Strung Out (Needles and Pins #1) (17 page)

Seth had been doing underwater laps, but he stopped, and since his head was now above the surface, I made a mental note to curb my cursing. Gage’s chords continued, drifting out over the pool and patio and into the canyon.

Colt, now sitting on the pad next to the one I was on, glared at me as if my outburst was idiotic. “Stuff he brought on. He’s the one who went into rehab, and he’s the one who ran away from rehab. He’s the one who incited a riot. He’s the one—”

“I’m not listening to this. You guys are a
band
. Are supposed to be
friends
.” Before continuing, I glanced at Seth who still looked lost in his own thoughts as he stared into the sky painted pink by the setting sun. “Why are you so willing to let Gage take all the pressure?

“Can I ask you something? What’s going on between the two of you? Are you two as good as sister and brother, or are you two something more?”

“Can I ask
you
something? Why are you even here if you’re only going to sit around the pool, ask nosey questions, and not help?”

“Hey, Dad.” Seth continued to view some point beyond us as he spoke.

Too wrapped up in the intensity of our disagreement, Colt ignored his son, firing back at me instead. “I stop by almost every day to see how he’s getting along. If he’s left to his own devices, he uses. If he’s under stress, he uses. If he’s celebrating, he uses.”

“Dad…”

“And to answer your earlier question,” Colt went on as if Seth hadn’t spoken, “he won’t let anyone else do the writing. It’s his thing. He wants the publishing credit, and pretty much tied our hands legally with that a while back.”

“Dad!”

“Now, with all the shit that’s going down, I’m damn glad my name’s
not
on the songs!”

The sky was now purple, but I saw red. Surging to my feet, I waded out of the pool, grabbed up my towel, slipped on my flip-flops, and snatched my electronic tablet. Without a word, I tromped into the interior of the house and didn’t slow when my name was called.

“Scarla.” Colt’s voice echoed down the hallway, interweaving with the melody Gage was churning out. “Scarla!”

The guitar stopped. As my foot hit the first stair, I heard Gage’s angry rumble. “What the hell is going on with you two?”

“Gage!” Unable to catch his father’s attention, Seth hailed Gage.

Urgency in his tone, piled atop his numerous hails of his father, made me pause and I warily turned.

“Is that one of those drones?” Seth’s face was tipped up, and he inclined his chin in an over-there nod.

Colt and Gage abandoned the fight brewing and their locked glares to follow Seth’s line of site. Curious, I retraced a few wet steps and gawked at the sky and the dark object against it. It was far enough away to be mistaken for a bird, but it hovered like a bee just beyond the property and about roofline level.

“Motherfucker!” Gage swore, and Colt echoed a version of the curse. “Motherfuckin’ paparazzi drone!”

Seth remained a stationary fixture in the pool, captivated, but both of the men stirred with a purpose. Colt grabbed his phone, and Gage bolted inside through the den instead of his studio entry. He pressed one of several switches on the wall plate the housekeeper had shown me on the morning after my arrival.

To my amazement, a sail-like awning began to glide down the timber structures hanging over the patio and pool.

And I’d been slathering on the highest proof sunblock every time I swam!

Next, he excavated his phone from the pocket of his shorts, and spoke into it to a person I’d heard as a name in his security detail. With another press of a button, the glass dividing outside and inside crept shut.

Just beyond, on the patio, Colt was having a hard time convincing Seth to come inside. He glanced back, seeing me before becoming a bit firmer with Seth, and I took the opportunity to run upstairs.

Paparazzi
drones?

A shiver of sheer creeps rippled through my limbs at the thought of a hovering camera lens, spying on all of us.

And the reason this paparazzi drone thing had appeared today of all days was both shocking and terrifying. Gage’s revelation earlier that morning of legal matters as well as label matters had me inwardly quaking with dread.

My big brother was under a shit load of stress, and it seemed his band—his
friends
—were piling on even more pressure by not helping with a song deadline.

Upstairs in my room, I closed the door and flipped the lock. Finally alone—and safe from drones—I dwelled on my mix of emotions.

For the last several hours, I’d done nothing except drift in the pool and—oblivious of the canopy—relax in what little shade there was while listening to Gage struggle with his composition.

