully loaded cocktail tray, deposited on the table by a Filipino steward who had come and gone in silence, sat at her elbow, featuring cut crystal decanters with a rainbow of contents. I wondered which one had the Jack and which had the Valium but decided to hold that question until a more opportune time.

Claire was dressed to intimidate in a plunging Roberto Cavalli silk halter and towering Steve Madden red leather sling-backs. Perhaps she had an event to go to after she finished scratching out my eyes and was confident that she’d do a skilled enough job that she didn’t need to worry about getting blood on her outfit.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” she began, her voice measured but her unhappiness coming through loud and clear.

“Not intentionally,” I said, deciding to start with breezy, then see how the conversation devolved from there. “But several of your inner circle have kept me quite busy, so I’m sorry if I’ve appeared neglectful.”

Claire folded her lips into a thin arc that was a distant relative of a smile. “I want you to leave my son alone.” She tapped on the tabletop with a crimson nail for emphasis.

Kyle was right. I was going to get yelled at for kissing Adam. “That implies you think I’ve been bothering Adam,” I said, going for a slightly hurt tone.

“Pursuing, bothering, whatever you’d like to call it.”

“It must be difficult to be the mother of a very handsome, very talented man. My mother wanted to put up an electric fence and my brother was only varsity basketball, with none of Adam’s money and only half his charm. So I understand that you’re compelled to eye every woman who draws breath within a mile of him with suspicion, but I’ve been chasing a story, not your son.”

“How do you explain that picture this afternoon?”

“A joke.” In so many ways. “Ask him. Or his real girlfriend.”

“He isn’t seeing anyone.”

Discretion is hard for me, but I gave it another try and didn’t say anything about the alleged trysts with Olivia at the SoHo Grand. “What a shame.” Maybe she didn’t know. Was it possible that despite her location at the center of the Crowley solar system, with all its bright stars and wobbly satellites, there were holes in her knowledge? What else might she not know about? If Adam did have something to do with Russell’s death, could she genuinely be unaware?

Claire glared at me briefly, impatient with my thoughtful silence, then slid a plain manila envelope across the table to me. It was flat and not obviously ticking, but I was still reluctant to pick it up. “Go ahead,” she urged. “It’s for you.”

“You shouldn’t have,” I said, my hands still in my lap.

“Open it. It’s your article.”

“You couldn’t have.” Incredulous, I opened the envelope and let the contents, photographs and documents that looked like press releases, slide out.

“We didn’t actually write it for you—”

“Thanks for that—”

“—but Gray and I did assemble everything you’ll need to write a lovely and well-balanced piece about Olivia.”

“Without talking to anyone else.”

“Exactly.”

“And by ‘well-balanced,’ you mean a piece that presents your point of view as the only correct one.”

“I think you’ll see that’s best for everyone. Care for a drink?”

Taking a drink from her seemed to rank right up there with taking an apple from a humpbacked witch in the woods, so I declined. Sliding the items back into the envelope, I tried to imagine the thought process that had led up to the filling of the envelope in the first place. Who would think that I would take it with a smile and say thank you? A woman who was awfully used to getting her own way and traveling in pretty tight circles. Still. “I have to ask you, Mrs. Crowley, what makes you think that I’ll take this information and go away?”

“If you refuse, I can either tell your editor and publisher to kill this story … or I can write you a check.”

“My choices are blackmail or bribery? I’m shocked, Mrs. Crowley. Shocked.”

“You’re offended. I get that. I can make the check out to the charity of your choice, if you prefer. If you haven’t embraced a particular cause, I can give you some suggestions.”

Willing not only to bribe me, but to structure the bribe so it was politically correct. Here was a full frontal shot of the control freak who’d been lurking under the surface all along. It was rather amazing to see her reveal herself so blatantly. I pushed the envelope back to her. “No, thank you.”

“You’re being foolish. There’s no story here.”

“Then why are you trying so hard to keep me away from something that doesn’t exist?”

“Because you’re stirring up a lot of ridiculous talk and unnecessary attention that Adam and the others don’t need. They’ve been subjected to it enough in their lives. Forgive a mother for wanting to protect them whenever possible.”

“Even if they don’t deserve protecting?”

Her hands slapped the tabletop with such force that my own palms burned. “This is what I’m talking about. Speculation. Gossip. And the wrong kind of attention. My son didn’t do anything wrong. None of us did anything wrong.”

“But Russell Elliott’s dead.”

“His choice.”

“Like Micah before him.”

“Do not go there.”

I started to ask her where she thought I was going, then I saw it on her face. “You mean, to where the two men who had having you in common both killed themselves?”

She was hurt, and I didn’t feel bad about that at all. She had no trouble impugning my character, so as unused to it as she seemed to be, she could take a little impugning right back. “Is that what you’re worried about? People are going to start talking about that? Aren’t you just glad they’re still talking about you at all?”

Claire stood, nails whisking along the sides of her skirt, looking for something to claw and being restrained from reaching across the table for my face. “How unprofessional.”

“Says the woman who just tried to buy me off.”

“I offered you something for your trouble.”

“Exactly. If there really were no story here, you’d ignore me. You might as well hang Christmas lights on the fact that you’re hiding something.”

She came around the table so quickly, I didn’t have time to back up or get away. Anger had drained most of the color from her face, and her hand was ice cold as it squeezed down on mine, grinding the knuckles of my index finger and pinkie together.

“All I ever tried to do is protect my family,” she said with a grim huskiness. “My husband had a child with another woman, but I kept us together, kept us happy. He died, but I kept us together, kept us happy. Now my best friend is dead, too, and I will not let it destroy us.”

“It’s not me you want to crush, you want to destroy the story. And it’s too late. Everybody’s talking about the Hotel Tapes, about who’s got them. You can get me tossed, but the story’s going to keep bumping along until someone gets an answer they like.”

“Those damn tapes,” she snarled, pushing away from me and retreating to her side of the table again. “I’d burn them again, just give me the chance.”

“Why?” I asked, saving the discussion of whether she’d truly burned them for a later moment.