Chapter Three

Chase had tried. He had tried everything in hell and in his legal power.

He couldn't just knock her out, kidnap her and keep her away until after the show.

Well, he could. But it wouldn't be legal. And that would definitely be something that she wouldn't forgive.

"Chase," Sky said, looking steadily at him, "trust me. I have no intention of getting myself killed. And the fact that you're here tells me something."

"That I'm a glutton for punishment?" he said dryly.

She let out a sound of exasperation. "No! You think that something is off-kilter, too. You know that what happened to my father was not an accident. You don't know what happened, but you know that something was wrong. Very wrong."

"Sky—"

"What? It's okay for you to be there and suspicious as all hell but not me?"

"Sky, first—"

"There is no first ."

"Well, yeah, there is," he told her. "You know what I've been doing. I got my major in criminology and I've kept at it—"

"Professional student, yeah, I got it."

"No, you don't. Yes, I've taken a lot of classes about poisons, blood spatter, DNA and fingerprints. But I've also spent hours upon hours at a shooting range. I know how to use a gun. I know how to aim. I've taken classes in self-defense—"

"And would a gun have protected my father from an amp that had been purposely set up with a frayed wire, something timed to go off after the show started? Was he going to shoot at the electricity?" Sky demanded.

"Okay, no," Chase agreed. She had a point.

"I'll be on stage, you'll be on stage," she reminded him passionately.

He sighed, looking down, shaking his head.

"Look at me, Chase, please!" Sky begged. "I know you, too, remember? I know that you suspect that someone on the stage that night—or near it, someone with easy access to the instruments and the amps—meant for my father to die. I can't begin to understand why anyone would want to kill him. Everyone loved him—seriously. He—"

"Sky, stop. Yeah, he was one of the nicest human beings I have ever encountered. One of the best. But he was no doormat. He held his own when he had an opinion. And he was always a staunch defender of anyone he saw as downtrodden."

"So," she said slowly, studying him, "you do know that he was killed."

"Sky, I don't know —"

"You suspect. And you've figured out what I hadn't—that he was probably killed because he was going to do something for someone and someone else didn't want him doing it, or—"

"Sky, don't you understand? That's why it's dangerous."

She nodded. "I repeat. I'll be on stage. You'll be on stage."

"I'm not going to talk you out of this," Chase said.

She shook her head.

"All right. Then, do me a favor," he said.

"Of course."

"You let me know anything that you think, feel or suspect," he told her.

"On one condition."

"What's that?"

"You let me know anything that you think, feel or suspect," she said sweetly.

He let out a sound of aggravation.

"That's the deal," she told him.

"All right, then, I have another idea," he said.

"Let's hear it."

"Okay, we're in this together, that's what you want?"

" Demand is more like it," she said casually.

"Then, we pretend that we're a thing again. That way, I can be at your side. That way, I can at least attempt to protect you."

She looked startled for a minute, and then as if she was about to protest.

But she didn't. Instead, she smiled. "At least that way, maybe I can protect you ."

"Sure, cute, of course," he said. "The point is we stick together and we have one another's backs. How does that work for you?"

She nodded slowly. "There's not a lot of time. I've made lists of everyone there—"

"I did, too."

"But," Sky continued, frustrated then, "we only have two more rehearsals and then the show."

"Lunch."

Sky's face knotted in confusion. "Lunch? It's past midnight, and you've just finished a nice big plate of cheese grits and shrimp and—"

"No. Let's invite the guys to lunch."

"Oh! Smart. Think they'll come?"

"To the best of my knowledge, they have nothing else to do until the show. Brandon Wiley is the only other family member, and he's here with Chris, so they'd be having lunch together somewhere anyway. Of course, every one of the guys—"

"We need the roadies, too," she reminded him.

"They'll come. It will be a free meal."

"Okay, so..."

"Why don't we send out an email invitation," Chase said.

"We?"

He smiled. "Of course. We're a thing, right?"

"I'll write it or you'll write it?" Sky asked.

"Doesn't matter, we just need to get it out."

