Diamond (21 page)

“Merry Christmas, shiny girl,” Jesse said softly. “Wherever you are.”

“And that’s a wrap,” the director said, breathing a sigh of relief that the last song was in the can.

The recording of the “Nashville Christmas Special” was finished. There was nothing left but some editing. He didn’t care that Jesse Eagle had inserted a little bit of extra dialogue into his performance. The man was famous enough to do just about whatever he chose. Besides, it would make good press.

Everyone knew about the mystery woman on Jesse’s album. No one had made the connection between her and Diamond Houston, the woman who’d recently disappeared from Jesse’s life as quietly as she’d come. And the reason was that in Nashville, there was an unending line of women just like Diamond, either waiting to be discovered by an agent or waiting to be loved by a star.

Tommy stood in the corner of the studio and glared, debating whether he should talk to someone in editing and have that last bit of Jesse’s performance cut. But something told him that he’d interfered enough. Something, probably self-preservation, told him to like it or lump it. He opted for the latter by stuffing an unlit cigarette into his mouth.

“No smoking on the set,” a woman said as she hurried by with a stack of papers in her hands.

Tommy glared and waved the cigarette in her face as she passed to prove it was unlit.

“Damn,” he muttered. “Are there no pleasures left to man anymore? Always some busybody trying to mind your business for you.”

Tommy didn’t see that he did the same to Jesse, because when he did it, it wasn’t meddling, it was just part of the job.

The members of Muddy Road were gathering themselves and their families as they began to straggle from the set. Mack slipped up behind Jesse and slid an arm across his shoulder in an unusual gesture of camaraderie.

“Hey, old buddy,” Mack said. “We’re all going to The Stockyard to get something to eat. Come with us.”

“Not hungry, Mack. But thanks anyway,” Jesse said.

Mack frowned and tugged at his bushy, graying beard in consternation. “You aren’t still pissed at me, are you?” he asked, referring to his earlier confession of how he’d once treated Diamond. It didn’t matter that now he was one of her champions. She was gone, and there was nothing anyone seemed able to do to help.

“Not pissed at anyone but myself,” Jesse said quietly. “I broke a promise, and I’m having a hell of a time living with myself because of it.”

“I don’t get it,” Mack said. “You didn’t hurt her. We all know how crazy you are about her.”

“I took her away from her family. And she came with me because I promised to look after her. I promised to help her start a career in country music.” The smile on his face never reached his eyes. They were cold, dark, and flat. “All I did was ruin whatever chances she had. I didn’t take care of her myself. I trusted others to do what I should have been doing.” He turned away. “I have to live with that.”

Mack ducked his head. “If you change your mind…you know where we’ll be.”

Al echoed Mack’s sentiments as he walked past with Rita and their children.

“Been missing you,” Rita said. “I left a message with Henley for you to come to Sunday dinner last week.”

“Wouldn’t have been good company, honey,” Jesse said. He hugged Rita gently and then walked away.

Rita’s eyes teared. She turned to Al with a fierce expression on her face. “If I ever get my hands on the person responsible for splitting those two up, I may—”

Tommy walked past, whistling absently on his way to his car. Rita hushed instantly and glared at the man’s cocky swagger.

“For two cents I’d—”

“Come on now, honey,” Al said, grabbing his wife by the arm. “You don’t know for sure, and I ain’t having you start a fight in front of the kids.”

“Then take them home so they don’t see it,” she said, and started after Tommy, leaving Al in the middle of the stage at the Grand Ole Opry to do as he pleased.

“Hey, Tommy,” Rita yelled.

Tommy spun around and frowned at the expression on Rita Barkley’s face. Another damned busybody, he thought.

“Heard anything from Diamond?” she asked, and watched a flush of anger rise from his collar to his hairline.

“No! Why should I? We weren’t exactly bosom buddies, if you know what I mean?”

“I know exactly what you mean,” she whispered. “And I swear to God, if I find out you had anything to do with her leaving, I’ll take you apart myself.” She flicked a long red fingernail beneath his chin and let it dig just the least bit into his skin for effect. “Get the message?”