In addition to doing his thing, Gage had also phoned the private investigator for me. The professional was now doing what he could to track Ivy. I felt relieved to have an expert on it. It’s what I would have done from the start if I’d had the finances. As it was, I would pay Gage back in a few months—not that we had discussed who the bill was going to. Gage had simply organized it.

The morning had begun so weirdly with the attraction between Gage and me rearing its head again. Then when he’d confessed his legal problems to me, he was back to being the big brother who I wanted to hold until everything wrong in his life was right again.

Considering all of this, I had looked forward to Colt and Seth coming by. And then Colt had acted like a first class ass. I had wanted to hit him in the head with the pool grapple.

Wouldn’t that have been a shot for the paparazzi drone!

With the tablet still in my hand, I headed into the bathroom, started the bathwater, and remained sitting on the edge of the tub.

My fingers slid over the screen. A tap to the YouTube icon. A Swype across the keyboard. ‘G-A-G-E-R-E-M-I—’ Ah, there it was.

A cornucopia of Gage Remington videos aligned for my viewing choice. I’d already considered what I could type in to narrow the search, but nothing more was necessary. The videos I sought were there, scattered among the suggested selections.

Gage Remington attacks heckler.

Gage Remington stops Fire Flight show.

Gage Remington throws water bottle back.

Gage Remington vs random hater.

Gage Remington has a go at hater. Fire Flight St. Louis.

Gage Remington pissed.

Gage Remington tells audience off.

Fire Flight Gage Remington drunk sings Tough as Nails.

Gage Remington wigs out. Fire Flight.

When the shock of seeing such video taglines subsided, I selected randomly. Sucked into the screen, I gazed over the silhouette of the backs of hundreds of heads. Amid the darkness, the stage was brighter than day, the lights strobing on the members of Fire Flight. With his guitar hanging, Gage clutched the mic, singing, and it was clear he wasn’t at his best. The strength of his vocals seesawed, and parts of the verses were slurred. Suddenly, he stepped back, held up a hand to the rest of the band. Bending, he picked something up from the stage and hurled it into the crowd.

I had to rewind to see that indeed, a water bottle had been thrown. From then on, it became a hate fest between Gage and someone beyond the camera view.

“What?” Gage knelt at the edge of the stage, and the reply wasn’t picked up by the recorder. “You know what? Fuck you then. Come sing it yourself!” With a motion, Gage invited the heckler to the stage. “No, I’m serious!” He held out the microphone. “Come on up.” And then things digressed to worse proportions. “Come up or shut up!” An illegible answer from within the crowd followed, and Gage responded, “Then come on. If you can sing it better, get your ass up here! What?” Before the altercation was over, Gage had thrown the mic, and a loud thud resounded through the audio of the video. Security coped with the restless crowd. Techs jumped into action, one leaping into the audience, supposedly to fetch the mic, and another handing off a different mic to Gage.

My stomach felt queasy. And yet I watched another. In this video, Gage was provoked enough that he lost it and jumped from the stage into the crowd. Security surged forward and soon had him in hand. Colt ran offstage and within a minute, both he and Gage were back and the drums began the beat to the next song.

The next one… Why did I continue to click play? A Gage I’d never seen before ripped his guitar from his body, threw it to the stage, and ran to the edge of the stage where his yells were articulately picked up in the headset. “You have a problem with me?” Behind him, a tech ran onto the stage and grabbed the abandoned instrument while Gage continued, oblivious to anything but whoever he was fixated on in the first few rows of bodies. “Why are you here? Why are you ruining the show for everyone who wants to be here? Fuck off!”

And then the final click out of the many left. The one I realized I’d all along been after. The rambling rant about racism and groups commonly discriminated against who seemed to bring on their own problems that had caused enough discord in the crowd to rile them up into what was considered a riot.
Inciting a riot. Hate crime
.

He was a man possessed. In each of these videos, I was looking at his body, but an entirely different person inhabited it. Even his mannerisms were alien to me. The fanatical way he moved, the contortion of his features. Gage on smack, smacked me head on with the memories of a number of Henni’s boyfriends.