Sky nodded, rose and walked from the kitchen to the dining room and back across to her office. She sat at her computer and started filling in addresses. "Okay, I have Chris, Mark, Hank, Joe and Brandon. Not sure I have all the roadies in my address book."

"I'll fill them in," Chase said. "May I?"

She shrugged and started out of her chair. He was already sliding in before she could slide out. She moved quickly.

Chase entered the extra addresses and then a message.

Hey, guys! Rare opportunity! Lunch in the French Quarter—seriously! We'll meet at Chase's noonish, unless that's too early for old rock stars.

"Your place?" Sky asked. "I thought you meant here."

"My place is more convenient for those not living here—French Quarter."

"Okay, whatever. But as for lunch..."

"Delivery. It will be great."

Sky looked at him, nodding. A little blip caused them both to look at the computer screen. "An answer already," Chase noted.

Sky stood to look over his shoulder. "Joe Garcia! He says he's in. Excellent. And he gave us an LOL, telling us that old people have a tendency to be early risers!"

"We'll have them all here, trust me," Chase said. "And—"

He broke off. A dog was barking loudly enough to raise the dead. The sound was coming from somewhere nearby.

From right next door.

Chase leaped to his feet and hurried out of Skylar's office to the front, throwing open the door.

He could swear he saw the gate at the front rattling. And the dog continued to bark. He hurried outside, looking just beyond the gate.

There was nothing. And the barking stopped abruptly.

"Chase!" Sky called, hurrying outside to join him. "Hey, people walk on the street. And that's King from next door, a big old shepherd, but sweet as a baby. He's—"

"He's what you need," Chase told her.

"Chase—"

"Let's get back in. You need a big old dog like King."

"I love dogs. But I travel too much. And, please, come on, Chase, this is getting ridiculous! No one is going to come after me here. I mean, why would they? As far as anyone knows, I'm filling in for my dad. It's just a show, a show—"

"Unlike any other," he said. "Damn, Sky, if I know what you're up to, someone else may suspect that you're looking for them, too. Move."

"Right. And not you?"

"Jake wasn't my dad," he said quietly. "I loved him, but others loved him, too. Come on. Let's get back in the house."

"But seriously, I have the gate, you have to buzz to get in—"

"Or jump the wall."

"King is out there," Sky reminded him.

"All night?" he demanded. She wasn't going to lie. She shook her head.

"But still—"

"I'm not leaving."

"What?"

"I'm not leaving."

"I'm not inviting you to stay!"

"You don't even have your own dog."

"I'll get one tomorrow," Sky promised.

King suddenly started barking again. Chase couldn't leave her. Whether she liked it or not, he couldn't leave her. And it would be hell all night, knowing that she was upstairs, that they were close, that years had dripped away as if they'd never been apart, and he couldn't leave her.

"You have a lovely sofa," he said.

"That's not... I mean, the house has four bedrooms upstairs. Chase, you know that's not the point."

"Hey, we'll put on a good show."

What the hell did he have to do? Tell her the truth about what he now did for a living, the truth about who he worked for...

"Sky, I am worried for your life. Because someone besides me suspects that you're not just singing with the band for old times' sake, for your dad."

King barked and stopped again.

"I would appreciate a pillow and a blanket," he told her, prodding her through the entry to the parlor.

"Really? If you're insisting, there are guest rooms—"

"No, I'll be down here. Where I'll know if someone is fooling around with the house."

"Super hearing? After being a drummer?"

"Cushioning earplugs. Hank told me too many of his friends have gone deaf. You need someone else here. Sky, what the hell. This is real. Someone could break in. With a gun. You need protection. Tonight, I'm it."

"And what are you going to do if someone breaks in with a gun?" she asked.

"Shoot him," he said flatly.

C HASE WAS DOWNSTAIRS . Sky had provided him with two pillows and a blanket. The furniture in the large living area that consumed the center of the house was old—dating back to the 1800s—and she doubted that there was any way anyone could sleep comfortably on the one sofa that sat with a group of upholstered chairs in front of the fireplace.

