Crazy Love - Krista & Chase (3 page)

As she leaned over Abby, she noticed that her skin looked almost gray in color.

Krista shook her shoulders slightly to see if she could wake her up. “Abby!”

When there was no response, Krista felt for a pulse as she put her cheek close to her mouth to feel any air exchange. It was faint, but she did feel a pulse and also shallow breathing against her cheek.

“I’m calling 911,” Krista said to Abby, to Bear, to herself. She wasn’t exactly sure who she’d been telling when she’d announced her plans as she pulled her phone from her purse.

Her hands shook as she pressed the three numbers she’d never had to dial on her phone before.

“911, what’s your emergency?” the operator answered.

“I found a woman unconscious. She’s breathing but she needs medical attention.”

“What is your location?”

“3902 Crescent Drive.”

“And your name?”

“My name is Krista Sloan, and Abby Malone is the woman who is unconscious.”

“Okay, I’ve dispatched emergency vehicles. Stay on the phone with me until they arrive,” the operator instructed.

Yeah, like she was going to just hang up.

“Do you have any knowledge of the patient’s medical history?”

Krista tried to remember if Abby had mentioned any issues. She couldn’t think of anything other than her headaches and depression. “She suffers from depression and migraines.”

“Do you know if the patient is currently taking any medication?”

“Yes.” Krista did know that. In fact, more often than not, she was the one who picked up Abby’s prescriptions from the pharmacy. “She’s on Cymbalta and Migranal.”

“Okay, ma’am. The paramedics are just around the corner.”

Adrenaline raced through Krista’s system as she waited for the EMTs to get there. Abby
had
to be okay.

“They’re almost here,” Krista said to Abby. “Just hold on. Help is coming.” Again, she wasn’t sure if she was saying that to reassure herself, Abby, or Bear, who had begun barking again.

The shrill sound of the siren rang out over the dog’s loud barks.

“Thank God,” Krista said. This time she knew it was to herself. She heard the front door open and yelled out, “Back here!”

“Are they on scene, ma’am?” the operator asked.

“Oh sorry.” She hadn’t meant to scream in the poor woman’s ear. “Yes,” Krista confirmed as the EMTs, both of whom she knew from school, stepped through the doorway. “They’re here.”

Krista scrambled off the bed so the paramedics, Lionel and Chad, could have unobstructed access to Abby. She remembered her cousin Alex, who was a Firefighter and EMT telling stories about how bystanders usually just got in the way of their treating patients, no matter how good their intentions were.

Both men asked Krista questions and she did her best to answer them. She tried to calm poor Bear down. He was not happy about having strangers, especially men, in his home and even less happy about them touching his Abby.

“It’s okay.” Krista tried to put out a calming energy even though she felt about as far from calm as you could get. But if she’d learned anything at all from the
Dog Whisperer
, it was that dogs responded to energy not words. She tried her best to be calm and assertive as she held on to Bear’s collar and dragged him out of the bedroom.

He obviously hadn’t been out in quite a while, and she didn’t want to take the risk of him interpreting any of the guys’ actions as something Bear would need to step in and protect Abby from. Luckily, Bear walked alongside Krista without putting up a fight. He was a Rottweiler/Golden Retriever mix that was over a hundred pounds, and she didn’t want to wrestle with him.

He happily went outside in the back as soon as she opened the door. Torn between wanting to go back into the bedroom or clean up the front room, she decided that she wouldn’t be any help back there and the smell was definitely something she needed to address.

Grabbing some white cleaning rags, plastic grocery bags—no one was gonna use those rags again—and carpet cleaner, she went to work on cleaning up Bear’s messes. As she scrubbed the carpets, so many thoughts were running through her mind. The main one being that she needed to call Chase.

She hadn’t answered any of his calls, emails, or letters over the last ten years, but he had to know this. When his dad had passed, Abby had been the one who had called to let him know. Unlike her large family, the Malones consisted of Roger, Abby, and Chase. If memory served, Roger had a brother but he hadn’t been in contact with him since Chase was a little boy. And Abby had grown up as a foster child. She had zero family to speak of. No brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, or parents.

Which meant that Krista would need to be the one to contact Chase.

After disposing of the waste, Krista headed back to the bedroom to get a status update on Abby’s condition before she made the call. She was met by Lionel and Chad wheeling Abby out on a gurney. Her eyes were still closed and an oxygen mask was covering her face.

Chad was speaking into the radio, clipped on his shoulder, that they were transporting her to Harper’s Crossing Memorial.

“Do you want to ride with us?” Lionel asked as Krista followed them out the front door.

“No, I’ll meet you guys over there.” Krista had to let Bear back in and make sure he had food and water. She might even call her sister Haley to come pick him up and bring him back to the house they shared.

As she watched the ambulance pull away from the curb, she pulled out her phone and scrolled through her contacts. Taking a deep breath, she tapped on the phone icon next to Chase’s name.

“Deep breaths,” she told herself.
Deep breaths.

* * *

Chase walked off the stage to the sounds of the crowd cheering his name. His shirt was barely damp, not drenched in sweat like it would have been if this were a Midnight Rush concert. Since he hadn’t been doing those shows, he’d been noticing how much more easily he got tired. He’d been spoiled since those huge arena concerts had doubled as insane workouts. Now that those shows weren’t happening, he needed to figure out some kind of exercise regimen.

His solo music was much more low-key than the rock music his band played. In fact, half his set consisted of only himself and a guitar or a piano. Which was why he felt that these smaller intimate venues, meaning a few thousand instead of twenty thousand plus, suited the feeling of the music so much better than the stadiums Midnight Rush had played.

