Tessa patted my hand. “Good to know, sweets. Pregnancy is hard enough with a partner at your side, but going through it on your own is a tough haul that I wouldn’t wish on anyone.” She straightened and pushed off the hood of the car. “Looks like the practice is finishing up. I’d better go find Carl.” And with that she trotted off without another word.

I stared after her, her last words tumbling around in my head like rocks in a dryer. If I hadn’t know better, I’d have sworn that Tessa was speaking from personal experience.

Chapter 18

Leaving the park, I allowed my thoughts to explore the implications of what Tessa had said. I’m leaping to insane conclusions, I told myself. But ... were they really all that insane? Tessa had left Beaulac when she was nineteen and had only returned when she’d been asked to become my guardian. That was eleven years. It was more than plausible that Tessa might have had a child during that time.

And in all the time since then, she’s never spoken of it. Which either meant there was no baby and I was letting my imagination run wild, or that it was obviously a painful and/or touchy subject, and if she’d wanted me to know about it, she would have told me.

And, if nothing else, Tessa had managed to completely take my mind off of my other stress for a while.

My phone dinged with a text message as I drove, and at the next red light I clicked it to see a text from Roger telling me that the Lake Pearl Bank would have everything ready for me in the morning.

Nice to see at least one thing going right.

Then I gave myself a mental smack. Watch it, Kara. You’re going to jinx yourself again.

Sound System Studio was situated near the middle of town, in the “gray” area between the well-maintained downtown and the shoddier older sections that had been allowed to fall into disrepair. The studio was housed in a two-story windowless metal building—the kind of prefab construction that can go up in a few weeks and was usually picked as an “after” shot during storm season when a tornado turned it into a freeform sculpture of twisted aluminum. A bright blue sign hung over the door with the name of the studio painted across it in a swirling font, though I noticed that there were a number of pitted marks in the sign, as if someone had been throwing rocks at it. Not too surprising considering the neighborhood. Probably a good thing there were no windows.

Ryan was exiting his car as I pulled in. I checked my watch as I parked, pleased to see that I’d managed to kill an hour exactly.

“Perfect timing,” he said as I walked up.

“You had doubts?”

“Never.” He grinned. He walked to the door and held it for me, then followed me into a cramped foyer that barely had room for a desk, a chair, and an artificial ficus tree in the corner.

There was no one in the foyer, but we could hear music coming from beyond a door on the far wall. It was unlocked, and so we entered to find ourselves near the back of a room about thirty feet by twenty, though at least half of it was taken up with various music equipment. There were double doors to the right and left—I assumed that the latter set led to the outside judging by the orientation of the room. Against the wall nearest us was a table with a variety of wrapped snacks scattered upon it. Beside the table was a battered white refrigerator, though it was barely recognizable as white since damn near every inch was covered with stickers and magnets from an impressive variety of music groups.

Lida, Michael, and Trey were at the other end of the room amid their sound equipment, slowly playing something that I suspected was one of their new songs since I didn’t recognize it from the concert.

Lida looked much like she did at her house, wearing low-cut jeans and a white tank-top, with only a few piercings and very little makeup. She caught sight of us and gave us a small nod but didn’t stop playing. It didn’t surprise me that Roger wasn’t there. I could hardly blame him after the rough couple of days he’d had. I was surprised to hear Michael missing notes. After the third time he fumbled, Lida called a halt.

“I’m sorry, Lida,” Michael said, clearly distressed

“It’s cool,” she replied gently. “It’s a new song, and we’re all trying to figure out how to make it sound right. That’s the whole point of rehearsing, okay? Why don’t you go get a Diet Coke or something.” He stared morosely at his keyboard, then nodded and stood.

Trey set his instrument aside. “I’ll take care of him, Lida. You go talk to the cops.”

It was apparently the wrong thing to say. Michael jerked his head up, seeing us for the first time. “Roger didn’t do anything wrong!” he announced loudly, features twisted in distress.

“Michael, they know that,” Lida said with a tired patience. “Roger isn’t in trouble, okay?” She gave us an apologetic look. “Give me a couple of minutes? I need to go take a walk with him and get him settled down.”

“Take all the time you need,” I replied.

The big man’s shoulder’s slumped and he allowed himself to be led outside, but not before shooting us another wary look.

Trey blew out his breath as they left. “Wow, the tension around here sucks ass.”

“How long has it been like this?” I asked, walking up to him. “Tense, I mean.”

He let out a dry bark of laughter. “Since we signed with the label?” Then he winced and shook his head. “That’s not really fair though. I was talking mostly about how things have been since Saturday night.”

“Can you tell me again what you saw?” I asked. I’d taken his statement after the incident, but I knew how useful it was to do follow-up interviews to see what was remembered, forgotten, or outright changed.

Trey tugged at the collar of his shirt before dropping down to sit cross-legged on the floor. Of all the band members, he was the one who looked the most different in “regular” clothes. He’d been fairly gothed out at the concert, in a getup similar to what Ryan had been wearing. I was amused to see that Trey was now wearing khaki pants and an oxford-style shirt—again, similar to what Ryan had on.

“I hardly saw anything,” Trey said. “The lights went out and something big shoved past me. Then I heard a bunch of screaming and yelling.” He toyed with the end of his shoelace. “I stood still since it was so dark, and I didn’t want to trip over anything and risk messing up my bass. About a minute later the lights came back on and Roger and Michael were all freaked out, yelling about someone grabbing Lida. Michael took off, so I ran after him. I didn’t know what was going on, but right then I figured the best way I could help would be to make sure that Michael didn’t get hurt or lost.” He grimaced. “I love Michael, but I wanted to throttle him for taking off like that. I’m not supposed to do any running.” Then he sighed. “But I can understand why he did. I’ve never seen anyone closer than those two.”

“You’re wearing running shoes,” Ryan pointed out.

“Yeah, that’s because I gotta wear them all the time,” Trey replied. “I have plantar fasciitis. The doc told me to lay off the running for a while.” He gave a morose sigh that at first made me think he was joking, then I realized he was truly upset about not being able to run. Then again, he had that lean lanky build of someone who probably ran a hundred miles a week without breaking a sweat. And enjoyed it.

Sick.

“And I don’t wanna end up like Roger,” Trey added, shaking his head.

I frowned. “What do you mean? What happened to Roger?”

“He used to do a lot of running too, coupla years ago.” Trey looked at me, tragedy written all over his face. “Then he messed up his feet. He stopped running. Stopped! Never went back to it. Went with the weight training instead.” He shuddered. “Man, I can’t even imagine.”