But he was there.

Of course, she couldn't quite figure how she hadn't realized that he was armed. But she didn't know anything about guns. She'd never wanted to know anything about them, even when crime rates had gotten higher in many of the country's major cities.

And yet now...

She'd asked him, of course. With a shrug he'd explained it was all part of the classes he'd been taking in criminology, right along with blood spatter and fingerprints.

She'd provided him with the little he had asked for and he'd escaped.

But she knew he was there. And it was hell.

And then again, it wasn't.

While she was in a turmoil of hell where the past had come to life, she also felt...safe. She believed him. He knew how to use a firearm, and she figured he probably knew a lot more. He'd always been—perfect. Tall, broad-shouldered, lean-muscled, agile...a diver, a guy who could ski, skateboard, swim, kill it on a football field.

It had never occurred to her before to be afraid; she had simply been determined. In fact, even being her father's daughter, she'd never been afraid. The house was in a great quiet residential neighborhood, not too far from Lafayette Cemetery, Commander's Palace and a place she loved, Garden District Book Shop. Still close to a few iconic places, but private and off the beaten path. When she had turned eighteen, her parents had put the house in her name. When her dad had died, her mother had started traveling and when she was home, she liked to be in a little condo she'd purchased down in the French Quarter near Café du Monde.

Both of her parents had always been low-key, friends with their neighbors, quiet in their lifestyles when they weren't performing. They had loved being together. And yes, while he was recognizable, as he'd often explained with amusement, it just wasn't like being a movie star. The good majority of people in the world would have no idea of who he was when he walked down the street.

And she wasn't well known at all, so there had been no reason...

Of course, she could have done a few simple things. Like having alarms installed for the gate and the house. That might have meant that Chase McCoy wouldn't have insisted on spending a miserable night on her sofa.

And she wouldn't have spent the night knowing that he was there.

So much distance between them. Years! But...

When she was near him, all that they had shared might have been yesterday. She could remember the subtle way his scent, clean and masculine, could wrap around her: it was as if she could breathe him in. She loved the sound of his laughter, the look in his eyes...

And it was ridiculously tempting to walk down the stairs, just squeeze next to him, look up at him and pretend that time had not created a wall between them, a wall that she had somehow pushed into being.

But it was there. He was here because he was afraid for her. And because he had loved her father. And for no other reason.

She winced and tossed, plumping her pillow. She had to grow up. She couldn't erase the past, but it was behind her. She had to behave like a normal human being with him, except...

They were playing a game. A dangerous game. Pretending they were a couple who had simply fallen back together so that others might not suspect anything amiss if they whispered to one another, slipped together as a couple if they saw or heard something...

She had to grow up. Play the game. And for a minute, she was a little amused. Chase and all his criminology classes and work—doing whatever it was he did with most of his time.

Undercover!

Undercover in plain sight. And if it got her the answers she wanted, total justice for her father, well then, it was worth whatever she had to do.

Decided. Simple. Done.

And it was still the wee hours of the morning before exhaustion claimed her. Because he was there, downstairs, so close, and she didn't understand herself why she had thrown away such an incredible man, such a beautiful relationship.

S KY HAD STILL been sleeping when Chase called; he could hear it in her voice. He wondered if just maybe she'd had as much trouble falling asleep as he'd had. No matter. It was late. Time to move.

"Hello?" she murmured, curiosity in the very sleepiness of her voice.

"Time to rise and shine up in the... Sky!"

She groaned. "Oh, that was bad."

"Yeah, I know. But you need to wake up."

"Wait a minute. You're calling me—from downstairs?"

"Seemed the best way to wake you up," he told her.

"Okaaay."

"We need to get to my house."

"Um, the lunch thing, right. But it's still early."

"I know you want to shower. And then at my house, we'll have to check our RSVPs and order the food in, I'll need to shower, and I'm hoping there's time for us to go through a few things."

"A few things?"

"Our suspect list, what we know about each of the players, the band, the roadies, anyone who might have been close. If what happened was more than an accident, there had to have been a reason."