Marcus, his manager, had other ideas. Of course, from a business standpoint, the larger the venue the better. More seats meant more ticket sales which meant more money. Marcus was a good manager, which meant he liked to make money. He had a job to do, and so did Chase. Chase’s job was to put out the best product possible for his fans. The only way he knew how to do that was to put his foot down about this next tour.

It wasn’t going to be an easy sell, but Chase hoped that Marcus would come around to his way of thinking. Hell, his manager should be happy that he was even doing this solo project. When all the other members of the band had decided that they’d needed a break from the exhausting hamster wheel of writing, recording, and touring they’d been running on for almost a decade, Chase had been the only one who’d still wanted to stay running on the wheel.

He was also the only one out of his bandmates who had not gotten married and started a family. They all had wives, girlfriends, kids. He was alone.

Crew members and fans with backstage access greeted him as he made his way through the musky old building heading towards his bus.

“Great show!”

“You killed it out there!”

“Man, did you see that crowd? They couldn’t get enough!”

Chase smiled and nodded to each one, thanking them as he passed. The two men on his security detail alerted whoever was on the other end of their transmitters that Chase was offstage and on his way.

As he walked between the two large men whose job it was to keep people away from him and make sure everyone stayed at arm’s length, a feeling of total isolation welled up inside of him. Sure, he had just played for thousands of fans and he’d had people standing backstage who had waited hours for just a glimpse of him. But they didn’t really know him. He felt more alone than he had in his entire life.

Which was saying something.

He could remember days, if not weeks, as a young child that he would spend in his room, just desperately trying to stay out of his father’s way when his old man had been laid off or between jobs. Emptiness and loneliness was all Chase had known. He’d thought that was what everyone’s life was like.

Until seventh grade.

Chase had known all the Sloan girls in elementary school. Not only was he good friends with their cousin Alex, he’d been in a play with the oldest Sloan girl Haley in fourth grade. He’d played Danny to her Sandy. Krista had been a year behind him and Haley, and although he had always thought her freckles were cute and even as a ten-year-old had wanted to run his hands through her golden-red hair, he hadn’t really talked to her that much. But then, on the first day of seventh grade, she’d shown up at Great Oaks Middle School, and the moment she walked through the gates of the school, Chase’s twelve-year-old heart had felt like it’d stopped beating. The world had felt like it’d stopped turning. Time had felt like it’d frozen.

The only thing he’d seen was her.

That morning, he hadn’t talked to her, but during the first four periods of school, she was all he’d thought about. Then, when he’d walked out of Mrs. Alvarez’s fourth-period science class to go to lunch, he’d seen her coming out of the gym from P.E., also heading to the cafeteria.

He’d brought his lunch, but when he’d seen her getting in line, he’d immediately tossed it in the trash and decided to spend his hard-earned lawn mowing money on a school lunch. After pushing his way to position himself behind her in line, he’d struck up a conversation. He couldn’t remember what he’d said to her, probably something completely lame, but he did remember that his hands had been shaking as he’d grabbed the plastic school tray. They’d eaten lunch together that day and almost every day after that until he’d graduated eighth grade and moved on to high school.

“He’s coming out the back entrance.” Steven, the head of his security team, pushed the steel bar and opened the back door that led to where his bus was parked.

As they stepped outside, he saw that there were probably two hundred fans gathered. Chase nodded, giving the signal to the two men that he would sign autographs for the crowd of people. Steven, however, shook his head sharply.

“Tully instructed us to take you directly to the bus.”

Chase’s brow furrowed. That was odd. The next thing in his schedule wasn’t until the interview and photo shoot. Normally, his assistant was more than happy to wait for him while he signed autographs and took pictures with fans.

The bus rocked as he climbed onto the step, his hands wrapping around the steel safety bars as he made his way inside.

“Hey, Chip. How ya livin’?” Chase asked, patting his driver on the shoulder.

“Livin’ good, son,” Chip answered, his dark eyes looking up under his signature fedora, an unlit cigar hanging from his lip.

Chip was a retired school bus driver and jazz musician. Chase had never seen him actually light or smoke even one cigar, but he always held one between his lips. He couldn’t count the number of nights he’d spent up at the front of the bus with Chip. They talked about everything from music to philosophy, from cards to women. Chip was the closest thing to family Chase had on the road. Or at all, really.

As he moved through the narrow aisle down the center of the bus, Tully rose from behind his laptop. “You should probably sit down.”

The ominous words coming out of Tully’s mouth caused a feeling of dread to well up in his chest. “Is there another problem?” Chase asked, not heeding his assistant’s advice and remaining standing.

After the power outage due to the unprecedented heat wave this afternoon, he wasn’t sure his assistant’s nerves could handle much more. Tully was a smart, good-looking kid who was great at dealing with people and keeping Chase’s schedule straight. He always stayed one step ahead of stories before they broke, and one of his greatest talents was smoothly removing Chase from situations he did not want to be in, which was a talent you couldn’t really teach. The only complaint Chase ever had with Tully was that when things didn’t go according to plan—which happened far more often than not—his assistant would go into panic mode. Luckily Chase was pretty good about keeping calm.

This afternoon, when it looked like they were not going to have electricity, Chase had been the one to suggest moving the concert to the large park across the street. They had been in the process of getting the necessary permits when Memphis Light, Gas and Water had been able to bring the grid that powered the street the venue was on, back on line.

Now, as Tully looked up at him, he shook his head, obviously not happy with Chase’s decision to remain standing. He handed Chase his cell phone as he explained, “I got a call from Harper’s Community Hospital. Your mom is there. They believe she has suffered a stroke. I have the doctor’s number for you to call if you want.”