Buttercream Bump Off (14 page)

“Isn’t this hot?” she shouted over the crowd.

Mel was speechless. Petite Angie was five inches taller in red patent leather platform pumps that made her legs seem as if they stopped at her neck, a black micro-miniskirt, and a white gauze shirt over a red bra. Her hair was big, her makeup was heavy, and she looked nothing like the former elementary school teacher they used to know.

“ ‘Dozens of people spontaneously combust each year. It’s just not really widely reported,’ ” Tate said out of the side of his mouth to Mel.

“I heard that!
This Is Spinal Tap
,” Angie said, identifying the quote. “Very funny.”

Mel glanced down at her jeans, high-heeled sandals and silk Alfani blouse and felt like she might as well be wearing a muumuu.

“You look fine,” Angie said, as if reading her mind. “I’m just trying out the part of the rock-and-roll girlfriend.”

“Girlfriend?” Tate choked out the word. “Isn’t it a little premature to be labeling this fling as if it’s a relationship?”

“Fling?” Angie asked with a laugh. “Let me assure you, this is no fling. Come and meet Roach.”

Tate looked as if he might stroke out, so Mel braced him by putting her hand on his elbow and steering him through the crowd after Angie.

Roach was grinding on an enormous meatball sub. He had a gaggle of groupies around him, but he pushed them aside and pulled Angie up close against him.

“Hi, Mel,” he said. “Hi, Todd.”

“Tate.”

Mel glanced at Tate, and his cold stare matched his tone of voice. She was surprised Roach didn’t have frost-bite.

“Sorry, man,” Roach said and held out his hand. Tate shook it grudgingly. “Do you two want anything to eat? I have to load up before the show. Playing drums for two hours will wipe you out if you don’t eat.”

“No, thanks,” Mel said.

“We’re good,” Tate agreed.

There was an awkward pause, and Angie looked between them as if hoping there’d be a spontaneous group hug. Mel could have told her not to hold her breath. Judging by the glower on Tate’s face, the only thing he wanted to hug was Roach’s neck between his hands.

“I got to sit in on the rehearsal today,” Angie said. “It was boss.”

Boss?
Tate and Mel exchanged a look.

“Yo, Roach!” a tall skinny guy, who Mel recognized as the lead singer, yelled. “We have a schedule meeting with Jimbo.”

“On my way,” he said. He picked up his sandwich and kissed Angie on the cheek. “Why don’t you go grab your seats? I’ll meet you back here after the show.”

“Okay!” Angie said. “Um . . . break a leg.”

Roach tossed his black hair over his shoulder and grinned at her. “You are so cute.”

With another kiss, he disappeared into the crowd.

“All right, just what the he—”

Mel cut off Tate’s tirade before it could begin. “Who’s Jimbo?”

“He’s their manager,” Angie said. “Roach calls him the warden.”

“I need a drink,” Tate muttered.

“There’s a bar over here,” Angie said. “Follow me.”

They wound their way through the crowd towards a corner bar. Mel ordered a glass of wine, while Tate had a whiskey straight up and Angie had a beer.

It was too loud to talk, so Angie led them up the stairs towards the main theater, where they found their seats front and center, three rows back from the stage.

As they worked their way to their seats, a woman stepped in front of Angie and planted her hands on her hips in a fair imitation of a Jersey barrier.

An overprocessed bottle blonde with a long face, fake boobs, and bloodred nails, she looked like something that would crawl out of a basement on a moonlit night.

“Well, if it isn’t the flavor of the month. You know you’re just a shiny new toy for Roach, right? He’s going to get tired of you, and he’s going to kick your butt to the curb as soon as he’s had his fill.” She looked Angie up and down. “Which shouldn’t take very long. Word of advice? Don’t get too comfortable in my seat.”

Angie gave her a withering stare. “You are so not talking to me.”

“Oh, yes, I am,” the woman said. She moved into Angie’s personal space and poked her with one of her talons. Bad idea.

Mel and Tate exchanged an alarmed glance, but before they could intercept, Angie did a sweep kick into the other woman’s left knee. The poor thing crumpled like a folding chair onto the theater floor.

“Meet the curb,” Angie said and stepped over the other woman to continue on her way.

They settled into their seats with Tate in between them.

“I guess you’d better get used to that sort of thing,” he said. “You know, having groupies crawling all over your boyfriend and getting in your face, since you’re dating a rock star and all.”

“You’re right. I’m going to need to brush up on my kick-boxing,” Angie said. Then she grinned. “Man, this is going to be fun.”

Tate frowned; obviously that was not the reaction he had anticipated.

“Nice kick, Ange,” a guy in a black T-shirt with electrical cords wrapped around his arm shouted from the stage. “Anyone who can take down Clarisse is okay in my book. I knew I liked you.”

“Thanks, Carl,” she said. “Hey, these are my friends Mel and Tate.”

They waved, and Carl jumped off the stage to shake hands.

“Roach says Carl is the best equipment man in the biz,” Angie said.

Carl laughed. “Well, you’re all in for a treat tonight. The band hasn’t played in over a week, so they are going to blow the doors off of this place.”

“Excuse me.” Angie pulled her phone out of her pocket, checked the caller ID, and turned away to answer it.

“They haven’t had a show in over a week?” Mel asked. “I thought these tours went from city to city with no breaks?”

“Usually they do, but the guys wanted some downtime, and then that . . . uh . . . thing with Roach’s dad happened, so we haven’t played since Vegas.”

“So they’ve just been practicing?” Tate asked.

Carl burst out laughing. “Man, these guys are pros. They don’t need to practice. They could be half-dead and moving towards the light, but if you put a guitar in their hands, they’d start playing.”

“So, they don’t even rehearse?” Mel asked.