She was quiet over the line for a minute. Then she told him, "You forgot something," she told him.

"What?"

"A dog? If I get a nice big dog, you get to go home at night."

He shook his head. "A nice big dog would be good, but I won't be leaving you."

She let out a sound of aggravation. "What? You're going to guard me the rest of my life?"

"I believe that between us, we'll glean the truth. We'll find out if there was more than the many law enforcement and fire personnel saw that day."

"They were looking for cause, not a reason," Sky murmured. "Should we make coffee first, grab something—"

"Believe it or not, I have coffee. And food. We need to go."

"I'm going to shower and come down," she said, ending the call.

C HASE LOOKED AT his phone for a minute, grimaced to himself and rose to wander the living room. The house was a beautiful one, but he knew that it had been falling apart when Jake had purchased it. He'd always loved period things.

There was a picture on the mantel, and he walked over to it. The photo had been taken when he and Sky had first started dating. But Hank was in it as well, along with Jake. It had been taken on stage one night, maybe at the casino stage in Florida, a smaller venue, maybe about seven thousand people, and it was one of the nights they had each come in for just a song or two. But the pride that both Jake and Hank wore on their faces was wide and touching, just like the way they all stood together, he and Sky in the middle, Hank and Jake flanking them.

He turned away from the picture, reminding himself that he was working. Someone in or connected to the band was selling drugs. Bad drugs. Not that they couldn't kill on their own, but these had been contaminated with fentanyl.

Jake had known it, and Jake had died.

And if there was anything he could do for Sky's father, it was going to be to keep his daughter safe. And between them, they would find the truth.

S KY HEADED FOR the shower. She realized she was arguing with him just to argue. She should be glad. Chase was on her side. Since she'd get nowhere by looking at the players and roadies and demanding to know if one of them had killed her father, it was great to have someone on her side.

Then again...

Hank McCoy was Chase's grandfather. And he was on the suspect list. Was Chase open to believing his own grandfather might have killed Jake?

She doubted it; if someone had told her that her father was a murderer, she wouldn't have believed it.

She turned the water on, not sure if she wanted it to be hot and soothing or cold enough to really wake her up and straighten her out.

Sky tried both, and both were good. But she hurried and dressed quickly and casually in jeans and a tunic and hurried down the stairs.

"Let's go."

"Don't we both have cars here?" she asked.

"Leave yours."

"Why don't we leave yours?"

"Are you being argumentative for the sake of it? We're going to my house."

She winced. She was doing it again. Arguing just to argue.

"Fine. We'll take your car."

The distance between the Garden District and French Quarter wasn't great, but Jake was an expert of winding his way around the tourists who seemed to think it was fine to suddenly step out into the street at any given minute.

"The problem with the French Quarter," she murmured.

"Wandering tourists?" he asked. "No big deal. There's not so many this close to Esplanade and Rampart. Anyway...we made it."

He hit a button on a remote, and the gate that led to his courtyard swung open. He pulled his car into the garage, leaving room for those who were due to join them.

"They'll take rideshares or walk, depending on where they're staying," Sky commented.

"Probably, but just in case...we've some room here. And it's even possible to find spaces on this street this far from the river. Anyway, I've got to shower. I've ordered food, so if it gets here before I'm out—"

"I think it will be safe for me if I see that a food delivery is arriving."

He didn't reply but led the way through the kitchen entrance.

She remembered his home. And like her own, she thought, it was a great one. Having survived a number of serious fires, it was one of the oldest in the area, stemming from the late 1700s. But it had been treated with care through the years. It was a smaller house than hers with a narrower stairway, with touches of the period in the archways and architectural details. Her home was decidedly Victorian while his was more French Gothic, but both were part of what they loved about New Orleans: the history, the color and the music. Especially the music. She smiled, thinking about the wonderful performers she so often saw when she just took a walk down Royal Street.

"What?" Chase asked.

"What?"

"You're thinking something and smiling," Chase said.

