Meadowlarks 3 : Endless (21 page)

Andrew looks at his own phone again. “Damn, who’s the blonde cougar?
Rawr
…”

I actually laugh out loud. “A bigger bag of nuts, Drew.”

He had never met Elsa in person either. Actually, come to think of it…no one in my life had. Except for Bob. She was just a name attached to me. An apparition, really.

“I’ll make a few calls. I’ve got some people who would love this type of deal.”

“I’ll slip you the envelope under the table,” I say, reaching into the inside of my jacket. I had brought some money with me. I hoped ten thousand was enough. If not, Andrew will have to follow me to an ATM.

“No way, Casey.” Andrew shakes his head. “You don’t owe me shit. You’re a good friend. It’s on me…Let’s just find that girl and keep your little singer safe, yeah?”

I’ll pay him back somehow. I almost feel like I’m getting choked up. “Thanks, man. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Andrew leaves Starbuck’s and I sit quietly and finish my coffee. Leah’s sound-check should be almost finished by now, so I toss my cup into the trash and make my way to the studio.

As Neil promised, security let me into the building. Of course, after patting me down and double-checking my identification. A woman with a headset on, carrying a clipboard, directed me to a room that was almost like a closet. “Through there,” she said with a smile.

I thanked her and opened the door on the other side of the closet. Like stepping into Narnia, I walked into a huge theater-type of space. Another world. Rows and rows of seats lined the biggest part of the room, and across the seating area was a stage. Leah and her band were on it. She stood there, with her face turned to Neil, he was tapping gently on a symbol, nodding his head. Jett and Aaron fiddled with the strings of their guitar and bass.

“Okay, guys. We gotta go over the covers now. Which one first?” Lucas asks, shouting from a chair about three rows from the stage.

A woman sitting beside him says something in his ear.

“Perry. We’ll do The Band Perry.” Lucas flips papers on his own clipboard. “New or old, your pick.”

Leah shrugs and smiles. “Doesn’t matter to us. We like them all.”

The woman beside Lucas says something I can’t hear and Leah smiles.

Jett and Aaron share a nod between them and Neil raises his arms to click his drumsticks together. I find my way in the dark to a seat behind Lucas and the other woman. Leah hasn’t seen me yet—well, I don’t think she has anyhow.

I sit down just as the music begins. Leah holds up her mic and just as her voice trickles out, my heart stops beating. They’re playing “If I Die Young.” I know that song. A guy from Sheridan died in a when a car hit him at Lander’s grocery store a few years back. They played that damn song on the radio for almost a week straight. I didn’t know him, but the song was sad enough that I felt sorry for whoever did, having to hear it constantly played in his memory.

Lucas holds up his cellphone and takes a video. Leah’s voice sends chills into my body. Her face looks etched with sadness as she sings. I feel myself getting choked up. This isn’t a song she should be singing. Especially considering what she’s just gone through. Lucas should have known that. What a dick. If I wasn’t glued to my seat, unable to move from watching her, I’d punch him in the back of his head for suggesting something so stupid.

Leah’s crying now. Still singing, but crying. Fuck this. I’m not going to sit here and watch her be tortured any longer. I get up, jump over the row of chairs in front of me and run around the stage until I find a set of stairs. Taking two at a time, I make it up the ten steps and rush to Leah.

“Hey!” Lucas shouts from his seat. “You can’t go up there.”

“Like fuck I can’t,” I growl and take Leah into my arms. She trembles and wraps her arms around me, dropping the microphone from her hands. “Baby…” I whisper into her hair. It smells of lemons and strawberries. I kiss her head, assuring her that I’m not going anywhere.

“I thought I could sing it,” she says quietly, her words almost a whisper. “But, I can’t…I just can’t. Too sad.”

“I know, Leah. I know. You don’t have to sing it, baby.”

Neil’s standing behind her now, his face twisted with concern. He places a hand on her back. “Sweetheart, I’m so sorry. I should have said something.”

“Everything okay?” Lucas asks from below. “Sorry, Leah. I should have remembered. Want to take a minute and we’ll try something else?”

“I’m okay,” she says again. Pulling her tear-streaked face from my chest. “I’m okay…I want to finish. I
have
to finish.”

“You sure?” I ask, holding her face in my hands, wiping her tears with my thumbs.

She nods. “I’m sure.”

