Let Me Be the One (7 page)

“What’s it about?” Brian leaned on the table.

“A sex demon.”

Brian laughed. “A sex demon?”

“Yeah.” Logan grinned. Suzi was way too good for him. There had to be a way to keep her.

Now

Greg stood with him at the car rental place. “That’s your great plan? Go home and wait?”

“She’s got to come home.”

“No, she doesn’t.”

“All her stuff is there.” Logan stuffed his hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders. He still wished somebody would deck him. If he could’ve done it himself, he would have by now.

“I’m sure Brett will be happy to buy her new stuff.”

Logan ground his teeth. “He can’t replace everything.”

“I’m sure he’s doing a fantastic job replacing you.”

“Fuck off.”

Greg turned and glared at the door to the service area. Then he jerked back around. “I knew you were going to fuck this up. I knew it.”

“Maybe you should have let me in on the secret.”

“I did. She did everything for you. Everything. Did that just make it easier for you to walk all over her or something?”

“I can fix it. She didn’t see what she thought she saw.”

“Um, I saw some groupie sucking your fingers in the middle of a party. What was really happening?” Greg sneered. “Were you just checking her gums to see if her baby teeth were coming in straight? Was Gillian choking, and you were pulling a piece of gristle out of her windpipe? Do tell.”

The door opened, and a tech walked in. “The car is in good shape. We found this under the passenger seat.” He held out a phone covered in blood-red rhinestones.

“Well, now you know why she isn’t answering your calls.” Greg flung out his arms. “What a relief to know she isn’t screening you.”

Logan swung at Greg, but Greg ducked and swept Logan’s legs. Logan landed hard on his ass. Before he recovered, Greg had grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him to his feet. For a second, he hoped Greg was going to give him the pummeling he deserved, but then the fury went out of Greg’s eyes. He shook Logan, tossed him against the wall, and walked out.

“If you’ll just sign here.” The tech acted as though nothing had happened. Or as if his customers were always beating the shit out of one another. He handed Logan a clipboard with Suzi’s phone balanced on it. The rhinestones were a joke. He’d put them on it for her so she wouldn’t lose it.

She’d lost it, anyway.

She’d looked pale and waxy that morning as if she was gonna puke. But the whole point of coming out to California this week had been that stupid party so he could promote the new album. No pockets for her phone in her little denim miniskirt, and she hadn’t carried a purse, so she must have left it in the car. If she didn’t have her phone, then she didn’t have any money or ID either.

She had to come back for that stuff.

Logan took his copy and walked out to Greg’s car.

“And you still think she’s going to come home.” Greg started the engine.

“She doesn’t have any ID or money. She has to.”

“How is she going to fly back to Rochester without ID?”

“Then she’ll go to your house and you’ll—”

“Hold her prisoner until you come? Not bloody likely. I’m thinking if I find her first, I’m gonna help her get her shit back and keep you away from her.”

“That’s what friends are for,” Logan muttered.

“And I’m beginning to think I’d rather be her friend than yours.”

* * * *

“She’s not answering her phone and her voicemail’s full,” Jason reported. “You email her?”

“I did yesterday, but she didn’t answer.” Brian picked up his bass. His brain no longer felt like a hopped-up hamster on an exercise wheel. Now, it felt like two hopped-up hamsters on the same exercise wheel. If he didn’t hear from Suzi soon, a third one was downing a six pack of Red Bull in preparation to join the first two.

“Marc didn’t get an answer either. Cassie’s freaking. She wants to hire detectives to hunt her down.”

“Cassie’s a little overprotective.” Private detectives. That wasn’t a half bad idea.

“I told her to hold off until we get home. You think she’s still with Cherney?”

Brian shrugged. He’d been trying not to think about that.

Bear strolled over, twirling a drumstick through his fingers. “I talked to Logan.”

“What did he say?” Jason asked.

Brian stared at a seam in the stage. After the show tonight, they went home. With the sixteen-hour time difference, they’d be landing about four hours before they took off. Add in time to recover from jet lag, and it was going to be at least two days before he could seriously start searching for her. The kids. He got the kids when he went home, too. Bonnie would dump them with him at the airport if she could. Of course, the kids liked Suzi, so they’d be all for helping him search.