"Just that I wonder... I mean, the guys started as kids, basically. My father being the grand old man in his twenties. And I wonder if they hadn't all grown up surrounded by so much great music if they would have become the group that they were. It wasn't one song—it wasn't a vocalist or a guitarist or any one instrument. These guys loved and grew up with and studied music, all of them," she said.

"As did we."

"And I still love it and use it, just in a different way," she assured him.

"Okay, so...the kitchen is smaller, but it has an island. So just in case—"

"I can safely handle food," she assured him.

"Okay, I'm headed upstairs."

"Go!"

He did, hurrying up the narrow flight that led to the second floor. He had a great balcony up there; they'd watched a few parades go by from that vantage point, though they took different routes now.

When he was gone, Sky slowly turned around, taking in the house. He'd either remained a fairly neat person or he had someone come in to clean. And while not the size of her place, he had a table in the dining area that stretched straight into the parlor that would seat eight, and there were plenty of sitting spaces in the parlor.

She walked to the left side of the house and found that one room was all but filled with a drum set. But Chase also played guitar, and he had a collection of tambourines and maracas. She smiled when she actually found a cowbell on the shelf along with the other smaller instruments.

What was he really doing with his life? she wondered.

When she'd hear about him through one of the band members or their families, he was just taking another class, sitting in with a group somewhere, working on something in a lab. He seemed to travel a lot, too.

She hadn't been there long before she heard a buzz and remembered that he had a gate bell, similar to the one she'd installed. She quickly headed for the front, freezing in the parlor when she looked up the stairs.

Chase was there, bottom half wrapped in a towel. His shoulders were bronzed and glistening, and his abs and pecs had remained smoothly muscled.

"I've got it!" she cried to him. "For God's sake, get dressed!"

"I don't know if you should answer the door—"

She ignored him, hurrying on to the front. She pushed the button at the door that opened the gate and stepped out to the porch. It was the food arriving, two burly men bearing boxes and bags. She greeted them pleasantly and directed them to the island in the kitchen and the long table in the dining room. They'd barely gotten things on the table when Chase came hurrying down, now in jeans, a T-shirt and a casual jacket.

She realized the latter probably concealed a weapon.

But he thanked the delivery men as well and saw them out.

"See?" she said. "Food, delivered, safely, and I managed it just fine on my own."

He didn't reply to that but said, "Let's start getting this stuff open and out. Oh, paper plates. There's a tray of plastic forks and all on the counter... We'll be ready, and if there's time..."

"If there's time, what?"

"We'll quickly run up to my office."

"Shouldn't we do that first? Food gets cold. I see you have crawfish étouffée, gumbo...all the right stuff, huh?"

"One hopes. You're right. Leave it all covered. That's a salad—doesn't matter. Come on upstairs," he said.

He hurried ahead of her, turning to the right.

His office was impressively neat and well equipped with his computer, a good-sized monitor, printer/copier complete with a scanner and a tray with neatly folded papers. His desk was large with an ergonomic chair, and there was a love seat in the rear of the room and another chair that could be brought up to the desk.

She wondered who he might work with here at times.

And she couldn't help but feel a bit of jealousy. Did he write music sometimes? Maybe with someone...with whom he could make beautiful music?

"All right, the remaining group. Four guys—one of them my grandfather. Hank always admitted he did some pot in his day, doesn't care for it now, says he can take a nap at the drop of a hat without it. Drinking—a bit to excess in his younger days, wild, crazy and a success—but he says he respected Jake so much, even when he didn't realize it, and he learned to temper himself. Yes, he's my grandfather, and yes, I want him to be innocent."

"Did any of them go crazy on drugs at any time?" Sky murmured.

"Not really, and certainly not in comparison to a lot of groups out there who suddenly had tons of money and adulation. I looked up a bunch of public-domain stuff. They never went crazy peeing on stage à la Jim Morrison or anything, but Joe Garcia once drank himself into a stupor and ripped up a hotel room and cooled his heels in jail overnight."

"Brandon?" Sky asked.