I enclose her once more in my arms and clench my teeth, looking at Neil. He’s struggling too, I can see it in his eyes. He doesn’t think she’s ready for this either.

I don’t get off the stage. This time, I stand off to the side and sit on a stool just out of the view of the seating area. I can’t look at Lucas. I just wanted to deck him in his smug face.

“Okay, so, forget Perry…” he says.

“I have a better idea,” Leah picks up her microphone and speaks into it. “Boys, remember the one we practiced for our very first audition?”

“Of course we do,” Jett says, smiling. “My girl loves that song. She still makes me play it for her.”

“Let’s do it,” Aaron chimes in, strumming strings on his guitar.

“
Yellow diamonds in the light…
” Leah begins to sing.

I don’t know the song, so I quickly Google the lyrics. It’s a Rihanna song. Wow. They’ve completely countrified it too.
We found love in a hopeless place.
Well, fuck me sideways.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Weston

It took everything in me not to grab Leah off that stage and pull her into the tiny closet-like area I came through when I first got here. She sang that song for me, I know it. I felt every syllable in my heart, like a jackhammer. It took my breath away. During the last line she had turned to me and smiled, running her fingers through her hair.

I was lost. Obliterated. I’ve turned into a big, giant, sappy pussy.

Just after Leah went off the stage to talk to Lucas and the other woman, my phone rang. It’s Andrew.

“Hey, buddy,” I answered.

“Weston? Where are you right now?”

“I’m with Leah at the studio. It’s on—”

He cuts me off. “We found Sara. Followed her. Can you get Leah back to the hotel maybe? This chick is acting real shady.”

A lump forms in my throat. “Yeah, I’ll take her.”

I hang up and look down at Lucas. Where is she? “Lucas, where’s Leah?” I ask.

“She had to use the restroom,” the woman beside him says.

Instant unadulterated panic sets into my skin. My eyes shoot around for Neil. I can’t see him either. Maybe he went with her. I scale the chairs and clamber through the make-shift closet into the hallway. Looking from door to door, searching for a bathroom.

Neil comes out of one.

“Oh, thank God. She still in there?”

“Who? Leah?” he asks, buckling his belt.

“Yes, Leah.”

“No,” he says, looking around. “She’s talking to Lucas.”

I almost sink to the floor. “No she’s not, Neil. No she’s fucking not! That other bitch said she went to use the bathroom.”

“Fuck, man! She’s not in there.” Neil pushes past me and starts flinging open doors. Calling Leah’s name…coming up empty.

I call Leah’s phone. Nothing. It just rings.

“It’s Leah! You know what to do…”

Beep.

“Leah, baby…where are you?”

Neil jogs back up the long hallway. “She’s not anywhere, man.”

“Pull the fucking fire alarm then. We have to find her.”

Neil goes back into the theater to tell Lucas that we can’t find Leah. Seconds later Lucas, Jett and Aaron rush into the hallway. Panic in their eyes as well. Lucas runs his hands through his hair. It makes me want to bounce his face off my knee. That fucker.

“Get Brent. Tell him we can’t find her,” Lucas tells Jett, who runs off down the hallway.

Neil glares at me. I glare back. He looks like he wants to punch me. I should probably let him. It’s my fault she’s gone. I should have went with her.

I call Andrew back. Giving him the address of the building. I need him here. Even though all the security in the area has come to find her. I need a familiar face.

“Where did you find Sara?” I ask, once Andrew arrives.

“You wouldn’t believe it, but she was slinking around the Starbuck’s I met you at. You didn’t see her at all?”

“Nope.” I shake my head and look down at the floor. “Did you talk to her?”

“I tried,” he said. “But she took off. She’s a quick one.”

Wonderful. She’s still out there somewhere. And so is Leah.

Andrew puts his hands on my shoulders. “We’ll find her, Casey.”

“We have to.”

***

It happened again. My worst fear. Replayed like a broken fucking record.

“South of Marshall front woman Leah Marshall has disappeared once more. This time from a soundstage in Las Vegas, Marshall was rehearsing with her band and went missing after taking a break. Band manager Lucas Field declined an interview. Marshall went missing last month in New York, only to be found roughed up at St. Michael’s hospital in the Big Apple. She claimed then she didn’t know who took her. Marshall went right back to work, and was supposed to play here in Vegas at the MGM Grand tonight. In the place of Sweet Saltwater…”

The news report showed their video for Mesmerize, just like the last time. Aching, searing, tearing pain rips through my heart. I can’t do this again. I won’t. I can’t think of her being somewhere in the dark with a fucking dirty bag on her head again.

