Authors: Terri Blackstock
Lynn sat in her car, engine idling, her headlights illuminating Parker as she fumbled for her keys. She wouldn’t leave until her daughter was safe inside.
She saw Parker jump, saw her back down the steps. Something was wrong. Lynn opened her car door and leaned out. “Honey?”
Parker ran toward her. “Someone broke in!” Her words came out as whispered hysteria. “Get back in the car!”
Lynn closed the door as Parker slid into the passenger side. With trembling hands, she locked the doors.
Parker was gasping for breath. “Let’s go. They could still be here.”
Lynn backed out. “Call Gibson!”
Parker was already dialing her phone.
As she drove away, Lynn looked back. All the lights in the house were off. If someone was there, they were hiding in the dark.
She listened as Parker told Gibson about the glass in the door. Lynn could hear his voice.
“Keep driving,” he said. “Just circle the block until somebody gets there. Don’t go inside.”
Gibson arrived at the same time as the three squad cars, and Lynn pulled back into the driveway. Lynn and Parker waited in the car as the police went through her house. The temperature had warmed, and the car felt muggy. “You can’t stay here again,” Lynn told Parker. “You know that, don’t you?”
Parker slammed her hands on the dashboard. “The killer is supposed to be locked up.
Who is doing this?
”
Lynn didn’t want to talk about murderers and weapons. Her son was in the house. Why hadn’t he come back out?
Just as her imagination took flight, she saw light spill out the doorway. Gibson stepped out, and Lynn breathed easier. Parker opened her car door.
“There’s no one there now,” he said. “But somebody’s definitely been here. Come have a look.”
Heart pounding, Lynn followed Parker in.
Dread burned in Parker’s chest as she stepped over the threshold. More glass crunched under her feet. Though nothing seemed to be out of place, her house felt violated. “What did they take?”
“I can’t tell that they took anything.”
Parker stepped into her music room and took quick inventory of her equipment. Her computer and keyboard were intact. She came back and checked her stereo equipment. Everything was there.
“Was this here before?” Gibson’s question turned her toward the coffee table.
There, in the center of the table, lay some hand-written song sheets for “Double Minds.” The word STOLEN was scrawled across the music in huge, red capital letters.
“No. That wasn’t there.” She leaned down to pick it up.
Gibson caught her hand. “Don’t touch it. It might have prints.”
“Gibson, what’s going on?” Her volume was shrill, but she couldn’t lower it. “Who would break in to leave something like this? Why wouldn’t they just mail it?”
“I’d guess they were trying to make a strong statement.”
“But what does it mean?”
“I don’t know, but we’ll find out.”
Her mother spoke up. “Could this have anything to do with the murder?”
“I don’t see how,” Gibson said. “Chase McElraney is in jail.”
The room began to spin, and Parker touched the counter to steady herself.
Her mother muttered, “Help us, God,” and took Parker’s hand, as though she were a child poised to stray in front of a car.
“Parker,” Gibson said, “I don’t think you should stay here until we get to the bottom of this. Whoever did this is toying with you. It’s a head game. And that’s probably all it is. If you’d been home, I doubt that they’d have tried to get in.”
“I was here until Mom called. And my car’s out in the carport!How did they know I wasn’t here?”
Lynn straightened, as if she were taking over. “Parker, go pack your things. You’re moving in with me for a while.”
Parker didn’t argue.
She went to the back of the house, grabbed a suitcase, and packed it, wanting to get out of here as soon as she could. Had she slept here for the last time?
Parker couldn’t sleep that night. She sat up in her childhood bed, staring at the moonlight blotching her wall. Leave it to her to have such a bizarre break-in. Breaking in to
leave
something. No one would believe it.
She’d have to add it to her annals, along with being pronounced dead on local television. Maybe someday she’d write a ballad about the whole crazy thing.
Someone was clearly messing with her head. “Double Minds” hadn’t been stolen. Serene was recording it, and Parker had licensed it to her fair and square.
But someone was sending her a message. She just didn’t know what that message was. The phone call she’d gotten played in her mind again.
The murder was about you. But don’t worry, I’m protecting you
.
Chase sat in jail right now for the murder of the girl whose death he seemed to genuinely be grieving. Yet the murder weapon in his apartment was clear evidence, wasn’t it?
Giving up on sleep, she slid out of bed and got her MacBook, which Gibson had released from evidence when they’d unsealed Colgate. She took it into her mother’s living room. If her mind refused to rest, then she could put it to work writing the liner notes for her album.
A key in the door brought her off the couch, almost toppling her computer.
It was just LesPaul, keeping his late hours. She caught her breath and told herself she needed to get a grip. At this rate she’d have a coronary before she was thirty.
He came in, tossed his keys on the table. “I have great news. Studio E at Colgate is going to be available tomorrow night from midnight to seven a.m.”