"He's been rowdy a few times, but whatever he has or hasn't done, it was never bad enough for an arrest. I've been with him during Mardi Gras when I was worried that he'd get himself in trouble and I wanted to make sure he'd get home okay. Brandon...he was there that night."

Sky nodded. "I've never seen Mark or Chris have anything more than a beer or two. And if he does drugs of any kind, Brandon certainly has never asked me to join in. Then again, other than being polite when my mom has had anyone around, I haven't really hung out with any of these people for years."

"Your dad never frowned on anyone having a drink. Even sober, he'd buy a beer for a friend. He'd be out of there if people were drinking to excess, they... Well, they just didn't. They respected him, and they followed his lead. They might all owe him their careers—and their lives."

"Roadies?" Skylar said.

"Okay, let's just remember we can't label them as guilty of anything just because we were never as close to any of them as we were the band members," Chase said.

Sky smiled. "Gotcha. So...?"

"So. Justin West, Charlie Bentley and Nathan Harrison," Chase said. "Justin has been with the group longest, he's turning fifty in the fall, and has no arrest record that I can find, and records like that are accessible. I have seen Justin kick back after a show with a lot of tequila, but he's also a family man, two sons in college, still married to Julia, his wife of twenty-seven years. Charlie Bentley, forty-three, divorced, handsome man, glad to sweep up the ladies after a performance. He had a DUI back in 2008. He was young, and in the biz... Driving under any kind of influence is a sin in my book—plenty of rideshare companies out there—but that's a personal thing."

"Not personal at all. Too many people have been injured or killed by impaired drivers," Sky said.

He nodded. "Still, doesn't turn him into a murderer or..."

"Drug pusher?"

"Right. Then we have Nathan Harrison. Also in his early forties, also divorced—a couple of times—still a good dad to his kids, so I hear. Coaches his son's Little League team and is on decent terms with both his ex-wives, no arrest record, but again, likes to party after a show and considers himself quite the hunk for those young women who like to hang around rock stars."

A buzzing sounded.

"First of our lunch guests," Chase said, rising. "Let's see who it is."

"Everyone responded. Hanging around until sound checks and all tonight," Sky murmured. "Well, except for Hank, of course—"

"Because Gramps is in the hospital," Chase reminded her.

"He's doing okay?"

"He'll be in there another week or so and then... He'll be out of any kind of heavy lifting until he finishes with his cardio rehab."

"Puts you in a bad position, doesn't it?" Sky asked him.

"What do you mean?"

"Skyhawk with no drummer."

"You don't hang around a lot. They have no lead singer and they've managed."

Sky laughed. "All those guys sing, and they've divided the songs well. But being a drummer...hmm, harder call."

"And the rock world is filled with them."

"But not drummers who belong with Skyhawk."

"Hey, let's focus. Be charming and fun and see what we can learn about people."

Sky nodded gravely. "Someone fixed that amp. And they knew how to do it. Fray it just enough that the band would be in the middle of something and that would mean my dad would be impatient enough to fix it himself without stopping the show."

"They're all fairly tech-savvy when it comes to the shows."

"No, seriously, think about it. There's so much going on. The light show, the mic stands, the amplifiers, all usually run by a good DJ until the band's front man takes over. I think—"

"I think we're talking about a single wire—one mic."

She stopped, almost tripping down the stairs. She grabbed his arm to steady herself. Naturally, he was there, catching her. But she looked into his eyes.

"You knew—you knew long before all this came along. You have known that what happened to my dad wasn't an accident and—"

"I haven't known anything. I've suspected some things, yes. But don't you understand? We don't know who to suspect, and even if we did, damn it, Sky, the legal system works on proof. I don't like that you're here, because yes, I think something was done on purpose to your dad. And if whoever did it thinks you're on his trail, there's going to be another so-called accident!"

She was still holding his arm. His hands were still on her shoulders.

The buzzing sounded again.

He released her and turned and headed on down the stairs, hitting keys on his system that opened the gate and the front door.

He stepped out to the porch.

Their lunch guests were arriving.