“Fuck!” I holler, whipping the TV remote across the empty hotel room. It smashes into pieces against the wall. Just like my heart. Shattered, broken…dead.

Pounding…pounding. My heart still beats? No, it can’t. It’s broken.

No! It’s the door. I jump off the edge of the bed and rush to the door, unlocking it and flinging it open. Neil stands in the doorway, hands on the frame, his head hangs down and his eyes glisten.

He whispers something inaudible.

“What?” I ask, my body shaking.

“They found her,” he says.

I close my eyes. “Thank God. Let’s go.”

“No, Weston.” He looks up at me, falling right into me. Crying. “She’s gone. Leah’s dead.”

I push him back. No. No! No goddamn way. He’s wrong. He has to be! She’s not dead. Leah is fine. She’s okay…she’s just...missing. Not dead. Not dead.

“Neil…she’s okay. She’s not dead.” I shake my head. Not believing him.

“Weston, they found her. It’s her!” He sobs, falling to his knees. This big, tattooed motherfucker is crying on the floor of the room. His hands covering his face.

“It’s Leah! You know what to do…”

Beep.

“Baby…” I breathe. Unable to say anything else. I drop the phone and climb over Neil’s slumped body. “I’m coming.”

Neil calls after me, I don’t know what he’s said. I don’t care. I’m going to find her. They’re wrong. She’s not dead. It’s a mistake. A big fucking mistake.

She’s my forever. Forever. Not my…not my any longer.

“Weston? It’s Andrew…”

I answer his call without speaking.

“Where are you, Weston?”

“I’m going to find Leah.”

“Weston…tell me where you are right now. Are you still at the hotel?”

I look up and down the busy street, holding my hand up to hail a cab. “Yeah. But I’m leaving right now.”

“Fuck,” Andrew growls into the phone. “You need to stay there. I’m coming to get you.”

“No.” I drop my arm. “Neil’s wrong. I’m going to find her.”

A long pause.

“Neil’s not wrong, Weston. She’s gone. It’s all over the news now. I’m in the car, I’m coming to you. Stay there, damn it!”

No. I can’t accept it. She’s not gone. If she’s dead. Then I’m dead. If she’s not breathing. Then I’m unable to breathe too. I fall to my knees, hang my head and stare blankly at the pavement beneath me. It’s cold and hard. Like me.

Andrew finds me just as Neil comes out of the hotel.

“Come on, buddy. Get up,” Andrew says gruffly, reaching down to pick me up. Even at two hundred and twenty pounds, he still picks me up like I’m a feather. Standing me back on my feet, Andrew searches my eyes. “Can you stand?”

“Yes, I can stand.”

Neil crosses his arms, but doesn’t say anything.

“Take me to her.”

Andrew clenches his jaw. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Fuck what you think. Fuck you, Andrew. I said take me to her. Or I’ll find my own way there.”

There. I don’t even know where
there
is. I don’t know where Leah is.

“Where is she?”

Andrew points to his truck. “Get in.”

Neil climbs into the back seat of Andrew’s Denali and I hear the audible click of a seatbelt. I don’t bother putting one on. If we crash—and I hope we do. I hope I die. If she’s gone, I might as well be too.

My phone rings. It’s Riley. I ignore it.

Neil’s phone rings. He answers it.

It’s Leah’s mother. I hear him call her Mrs. Marshall. Neil starts crying again.

“I’ll pick you up. Call me as soon as you land,” Neil says quietly.

Her mother is coming.

My phone rings again. Riley, again. I press ignore.

ANSWER YOUR GODDAMN PHONE WESTON. PLEASE!!!

Riley’s text message flies in.

We pull up to the curb of a building. I think it’s a hospital. Which gives me a tiny glimmer of hope. They don’t bring dead people to hospital’s…do they?

There are news reporters, cameras…people just, everywhere.

“Don’t talk to anyone,” Andrew instructs.

I nod. Neil doesn’t say anything.

We get out of the truck, and immediately people rush over to us.

“Neil! Neil! We’re so sorry for your loss! Can you speak to us for a minute?” One says, shoving a mic in Neil’s face.

He grits his teeth. “Fuck off.”