“He said some groupie stuck his fingers in her mouth and that’s when Suzi walked up and saw it and it was just bad timing and there was nothing to it and he’s sorry and do I know where she is because he’s sure she’ll contact one of us because she doesn’t have any ID or her phone or anything on her,” Bear said.

“In one breath?” Jason asked. “Poor guy.”

“Yeah, I hate it when strange girls stick my fingers in their mouths.” Brian rolled his eyes. “And that shit just happens to him all the time.”

Bear and Jason both stared at him as if he’d slipped a gear. “How many times has Logan been caught in a tight spot like that?” Brian demanded.

Jason shrugged. “It happens.”

“You know who she caught him with, don’t you? Gillian Blue Sky.”

“Gillian?” Bear dropped his drumstick. “You’re kidding. Who told you that?”

“Yes Brian, who told you that?” Jason narrowed his eyes at Brian.

“I got an email from Duke.” Of the thirty or so he’d sent out. Some of the people he’d tried hadn’t been at the party. Hell, SendDown was touring Europe. They hadn’t even heard and asked him for information.

“And?” Bear scooped up his stick. “Don’t hold out.”

“He just said Suzi wasn’t feeling good and went hunting for Logan and found him with Gillian. I’m a little disappointed in his taste. Gillian’s a skanky whore, and he had Suzi at home.”
Had
being the operative word.

“True, but Bear would know more about that than I would.” Jason smirked at Bear.

Bear pointed his drumstick at Jason. “That was a long time ago, and she wasn’t as skanky then. I am a happily married man now, and I don’t need those kind of petty distractions.”

“Are we done here?” Brian scowled. Standing around yammering wasn’t the best use of his time. He needed to get back online and check his email. There might have been new developments, or Suzi might have returned one of the half dozen emails he’d sent since the day before yesterday.

“I’m not surprised she ran out without ID or anything.” Jason started strumming randomly. “She’s known for that.”

“Yeah, but she ran with Brett Cherney. If you want to talk about questionable taste.” Bear made a wobbly hand gesture.

Brian walked away. If they weren’t done with sound check, they could come find him. He had better things to do than stand around rehashing Suzi and Logan’s break-up. None of his friends were thinking about Suzi with Brett Cherney, who was twenty-four, at the beginning of what appeared to be a long-running career, and carried a reputation for being wild. Brian didn’t want to think about that.

Ditching his bass in the rack, Brian headed down to the dressing room, surprising the caterers in the act of setting up. They bowed, giggling. He bowed back. They bowed again. He decided it was a losing battle and grabbed his laptop off the coffee table. Suzi lived most of her life online. For her to be off for more than twenty-four hours was unthinkable.

But nothing was updated. Not Facebook. Not Twitter. Not her blog or her website. All of them had comments from her friends and fans asking where she was and if she was okay. Checking to make sure no one could see him, he logged onto the writing forum she belonged to. There was a thread at the top that already spanned several pages, but no one had heard anything. He logged off and erased the history. Following Suzi to her forum always made him feel like a stalker. Dipping into Savitar’s forum, he found a discussion raging about her there, too. Not as nice as the one on her writing forum. The girls there were all singing “Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead” and making guesses about whether or not she’d died, gone into rehab, or been committed. Suzi deserved to be committed for leaving Logan, they had decided. He logged out before he posted something unfortunate. The Touchstone forum had a mention of her. They’d tossed around a few rumors, but most were nicer, less invested, and talked about her books and times she’d been sighted with the band. A couple had posted pictures of her with Touchstone, but he already had those squirreled away on his hard drive. They did reveal that Cherney hadn’t been seen around either. Wherever Suzi had gone to ground, Cherney had gone with her.

Five years ago

Logan shook his hand, trying to make it work. His fingers flapped like ribbons.

“Come on, Fitzpatrick. What are you waiting for? Quit fucking around.”

He peered through the studio window. Jason was sitting at the soundboard and Suzi was naked on his lap. She had her legs draped over one arm of the chair, her head curled on Jason’s shoulder, and was teasing her hand through Jason’s chest hair.

“I’m having trouble with the guitar. Let Greg do his part first,” Logan snapped. He shook his hand again, and his fingers tangled together.

“No way, buddy. You’re up. Now quit fucking around and play. You have work to do.” Jason lifted Suzi’s face to his and kissed her. Suzi responded eagerly. She buried her hand in his hair.