She frowned. “Crater has E booked.”
“Nope,” he said. “I’m the engineer. We’ve finished mixing, so we don’t need it. You want it?”
“Yes.” Other groups would want that time, if they knew it was available. But that was why she worked there, after all. “Can you be there?”
“Of course. Gibson, too,” LesPaul said. “I already checked.”
“So that’s guitar and bass. We can use the computer drum machine. That sounds pretty real, right?”
“Sometimes it sounds better than the real thing. But if I’m engineering, it could get tricky with me playing guitar. We’d lose precious time because I’ll have to get Gibson to watch the board while I lay down my tracks seperately. I think you need to ask Dad to play so we can avoid that step.”
Parker sighed. “I don’t want to deal with Dad when I’m in a hurry.”
“That’s exactly
when
you need him,” LesPaul said. “You won’t have as many takes with Dad. He gets it right the first time. His music is always good. Besides, he could use a break. It would mean a lot to him.”
Wearily, she dropped back to the couch. “I went with Mom to get him at the Gold Rush tonight. He was harassing the band to let him play with them.”
“He used to know those guys. He filled in for their guitar player when he was out with a broken arm.”
“Doesn’t matter. They didn’t want him to play with them this time. The bartender called Mom to come get him.”
He shrugged. “He’ll be ashamed in the morning. Shame sometimes keeps him sober for a few days. Maybe having the chance to play on your album will stretch that out even longer.”
“When are you going to learn, Les? We can’t save him. He hasn’t made up his mind yet to give up his first love.”
“Mom?”
“No, Jack Daniels.”
Her brother seemed so young, sometimes … so idealistic. No matter how many years went by, he kept waiting for a different outcome. He sat down and pulled off his shoes. “Just think about it, Parker. He needs a break. And you need a free guitar player.”
What choice did she have? There was little chance she could book a decent musician with only twenty-four hours’ notice. Knowing that she wouldn’t sleep at all tomorrow night, and realizing that her brain was too weary to do her any good tonight, she went back to bed and recited the Twenty-third Psalm until she drifted into a shallow sleep.
If Parker had had a good record deal and plenty of money with which to record her album, she would have hired a top-notch producer who could direct the whole process and deliver a sound that would sell. But without a record deal, she’d had to create a tiny little independent label of her own, which she called LHM, an acronym for “Lord, help me.” LHM had little money and no employees. It would have to make do with family and favors.
When she finally admitted to herself that she had no choice but to ask her father, she waited for things at Colgate to settle down, then she called him, hoping he wasn’t too hung-over. He sounded groggy as he answered the phone.
“Dad? How are you feeling?”
He cleared his throat. “Fine. I’m great, Parker. How are you?”
Did he even remember last night? “I thought you might be a little hung over.”
He paused. “A little.” At least his speech wasn’t slurred, which meant that he hadn’t tried to fight the hangover with more booze. “Listen, I’m really sorry about last night.” His voice was deep, gravelly. “It’s a miserable thing to wake up and remember that your daughter and wife had to drag you out of a bar.” His voice broke, and he cleared his throat again. “I’m really sorry, Parker.”
His apology covered a host of sins. But tomorrow he’d probably have to make another one. “It’s okay, Dad. There’s help available if you’ll take it.”
“Sweetheart, I’ve been to umpteen rehabs. I know what to do. I just need to do it.”
“I heard about a Christian ministry where you can go for free, and stay for a year, or even longer.”
“I’m not going away for a year.” His tone had finality, and she knew her pleas had fallen on deaf ears. They’d been through this so many times before. “Is that why you called?”
“No. Dad, I need a guitar player on my album. We have a studio tonight between midnight and seven a.m. Can you come?”
His soft chuckle made her smile. “Can I come? Does the eagle fly? Of course I can come. We’ll knock ‘em dead.”
“No alcohol,” she said. “We’re recording at Colgate.”
“Can I smoke if I do it outside?”
“If you’re not afraid of bullets flying out of nowhere.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
He always did. “We’re going to rehearse at Mom’s at seven.”
“I’ll be there.”
She was hanging up when she saw Daniel Walker standing in the hallway, a Coke in his hand. She smiled. “You guys on a break?”
“A short one. Hey, are you looking for a guitar player for your album?”
“Not anymore. My dad’s gonna do it.”
“So you’ll have Gibson on bass, your dad on lead guitar … who’s playing rhythm guitar if LesPaul’s working the sound board?”
“We’ll just let Dad do both parts.”
He pushed off from the wall and came to lean on her desk. “That’ll take twice as long. How about if I come help out? I already know most of your songs.”
That was true. He’d played with her when she’d performed for his youth group. “But you’re working all day. We’re talking midnight to dawn.”