To wipe the images from my mind, I clicked past a few pages and chose ‘Fire Flight-Silent Signals-Live San Paulo.’ One of my favorite Fire Flight songs. Relaxing into a more familiar Gage, I gladly let the ugly images fade away. 

By the time the video finished, the bath was half drawn. Divesting of my swimsuit, I sank into the warmth of the water. For a few minutes, I read with the tablet propped on a towel in the window overlooking the twinkle of the San Fernando Valley, letting the program turn the pages for me. My fingers moved over my skin, and soon my heart rate sped up, remembering Gage’s touch this morning.

Dunking my hands beneath the water, I found the washcloth I’d dropped in and tried to blank my mind as I bathed. When the soft terrycloth brushing over my body felt erotic enough that Gage’s face popped into my mind again, I determinedly reached for my tablet.

Remember who he’s capable of being. He’s a damn rock star. Don’t obsess over him
.

Going to the browser, I perused my bookmarks and selected one. When the page loaded, I clicked “Newest Videos” and settled back. The mission was to get Gage’s features out of my mind, and it worked as I watched.

Two of the five to ten minute clips played, and halfway through the third, I sat upright, sloshing water from the tub. Leaning forward, I peered at the screen and then rippled the water surface again as I reeled back. Squeezing my eyes tightly shut, I rubbed them with my wet fingers wanting to unsee the last half-a-minute. Blindly hitting at the pause icon, I clicked back to the name on this particular video.

Just Leaked! Bradley Walker and New Lover Ivy Messlehof

Leaping from the tub, I wrapped a towel around my torso and carefully, so I wouldn’t drop it into the water, picked up the tablet. Pushing the toilet lid down, I sat, clicked over to the browser, and typed in my friend’s name.

Every link on the first search page was headlined by the same two names. Who was this Bradley Walker? Another search heralded him as one of the hottest new actors in Hollywood. Clicking images, I stared at the pictures, but he wasn’t familiar. I hadn’t watched many American movies—or movies, period—in the last few years. The only time his name was linked to Ivy’s was in the recently released celebrity sex video.

So it would have been this easy, at least for the last couple of weeks? A damn Google search? Why wasn’t the PI calling with this info?

Entering the bedroom, I crossed to the dresser and picked up a pair of undies and shorts resting on top of a folded stack of clothing. It was still weird to have a housekeeper doing my laundry. Hastily, I dressed and ran down the stairs in bare feet. I had only left the pool and its lurking drone about an hour ago, but from all appearances, Colt and Seth had gone home. The glass was closed to the night, and I turned toward the music studio.

Padding over, I twisted the latch and found it uncharacteristically unlocked. The lights were on and the room was a wreck. Guitars were haphazardly strewn everywhere, some so randomly it looked as if they’d been tossed about. Amps, computer screens, and various gear were still powered on. Several crumpled up paper balls littered the floor.

Had Gage gone up to bed? Or was he in the theater room? Or was he gone?

I had a strong urge to hug him―if he was still in the house and had not taken one of the cars out at this time of night as he had a couple of times. Maybe this—the pressure—was the reason behind temperamental rock stars. Maybe the feeling of helplessness when a deadline approached or when almost every area of your life was no longer dictated by yourself was the reason so many in this business looked to chemicals to cope.

Gage was doing well. Since the night I’d found him in the shower, he hadn’t been a total wreck like the unrecognizable brother who had greeted me the night I’d arrived or like the madman in the videos. Although he was still using, it seemed he was making an attempt at moderation.

Retracing my steps, I went to the back staircase I’d used a moment ago. The door to the coatroom lured me. Curious, I passed through it to the garage. After tapping at the alarm, I opened the door and unconsciously breathed easier when all of the rides were in their places. Of course, if he’d gone out and hadn’t wanted to drive, he could have called a car. Normally he sent me a text if he made plans, but I’d been so excited over the Ivy news I hadn’t checked my phone.

After locking back up and making sure the light on the alarm was rearmed, I ascended the back stairs. The walls on either side were spotty with pictures of him, his family, and friends, and some artwork I assumed could be his. I paused before a picture of him around age five with his mother, which by my calculations had been taken shortly before that parent had passed away. Her eyes were slightly sunken, evidence of the disease already wreaking havoc on her body.