“Your brother’s pissing me off, kid.”
The clipped voice hits him like a bullet.
Luke rubs a hand across his eyes, not in the mood for a conversation with Mort Stein. He’s already told his ex-manager he wasn’t touring, and that’s it. Nothing Mort can say will change his mind. Although he’ll try. Christ knows Mort’s been on Luke’s ass since the Brothers Kincaid announced their indefinite hiatus. These days, Mort’s main goal in life is to get Luke’s head on straight so the band gets back together. Mort’s a musical genius, but he’s also a greedy son of a bitch.
Luke sighs. He’s picturing bail money. Broken beer bottles. Busted jaws. “What kind of trouble did he get into now?”
“Hell, son, I was hoping you could tell me. I got a call from Griff Greyson’s manager. Apparently, Seth and Jace missed the show in Perdido Key.”
Luke frowns. It might be like Seth to blow off a show, but not Jace. They have a contract. Still some semblance of a reputation. There’s no way they’d screw this up. Not unless—not unless something happened. Something bad.
Cold fear grips Luke by the balls. He checks the time. Seven o’clock. He last spoke to Jace earlier this afternoon. He and Seth were planning to grab a bite and then hit the road.
“They weren’t on the bus?”
“No, they weren’t on the goddamn bus,” Mort huffs in annoyance. “They waited as long as they could. Finally, they had to leave ’em in Pensacola. They ain’t picking up their phones. Emmy Lou’s a wreck.”
Luke grips the phone tighter, his knuckles bloodless, as Mort rattles complaints in his ear.
“It’s a fucking shitshow down there, kid. Greyson’s people are throwing around the s-word. Sue, Luke. Do you know what that’ll do to my business? Plus, we got that Nashville Star tabloid reporter hound-doggin’ their trail. Thinks there’s a story to be had. You know his name, Clive Jasper, the one who gave us trouble last year ...”
Luke closes his eyes. Red-hot rage blurs his thoughts at the mention of the reporter who caused Sal’s car accident. Thank God for Seth. If it weren’t for his brother ...
Brother.
Once again, Luke eyes Sal’s photo on the pegboard. Her middle finger aimed straight at him, if he doesn’t do what he knows he should. What Sal would do.
Luke needles his brow. “You got time for a favor, Mort?”
“Favors cost, son.” Luke hears the smile in his ex-manager’s voice that tells him Mort’s already planning to cash in. But Luke will make a deal with the devil in a heartbeat. He needs to find his brother. He needs to make sure Seth and Jace are safe.
Florida. He’s gotta get there.
Fast.
The room is breaking.
Jenny opens her eyes and jerks up in bed. Her hands fly to her temples. She shakes her head and moans. It’s a split-apart. The room crashing down around her with a deafening roar. Doors crumpling, the floor sucked out beneath her, the ceiling disintegrating around her into a million microscopic shrapnel-like pieces like it so often does in her dreams.
Wait. Is this a dream?
Jenny grips a steel railing. She blinks, confused, before she registers she’s in a hospital bed. Wires feed from a monitor into her body. An IV is snarled around her right hand. The scent of hand sanitizer burns her nostrils.
The corner of the room blurs with movement and Jenny flinches. A nurse steps forward, her mouth pursed in sympathy. “Welcome back, honey.”
Jenny licks chapped lips. Her throat is begging for a drink of water. “Where did I go?”
The nurse smiles. “Can you tell me your name?”
Her name? What was it? She had one ... but ...
Her mind spins dizzily, weighed down by drugs, by a groggy haze of confusion. Everything around her is strange and she’s scared. “Where am I? What happened?”
“Please relax. We’re trying to contact your husband—”
“No!” Her eyes wild, Jenny claws at the nurse’s arm. The nurse’s face fills with concern as Jenny thrashes her head and attempts to climb out of the bed.
She’ll escape. She’ll get away from Roy if it’s the last thing she does.
“No husband. Please, you can’t call him. You can’t ... you can’t ...”
The nurse escapes Jenny’s grasp, beckoning for more people to enter the room. “A sedative,” she orders. “So she doesn’t hurt herself.”
“Noooo,” Jenny cries, arcing violently on the bed. She doesn’t want to go back into the dark. Her body rises and falls as she fights cool hands pressing her down into the bed. Jenny screams, agonized, but it sticks in her throat when a new rush of drugs fills her veins. Her next word of protest is all but a gurgle.
Seconds later, she feels her body relax, the roll of her eyes up into darkness, a soft, familiar song in her head, as a warm sea of sleep sweeps her under once more.