He stepped back and started to shove her hand away in anger when Al caught his wrist and stopped the motion.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Al warned. “She’s feisty, I’ll admit, but she’s all mine, Tommy. And I don’t take lightly to someone touching her like that.” He grinned a bit to take the sting out of his warning. “I’m sure you didn’t mean nothin’ by it. But it don’t hurt to say what you think, right? Saves a lot of misunderstandings later.”

Tommy stomped away, unable to do or say anything that would get him out of the hole he’d dug for himself. The only thing he knew was, if Diamond Houston was going to be found, he’d better be the one to do it. That way he’d have first crack at lying his way out of what he’d done. If not, at least he’d have a jump start on getting out of Nashville before Jesse killed him.

Jesse drove up to his house and parked in the carport. He crawled out of his car and then turned and leaned against it, burying his face in his arms as he tried to talk himself into going inside that empty house alone.

The mare nickered in the barn beyond, and the half-grown colt echoed her call. They’d heard him drive up and were hoping for a late-night treat. It wasn’t uncommon for him to wander out with a handful of sugar cubes or a carrot or two.

But that night, he couldn’t face them. All they did was bring back memories he was trying to forget. Of the time he’d come home and caught Diamond and Henley in her first driving lesson. It was the first time they’d fought and ended up making love instead. Just the memory made his belly jerk.

He hit the car with the flat of his hand and shouted aloud into the night.

“Damn you, girl! Where did you go? How could you leave what we had?”

But there were no answers for Jesse. Not that night. He walked onto the porch, unlocked the door, and then methodically closed and locked it behind him. His heart told him to head for the bar and drown every ache he had in an amber haze. But instinct halted the thought. He didn’t want to start something he couldn’t stop. Not again. Not when there was still a chance that he would find her.

Instead, he walked through the dark, empty house and up the stairs, his footsteps echoing loudly in the silence. He paused at the door to her old room, started to open it, and then cursed softly and walked past to his own.

He fell across the bed fully clothed, rolled over on his belly, and then into a ball. There was only so much pain a man could stand without breaking.

Diamond was on a high. It was the first in so long she hardly recognized it. The night had been successful beyond her dreams. The men had loved her singing, and she’d loved performing. It felt like old times, only better.

She hurried up the steps leading to her apartment building and leaned her weight against the front door. It always stuck. Shivering with a combination of cold and nervous excitement, she almost ran up the steps to her second-floor apartment. Humming absently, she jammed the key into the lock and started to turn it when the door swung back at her touch. She gasped, staring in disbelief at the mess in her room. She’d been robbed!

While she’d been gone, someone had broken in and gone through everything she owned. Panic filled her as she realized that whoever had broken into her place could still be inside.

But the thief had obviously been unafraid of detection. He’d overturned everything and then left the light on. It didn’t take long to see that there was no one inside.

“Oh God! Oh God! What do I do? You call the police, stupid.” She reacted and answered her own question in the space of a heartbeat.

With her legs shaking from shock and the burst of adrenaline still lingering in her system, she willed herself to reach the manager’s apartment below without coming undone.

It didn’t take long for the Nashville police to show up. They told her that she’d been the third victim in the area to have been robbed that night. They called him a pattern burglar.

Diamond sank down onto the bed and resisted the urge to scream. She didn’t care what they called him. He’d invaded her privacy.

“Miss, do you think you could help us make a list of what was stolen? Microwave…television…that sort of thing. And if you have any jewelry or—”

Diamond laughed. The sound startled the policeman on duty. He looked up from his notepad and stared.

“I didn’t own a microwave or a television. Or jewelry or anything else worth stealing. All he did here was make a mess.”

The policeman’s eyebrows rose, but he showed no other reaction except to write himself a note.

It was a sobering thought to know that you owned nothing a robber would want to steal. It should have been comforting, but she now realized that anytime someone wanted to get into her apartment, he could. Maybe next time he would wait and take something else. Something she wasn’t willing to give…herself.

“This is a hell of a note,” she said.

Sinking down onto the bed, she buried her face in her hands and started to laugh. The longer she laughed, the more frenetic it became, until the laughter evolved into deep, gut-wrenching sobs.

