Ravensong (37 page)

“
Tell me,” said James
firmly.

“
It was a
syringe.”

James sucked in air.

“
A new one. Never been
used. There was nothing inside of it, but it was a
syringe.”

“
What did you
do?”

“
I flushed it down the
toilet, then I looked up BPI on the internet. It stands for Bayside
Pharmaceuticals.”

“
Why the hell didn’t you
call me right then?”

“
I didn’t want to alarm
anyone. I really thought it was a sick prank, nothing more. Until I
called BPI. I asked them who ordered the syringe and they told me
that I did. That I’d ordered it myself.”

James cocked his head and gave Joshua
a critical stare. Joshua didn’t know if that meant he believed him
or not. Still, now that it was out, he had to continue.

“
Yesterday, just before we
went through the metal detector at the airport, I found a vial in
my backpack…”

“
A what?”

“
A glass vial.” Joshua
indicated the size with his fingers. “Filled with a clear
liquid.”

“
What kind of
liquid?”

Joshua shrugged. “I don’t know. I
panicked. I ran to the bathroom and flushed it down the toilet.
Airport security saw me and pulled me into an interrogation room.
One of them emptied my backpack on the table right in front of me.
I was so afraid of what might fall out.”

James’ expression told him everything.
He was finding all of this hard to swallow. “What
happened?”

“
Julian burst in and
threatened them with a law suit if they didn’t release me. After
awhile, they agreed, but not before one of them went through my
backpack… thoroughly.” He leaned forward again and his eyes fixed
on his brother’s face. “There could have been something else in
that pack, James, but I have no idea who put it there.”

“
Was the pack ever out of
your sight?”

Joshua nodded.

“
Anyone could have done it
and we don’t have the vial to run any tests,” James said, shaking
his head. Running a hand over his face, he was silent in
consideration for a long while. Finally, he looked up into his
brother’s eyes. “I can have someone look into this BPI for you,” he
offered.

Joshua nodded.

James rubbed the back of his neck
tiredly. “Shit, Josh, any of those had the potential to be really
bad. Why the hell did you wait so long to call me?”

“
You just had a baby and I
thought…”

“
You thought what,” snapped
James. “You promised me you would call the first time something
happened. The first time.”

“
I know. Please, James,
please let that go. I need your help now. I’ve got to know who’s
doing these things to me.”

“
Let it go? I’ll never let
it go, Joshua. I can’t let it go. I have nightmares about it. I was
the one, Josh, I was the one who found you.”

Joshua bowed his head and closed his
eyes. He remembered. He would never forget it. James would never
let him forget that he’d been the one to find Joshua when he’d
tried to kill himself.

James’ weight settled on the couch
beside him and he put his arm around Joshua’s shoulders. “Every
time I think about it, I think about the possibility that I might
not have gotten there in time. What if I’d been even a few minutes
later? You would have bled to death on that bathroom
floor.”

“
James?” Joshua moaned in
misery.

“
No, you listen to me, damn
it. I blame myself that it even went that far, that I ever let you
get caught up in that. If I guilt you about it, it’s because I
don’t want to go through that again. I almost lost you, Josh. You
almost died in my arms.” He hugged him tighter. “Don’t put me
through that again. That’s why I made you promise me, that’s why I
won’t let you forget it. I can’t let that happen ever
again.”

“
I know,” Joshua said,
slanting a look at him. “I know what I did to all of you, but you
can’t shelter me. You can’t lock me up. I’ve got to make my own
way.”

“
No one makes their own
way, Joshua. We all need help. You’ve just never been able to ask
for it.”

Joshua shifted to look him directly in
the face. “I think I just did, James. Give me a little credit for
that.”

James searched his face,
then he sighed. “You’re right. Okay, no more guilt. Let’s figure
out what the hell we’re going to do about this.”

CHAPTER 15

Joshua crept to the little hotel
refrigerator and opened it, reaching inside for a bottle of water.
He grabbed one and shut the door quietly, then slowly broke the
seal on the lid and opened it. He took a drink, then lowered the
bottle, his eyes coming to rest on his brother.

James was sleeping on the sofa bed in
the sitting room of his suite. They hadn’t had time to get him his
own room. Elena hadn’t objected, but she’d wanted to know why his
brother had come. He couldn’t tell her and he’d beg James not to
say anything. He mumbled something about being homesick, but he
knew Elena was suspicious. And he was giving her more things each
day to be suspicious about.

Still, he was so relieved that James
was here. He knew he used James as a shield against the rest of the
world, but James didn’t seem to mind. He’d been on the opposite end
of Joshua’s insane world, during the time when every word that left
Joshua’s mouth was a lie.

He and James might not have any blood
ties, but they were brothers, bound by the life they’d lived
before, bound by the nightmare Joshua had forced on them all.
Rather than splintering during his meltdown, Joshua’s family had
pulled closer together. He knew that if he ever needed them, they
would fold around him and protect him from the rest of the world.
He would do the same, but he owed them so much more than he could
ever repay.

He sat down in the chair by his
brother’s bed and stared at the darkness outside the hotel window.
James brought back memories Joshua would rather repress, but Dr.
Staddler had told him repeatedly that what he didn’t accept was
destined to haunt him forever.

* * *

Joshua was so high he didn’t even
notice the woman until she sank into the booth next to him and
leaned in against his side. He blinked at her, trying to place her,
but she was a stranger.

“
Why are you sitting all
alone, baby?” she purred in his ear, leaning close to be heard over
the pounding jukebox.