Logan tore his gaze away from the spectacle to stare at his fingers. They’d knotted together. He looked back at the pair on the chair. Jason was sucking Suzi’s pink nipples, his eyes closed in appreciation. Suzi had her head thrown back. Through the com, he could hear her moaning, “Oh Jason, you’re so good. I had no idea.”

* * * *

Logan balanced his beer on his knee and stared at the trees. Trees. What the fuck? He was a city boy. What was he doing here? Suzi loved it, though. Every morning for the past two weeks, she’d gone out for her run and spent her afternoons exploring the woods. Not much else for her to do, but she didn’t seem to mind. She was still convinced Jason and Brian didn’t like her, so she stayed away from the studio.

John and Toby had driven up to Pittsburgh for the night. Charity had flown back to LA. The backwoods charm didn’t work for her. Cassie had taken the baby down to visit her parents overnight. Logan and Greg had seized the opportunity to hang out with their heroes.

Even if he was having nightmares about one of his heroes screwing his girlfriend.

“Where’s your girl tonight?” Jason asked.

Woman-stealing bastard. “Out communing with the trees, probably.”

“Trees?” Jason paused with his beer bottle halfway to his mouth.

“She likes to go walking in the woods. She grew up out in the sticks.” A cornfield. That’s what was across the street from her parents’ house. That’s all he remembered from the day he helped her pack her stuff so she could move to LA with him. Right after her father had told her if she left, she couldn’t come home.

“She wrote that one about the woods,” Brian said. “
Bats With Baby Faces
. Is she still working on the one about the sex demon? I keep seeing her with her computer.”

“She finished it the other day. She said something about wanting to do a romance.”

“Romance!” Brian made a face. “I think I’ll skip that one.”

“Unless it’s going to be one of those dirty ones.” Jason leaned across the table. “Those aren’t all bad. And if she wrote it, it would be hot. She’s a scorching lady. I wish I’d met her before you. I wouldn’t have minded taking her for a turn.”

“Cassie might object,” Brian pointed out.

“Well obviously before Cassie.” Jason leaned back in his chair, smiling. “She has a shotgun.”

“And after Stella.”

“Shut up.”

Logan studied the tabletop. Would a wife really keep Jason away from Suzi if he decided he wanted her? Cassie might be flexible about that kind of stuff, and Jason sure as hell could do more for Suzi’s career than Logan could. Jason could single-handedly finance one of those little indie film projects her friends wanted to make of her books.

“Wouldn’t have happened.” Greg announced. “She was a virgin when she met Logan.”

Brian shook his head. “I’ve read her books. She couldn’t have been.”

“She was,” Logan said. There had to be a way to get out of this conversation. With any other woman, he’d have bragged about taking her virginity and the sex life they’d had since. Suzi was making up for twenty years of virginity with zeal, but it felt wrong to brag about her.

“You should have seen his back that first morning. Looked like he’d been in a fight with a tiger.” Greg took a deep draft of the dark European beer Jason stocked and immediately regretted it by the expression on his face. Logan regretted that Greg hadn’t taken a drink before he’d opened his big mouth.

“She’s really smart, too. And funny,” Logan said. If they’d asked him to list the reasons he was with her, sex would have been near the bottom. Yeah, the sex was incredible, but so was everything else.

“Too bad she doesn’t hang out much,” Brian said. “I’d love to get to know her.”

“In the biblical sense,” Jason added. He pulled another bottle out of the cooler beside him. His fourth. “You would. Not me. My wife has a shotgun. Yours just has the Visa.”

“No, I’d just like to talk to her. I love her books. They’re like puzzles. I’ve read a couple of them three or four times and figured out new things every time.”

Jason snorted. “You’ll just get tongue-tied like you did when we met Paul McCartney.”

“Yeah, because you’ve done such a great job talking to her,” Brian snapped.

Greg raised one eyebrow at Logan. Logan was too busy reeling with the idea to respond. Savitar had been here for six weeks, awed to be working with their heroes. Since Suzi arrived two weeks ago, she’d been too nervous to talk to Jason and Brian much because she’d been a fan of them since she was a little kid. Logan had assumed the idol worship only went one way. But if they had her on the same level with Paul McCartney…