Chapter 9

ERIC

A lot of people like country music. The local radio station's playlist was full of Garth Brooks, Tim McGraw, and Dolly Parton. If you enjoyed songs about achy-breaky hearts and love gone wrong, Sunrise Bay was the place to be.

But what I hadn't expected to see at tonight's concert were hundreds of people waving American flags and wearing Tim Evans Fan Club T-shirts.

I turned to Alex, pulling him out of the way of a woman pushing a stroller. "I thought you were exaggerating when you said there'd be a lot of people here. Where did they all come from?"

"Beats me. Jenny said she got inquiries from people as far south as New Orleans. It's just as well I bought our tickets when I did."

I looked over my shoulder. The line of people waiting to buy concert tickets hadn't shrunk since we walked through the makeshift gates.

"We're sitting over there in the VIP area." Alex pointed to an old, gnarly oak tree on the right-hand side of the stage. "If anything goes wrong with the sound system, I'm not far away."

"I thought you'd be backstage," I said, trying to hide my growing unease.

"Not this time. Tim brought his own sound technicians. All I had to do was set up everything."

For Alex's sake, I hoped nothing went wrong. Even though we weren't sitting far from the stage, it would still take a few minutes to move through the crowd.

"Eric!" I turned around, searching for the person who yelled my name.

"Over there." Alex pointed to someone waving a red cap in the air. "Is that Riley?"

A smile tugged at my lips when I recognized his face. "It is."

"Come on," Alex said, changing direction. "We'll need to be quick. The concert starts in fifteen minutes."

"You don't need to say hello. I can meet you by the tree."

"Are you kidding? You might not be intrigued by your neighbor, but I am." Alex kept walking toward Riley.

"What do you mean by ‘intrigued'?"

"He's a man with a mysterious past. Sunrise Bay is a great place to hide, but he might need our help to cover his tracks."

I frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"I know a thing or two about creating decoys. It wouldn't take much to confuse whoever's looking for him."

"We don't know if anyone's looking for him."

Alex snorted. "A wildly attractive artist, who by all accounts is a millionaire, is on the run from someone who broke into his apartment. With your imagination and my IT skills, we could convince most people that he's living in Switzerland."

"You should have been a writer," I said, shaking my head.

Alex grinned. "I'd make a better undercover agent. Just call me Bond. James Bond."

"MI6 wouldn't be safe with you around." I moved the blanket Alex gave me to my other arm. "Don't ask Riley about his personal life."

Alex stopped in the middle of the walkway. "Why not?"

"He might not want to talk about it."

"Most people enjoy talking about themselves. It's only when you have something to hide that it becomes uncomfortable."

"He isn't the only person who likes their privacy," I reminded him. "When was the last time you talked about your work?"

"I can't talk about my latest project. I've signed a confidentiality agreement."

My eyebrows rose. "Can you tell me anything about what you're doing?"

"I told you—I'm building a computer network." Alex pulled his baseball cap lower. "We'd better move before we get trampled by the crowd."

I sighed. The sooner we said hello to Riley, the sooner we could leave. "There are now eleven minutes until the concert starts."

"That's plenty of time."

I wasn't so sure. There were a lot of people looking for somewhere to sit. We'd be lucky to make it back to our seating area.

We hadn't walked more than a dozen steps when Alex turned around. "Have you told Riley we know about the burglary in Italy?"

"No. I haven't seen him since you called me this morning."

Alex seemed genuinely worried. "You need to tell him."

"If I tell him, he'll think we've been snooping into things we should have left alone."

"It was investigative journalism. I wanted to make sure he wasn't a homicidal psychopath."

I snorted. I already had one of those in my life. "You were being nosy."

"I had the best of intentions. What if he thinks we only want to talk to him because he's a successful artist?"

I wasn't sure when Alex's discovery became my problem, but it was there all the same. And if I was honest, I'd sooner tell Riley what Alex found. My friend was one of the nicest guys I'd met, but he loved drama.

And if there was one thing I didn't need in my life, it was more drama.