“Hey, I do youth lock-ins. Just make a pot of coffee and I can handle it.”
She breathed a laugh. “Wow. That would be great.”
“Okay,” he said. “I figure I’ll get out of here around six or so. So you’re rehearsing before you get into the studio?”
She hated to ask more of him. “My mother’s at seven. But you don’t have to come …”
“I’ll be there.”
The thought of having someone of Daniel’s caliber in the studio thrilled her. He wouldn’t be able to play for her on the tour, but Les-Paul could do that. Maybe they could pull this off, after all.
Parker went back to her mother’s after work. She’d heard from Gibson. The fingerprints he’d collected from the song sheets didn’t match any they had in the database, meaning that the mysterious delivery person had never been printed before. Since it was impossible to tell whether the prowler had meant to find her at home, Parker planned to stay at her mother’s, trying to put her fears out of her mind so she could focus on recording. With her trusty laptop and the music room at her mother’s house, she was able to apply the finishing touches to her songs before going into the studio.
Her brothers, her dad, and Daniel showed up at her mother’s house around seven, and they rehearsed there until time to leave for the studio. Her dad seemed mercifully sober, though she knew he’d probably had
some
alcohol that day or his hands would be shaking too badly to play.
The problem would be her voice. The guys were young enough and her dad was wild enough to stay up till the wee hours and jam until daylight, but in the middle of the night, her voice was likely to be tired and hoarse. She sipped what seemed like gallons of tea with lemon, hoping when the time came to record vocals, her throat wouldn’t sound fatigued. Everything hinged on the sound of her CD.
Parker had spent so much time already trying to get a record deal. She’d used every contact she had and called in every favor she was owed, but so far, to no avail. Her best hope now was to get a pressing and distribution deal. That wasn’t ideal by any means; it wouldn’t pay many of her costs. It also wouldn’t get her on the radio or in the stores. DJs didn’t play songs they didn’t know about, and stores didn’t stock CDs by unknowns from in die labels. So much rode on their turning out a stellar product. If her record sounded amateur, none of their hard work would matter. It would take the Holy Spirit empowering them to get it right in the time allotted.
When they got into the studio, Parker got her Bible and brought them all into a circle on the carpeted studio floor. She opened it to the Psalms.
“Uh, what are we doing?” Pete asked.
“Just a little Bible study, to get us focused,” she said.
Pete looked from one of his sons to the other. “Do we have time for this?”
“Yes,” she answered for them. “This song we’re about to record is meant to glorify God. I want to be sure that this whole session honors him.”
She could smell the scent of alcohol on his breath. He must have found a way to take a swig somewhere between her mother’s house and here. She glanced at Daniel, embarrassed. But he had pulled a Bible out of his guitar case.
That warmed her. Her father wouldn’t respond to the quick Bible reading, but what really mattered was that
God
responded, that he was pleased with it and that he filled her with his Spirit at a time when she sorely needed it. The song was praise to him, after all. At least Daniel got it.
She read the Psalm, then began to sing “Ambient” a cappella. The men in her life seemed riveted as they saw that the source of the song was the Psalm she’d just read. But even as she sang, Parker knew that her voice wasn’t going to carry the day. The melody would help, but it would be the lyrics that had the power.
When she finished singing, she closed her eyes and prayed that God would give her the power, the strength, and the voice to carry out this praise to him. Instead of saying Amen, she just sat in the silence for a moment.
Her dad’s chuckle broke the quiet. “I’ve played with people who practiced transcendental meditation before they recorded. One crazy cat forced us to do yoga. Some dropped acid or smoked weed. Leave it to my eccentric girl to start with the Bible and prayer.”
It wasn’t eccentricity, but her dad wouldn’t understand.
They moved into high gear. It was pure grace that the studio that was available was divided into booths that separated Daniel, Pete, and Gibson in isolated rooms. Parker played piano in the main booth. That way, the sounds didn’t bleed into each other on the tracks, making it easier and faster to mix. If they’d had one of the lesser studios, they would have had to record each instrument one at a time. They used the computer drum machine since they didn’t have a drummer, but it sounded like the real thing.
When they’d finished laying down the musical tracks, she got ready to do the vocals. She put the headphones over her ears and closed her eyes as the track began to play. Gently, she sang the song that she hoped people would sing in churches for years to come, lifting up the name of Jesus and praising his power. When she finished, she kept her eyes closed as the music played to the end. Finally, she opened her eyes and looked through the glass into the control booth. Daniel was smiling. He lifted his hands and began to applaud.
“I think we may have gotten that on the first take,” LesPaul said into the microphone.
“No way.” She doubted that was even possible, until he played it back. Then she agreed that she probably couldn’t improve on it. They could move on to another song. She was in the zone, and now she was confident they’d be able to pull it off in the time they were allotted.
God was blessing the album. What else did they need?