He didn’t answer, twirling the water
glass in his hands. He was distracted by the bead of condensation
rolling down the outside. His attention shifted to her as she
snaked her hand up his inner thigh.

“
You don’t want to be
alone, do you?”

Joshua closed his eyes and gave
himself up to her touch. Slowly he shook his head. For some reason,
he couldn’t remember any words that would string together into a
sentence.

“
You don’t have a
girlfriend or anything, do you?”

Did he? He couldn’t remember. He’d
been seeing someone for awhile, but he couldn’t remember her name.
Lucy, or Stacy, or Terry. Anyway, he didn’t think they were still
seeing each other anymore. Not that it mattered. All that mattered
was the moment and staying numb.

“
Let’s go to your room,”
she said, her touch becoming more demanding.

Joshua nodded because he couldn’t
think of any reason not to go. They slid out of the booth and she
took his arm, leading him from the bar. He gave her his room key,
but he couldn’t remember what room it was. God, he must have taken
more than usual this time. He usually wasn’t so
muddle-headed.

She figured it out, or he guessed she
did. He didn’t remember much beyond the bar – a lot of frantic
movement and then drifting into the oblivion, happy to have
everything else float away.

He came violently awake the next
morning to the sun glaring in the windows and someone banging on
his door. He rolled to his side and moaned. Every inch of his body
hurt, as if he had the flu or something. Still, the banging
continued.

He forced open his eyes, but it was
like trying to see through jagged glass. Nausea pounded in his
head. He could see the woman lying next to him, naked, sleeping
soundly. As the banging continued, she reached for the pillow and
pulled it over her head, ignoring it.

Wrapping an arm around his abdomen,
Joshua rolled off the bed and managed to stagger to his feet.
Grasping the dresser, he bowed his head and fought the waves of
pain that washed over him.

The banging continued.

“
I’m coming, damn it!” he
shouted, enraged by the persistent noise. He wanted to kill whoever
was doing it.

He staggered naked to the door and
fumbled with the lock, pulling it open only wide enough to peer
outside. James was waiting in the hallway.

“
Get up!” he
shouted.

Joshua flinched. “Don’t
yell.”

James’ eyes narrowed. “Are you
hung-over?”

That was as good an excuse as any.
“Yeah, so stop shouting.”

“
When did you go
out?”

Joshua sighed and pressed a hand to
his throbbing forehead. “James, can we not do the stupid question
and answer thing right now?”

James pushed on the door. “Let me
in.”

“
No,” said Joshua, pushing
back. “What the hell do you want?” He was as surprised as James by
his surly tone. He never talked to his older brother this way, but
he felt so damn bad, hurt so damn much.

“
You’ve got a woman in
there?”

Puritanical James, the
virgin brother,
he thought uncharitably.
“Yeah, now leave it alone.”

James’ face clouded over and his jaw
clenched. “You’ve got half an hour to get your ass downstairs. Evan
will have the car outside the lobby to take us to the recording
studio.”

“
Fine. That gives me enough
time to shower.” He started to shut the door.

James blocked it. “Josh?”

Joshua blinked at him through blurry
eyes. “What?”

“
You know this isn’t right.
All these women, the booze. You’re only nineteen, damn it. You’re
too young for this.”

“
James, I’m not a priest
like you, so back off.”

“
You’re going to get a
disease. What if you become an alcoholic?”

Joshua almost
laughed.
That would be an
improvement,
he thought. “I’m fine,” he
said instead. “Now, let me get a shower.”

James didn’t answer, but he let Joshua
close the door. Joshua threw the bolt and turned, surveying the
naked woman. He didn’t even know her name. Walking to the end of
the bed, he kicked the mattress. She groaned.

“
Get up,” he ordered.
“You’ve got to leave.”

She rolled over and looked at him. Her
makeup was smeared and her hair was matted. “Why?”

Joshua clenched his jaw. “Just get
up.”

She swore at him, then climbed off the
bed. She kept up a steady stream of profanity as she searched the
room for her clothes. Joshua sank down on the end of the bed and
watched her, his forearms braced on his thighs.

She finished dressing, then came up to
him and kissed him. “You’ve got it bad, baby,” she said and looked
pointedly at his arms. Joshua didn’t try hide the track marks from
her, he didn’t care. She clucked her tongue and ruffled his hair,
then walked to the door and let herself out.

Joshua forced himself to his feet and
followed her, locking the door. Then he went to the closet and
searched through his suitcase. His hands shook as he located the
syringe. Taking it and the vial of liquid back to the bed, he
primed the syringe, then located a vein. The needle made his whole
arm ache as he inserted it into the vein, but the drug immediately
soothed the pain as it flushed over his body. He closed his eyes
and tilted back his head, letting it ease away the ache of
withdrawal.

* * *

James stilled his fingers on the
strings and looked up at his brother. Joshua had his eyes closed
and was swaying with the fading music. James released his held
breath. Hung-over or not, Joshua was a genius, putting such soul
and emotion into their songs. He transported them from mediocrity
to art.

“
Great, boys. Take a break,
then we’ll start on the next one,” came the tin voice through the
speaker.

James looked up to the glass enclosed
control booth. “Can you play that last one back for us before we go
on? I want to make sure it’s coming together like we think it
is.”

There was a hesitation. James touched
his headset to make sure he hadn’t missed the answer.

“
Yeah,” came the response.
“Understand that this isn’t the final cut. We’ll clean up the edges
and overlay more vocals on it. When it’s finished, it’ll sound like
a choir, rather than four guys doing the harmony.”

Joshua’s eyes snapped open and he
swiveled in his seat to pin his brother with a look.