“Nah, only if one of them writes a new song,” he said.

“Anything new lately?” Mel asked.

“No, just Ange, and she is the coolest,” Carl gushed. “Well, I’d better hustle. Enjoy the show.”

“Thanks,” they said together.

Mel glanced past Tate. Angie was still on the phone and had her back turned towards them.

“He lied,” she hissed to Tate.

“Who? Carl?”

“No, Roach,” she said. “He told Angie and me that he was at rehearsal the evening his father was killed.”

Tate’s eyes about popped out of his head. He opened his mouth to tell Angie, but Mel put her hand on his arm.

“No, not yet,” she said. “We only have Carl’s information. We need confirmation before we say anything to Angie.”

“I disagree. We have to tell her now,” he said.

“Tell me what?”

Tate and Mel turned to see Angie looking at them.

“ ‘When we go to Morocco, I think we should have completely different names and be completely different people,’ ” Mel said.

“Almost Famous,”
Angie said, identifying the quote with a grin. “Wow, you two are really banging out the rock-and-roll movie quotes. Hey, does that make me Penny Lane?”

“No!” Tate said, frowning. “Absolutely not.”

Angie gave him a one-armed hug. “Relax, I’m just joshing.”

His frown deepened.

Mel glanced at her watch. The concert was going to start in twenty minutes. If she was going to find out if Roach had lied, she had to do it now.

She drained her plastic wine glass and rose from her seat.

“I’m going to get another,” she said. “Anyone need one? Okay, be right back.”

She realized that she hadn’t given them time to answer, but that was for the best, given that she wasn’t going to the bar anyway.

She flashed her badge at a security guard and hurried down the stairs back to the green room where the band congregated. A few of the roadies were eating, but no one took notice of her as she wandered through the room.

Now that she was here, she wasn’t really sure who she could ask questions. Would anyone talk to her? And even if they did, how would she know if they were telling the truth?

She needed access to their schedule. If only there was a master calendar posted to the wall or something she could check to find out where Roach was on the night his father had been killed.

“What are
you
doing down here?” Clarisse, the blonde Angie had deposited on the ground, was hobbling across the room, holding an ice pack to her backside.

“Looking for Jimbo,” Mel said. “Roach sent me.”

Now where had that lie come from? She had to admit it was a good one. If anyone knew Roach’s whereabouts it would be his manager, right?

Clarisse glared at her as she filled a plate from the buffet. “Well, duh, he’s obviously up in the sound booth where he always sits.”

“Oh, yeah,” Mel said. She hurried to the door. She only had ten minutes until showtime.

“Excuse me, ma’am, do you belong here?” A very large security guard stopped her by putting out his arm.

“Yep,” Mel said and flashed her badge. “You may want to get rid of that blonde over there, though. She’s eating all the food, and she’s not with the band.”

She heard a yelp behind her but didn’t turn around to see what had happened to the obnoxious Clarisse. She raced back out to the theater. The sound booth was at the back of the lower-level seating.

Mel hurried over to it and glanced at the three men standing at the controls. One was short, round, and balding. She was betting he was Jimbo.

She waved at him, and he looked behind him to see if she was signaling someone else. She gestured for him to come talk to her and saw him say something to the other men before he joined her.

“You really need to get to your seat, miss. The show is about to start,” he said.

“I know,” Mel said. “But I need to ask you something. You’re Jimbo, right?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Why?”

“I’m trying to find out what the band’s favorite flavor of cupcakes are. I work with Roach’s new friend Angie, and we want to bake a big batch for all of you.”

“Well, now that’s nice of you,” he said. “Could we do it after the show, though, when we’ve got more time?”

“Oh, well, we heard you all practice every day, and we wanted to get baking tonight, so you’ll have them for your practice tomorrow,” Mel said.

“Practice?” he laughed. “Honey, the only practice these boys do is floating on their backsides in the pool at the hotel. These guys are pros. They don’t practice.”

“Not ever?” Mel asked, feeling her chest squeeze tight.

“Never,” he confirmed. The lights in the theater dimmed. “Tell you what. Make a variety of flavors, and we’ll all be happy.”

“Okay,” Mel said. She forced the corners of her lips to curve up and turned to hurry back to her seat. This confirmed it. Roach had lied. Mel felt queasy, thinking of Angie dating a killer.

A low buzz of excitement began to hum throughout the theater. The lights went out. The last of the incoming audience scrambled to their seats.

Mel realized the last time she’d been to the Dodge was to see Blondie. She wondered if the Sewers would command the stage as well.

She needn’t have worried. A lone light from above the stage lit an enormous drum set, and there was Roach, shirt-less and tapping his snare in a steady cadence. The crowd sat mesmerized, waiting for what would come next.

Mel was riveted by the powerful ripple of the muscles in his arms. It would have been so easy for him to strangle his father with such upper-body strength.

Roach tossed his head, and his long black hair flowed down behind his back. His tattoos came to life with every flex of his muscles, causing a collective sigh to be emitted by the female members of the crowd. Roach looked up. His light blue eyes scanned the crowd until they found Angie. He gave her a wicked grin and then winked at her.

Angie beamed back at him and, as if it was a secret signal between the two of them, Roach exploded into a blur of motion and his drums burst into a thunderous beat that called the rest of the band out onto the stage.

They played two hours of nonstop, pulse-pounding rock and roll. By the time they left the stage after their third encore, Mel was relieved to see them go. Her legs hurt, her back hurt, and she was pretty sure she’d lost her voice.

They waited for the crowd to disperse and then trailed back down the stairs. They flashed their VIP badges at the posted security guards and joined the band in the green room.

As soon as Angie stepped into the room, Roach snatched her up and hugged her close. He planted a kiss on her and then stepped back to study her face.