And then the sea of uniforms parted as a tall, hulking man burst through the doorway, gathered her into a rough embrace, and glared a warning at any cop who dared to stop him. It was Dooley.

“How?” Surprise won out over tears as she began to tremble at his unexpected appearance. But she was thankful beyond words that he’d come.

“Everyone knows everyone’s business in this part of town, girl,” he said, “You’re comin’ home with me tonight. Tomorrow we’ll come back in the daylight, and when I’m through with this place, won’t be a roach able to come inside without a ticket.”

“Okay,” she said, exhausted from shock and the earlier excitement of the night. What had started out as a high had ended on an additional low to her already messed up life.

13

The house was small
and nondescript. There were no outward characteristics that would identify it to a passerby as the house of Dooley Hopper.

But the moment Diamond stepped inside, she knew he must have lived there forever. The walls were covered with old photographs of Dooley with first one famous country singer and then another. Many of the pictures were autographed. Dooley had been holding out on her.

She looked at him, waiting for an explanation.

He shrugged. “Lived in Nashville all my life,” he said. “Stands to reason I’d know a few of them beggars, don’t it?”

Referring to Red Foley, Patsy Cline, and Tex Ritter as “beggars” made her smile. “I suppose it does,” she said, and then shivered.

“Here,” Dooley said. “Get over by the fire.” He pointed to a gas heater against the wall. “I’ll make coffee. It’ll warm you up.” Then suddenly embarrassed at the change in their relationship, he felt obligated to add, “I ain’t got no soup.”

Diamond wrapped her arms around his ample waist and hugged him. “I don’t want soup,” she said. “I just need to sleep.”

Surprised but pleased by her unexpected show of affection, Dooley hugged her back. “I’ll get you some blankets. It’s warmer in here than in my room or I’d tell you to take my bed.”

Diamond sank onto the faded sofa and tucked her feet beneath her. “I’m just glad to be here, Dooley. I’ll take what I can get.” She looked up at his massive frame and then back down at the narrow sofa and grinned. “Besides, I don’t think you’d fit.”

“I think you’re right,” he said. “Be right back.”

Diamond watched him hurry from the room and then leaned back, closing her eyes against the reality of the moment. But it was no use. When she closed her eyes all she saw was the devastation of the apartment they’d just left…and of her life.

She curled herself into a ball and groaned. “Why me, Johnny? Why me?” But her father didn’t answer. And even if he’d been able to, there would have been nothing left to say.

At Dooley’s insistence, Diamond spent two more days and nights at his place. Her quiet presence wormed its way into his existence so thoroughly that when it finally came time for her to leave, he was reluctant to let her.

But he’d used the time wisely. He’d been to Goodwill so many times in the past few days that he and the clerk were on a first-name basis. And the manager at Diamond’s apartment didn’t know whether Dooley was trying to set himself up as her pimp or her bodyguard but had decided not to pursue the issue. Either way, Dooley was too big to argue with.

Anxiety skittered across Dooley’s mind as he turned the corner and parked his pickup truck in front of her place. What if he’d overstepped his bounds?

But the memory of her panic and the way she’d collapsed in his arms the night of the robbery was too fresh to forget. He gritted his teeth and cursed beneath his breath. He didn’t care what she thought. He needed to know she would be safe, and that was all that mattered.

“We’re here,” he said unnecessarily, watching her face for signs of panic at having to return to the scene of the crime.

But Diamond just nodded, grabbed her bag of clothing, and slid out the passenger side of the truck.

“Now, you remember I told you I’d fix it so’s no one could get in again, right?”

Diamond grinned and nodded once more, wondering what he’d done that was making him so apologetic.

“I can’t be havin’ my best singer scared out of her wits and lose sleep and such.”

“I’m your only singer,” Diamond said.

“Yeah, well…just the same, it don’t hurt to plan ahead.”

The steps inside the old building were steep, the stairwell narrow. But Diamond’s apprehension at entering her apartment disappeared as they reached the second-floor landing. In plain view of anyone who cared to look were four brand-new, shiny, brass locks imbedded in her door like baubles on a Christmas tree.