Authors: Terri Blackstock
Calling Gibson probably wasn’t a good idea right now. He’d go ballistic when he heard that Parker had visited his number-one suspect. Still, Chase had a point—she wanted to make sure Gibson had interviewed the friends who had access to Chase’s apartment.
When she called and told him what she’d just done, he let out a yell. “Parker, what did I tell you?”
“I know, Gibson. But I was thinking that—”
“No, don’t think! It could get you killed. I know how to do my job. I don’t need my little sister solving my cases.”
“Okay, I hear you! I just want to know if you interviewed the people on his list.”
“We found the murder weapon in his apartment. He’d put his fist through a wall that day, when he fought with her. He lied about it.”
“So that’s a no? You didn’t talk to them.”
“We interviewed a ton of his friends before we found the gun.”
“And none since?”
He groaned. “I’ll talk to them, okay? You’re enough to drive a person crazy.”
She’d been told that before.
She thumbed the End button and dropped the phone on the passenger seat. She needed to get back to Colgate. Cat was sitting in for her, but that meant Parker would have to work later tonight.
She turned on the radio, hoping to put her mind on autopilot for a while. Bebo Norman’s voice pulled her under its spell, and she found herself humming along. Finally, the DJ came back on. “And now, here’s Tiffany Teniere with her new hit, ‘Altar Ego.’ Email us and tell us how you like it. This is John and Sherry Rivers, at K-Love.”
Tiffany’s new song, already? She turned up the radio. The intro sounded familiar, and as Tiffany crooned out the opening verse, Parker’s lungs shut down.
She pulled off the road, almost hitting a pedestrian as she turned into a parking lot.
Staring at the radio with her mouth hanging open, she listened to the lyrics and melody of “Altar Ego.” It sounded familiar … way too familiar. It was almost identical to “Double Minds,” the song
Parker
had written!
A few key things had been changed—the chorus was slightly different, the bridge totally new, and the words “double minds” had been changed to “two minds.” But the message of the song, the tune, and most of the lyrics were still unmistakably Parker’s.
“Unbelievable!” She slammed her hand on the steering wheel. This would derail the release of Serene’s album.
Grabbing her phone, she navigated her way to the iTunes screen and checked to see if Tiffany’s song was available for download. What had they called it?
Oh, yes. “Altar Ego.” She hit Buy, hoping she had a strong-enough signal. The song quickly appeared in her music library. She played it again.
Yes, it was unmistakable. This was no coincidence. She tapped back to the phone screen and called Serene. Her voicemail came on. “Serene, call me as soon as you get this. I just heard Tiffany Teniere’s new song and it’s ripped off from ‘Double Minds.’ Somehow she got our song and put it out before you could. Call me!”
She hung up, found Butch in her contact list and punched his number.
“This is Butch.”
“Butch, you’ve got to hear something!” Her words rushed out like water through a breach. She plugged her iPhone into her car stereo and began to play the song.
After the first few bars, Butch was yelling. “Those low-down, sneaky, conniving …”
“But how did they get it?”
“Brenna!” Butch said.
Of course.
She heard things crashing at Butch’s end. “It’ll sabotage Serene’s album!” he yelled. “They knew that. It’s what they wanted, to get her off the number-one spot.”
“But how could they not know that we’d recognize it? It’s so blatant.”
“This really puts us in a mess, Parker,” Butch said through his teeth. “We can’t release Serene’s song now or the fans are going to think
she
stole it from Tiffany. I’m calling David, my entertainment attorney. Can you meet with him today?”
“As soon as you get an appointment,” she said. “Call me back and let me know.” She cut off her phone and listened to the song again, wishing she could believe it was all just a grim coincidence. But it wasn’t possible—there were too many similarities for this to have happened purely by accident.
Her mind slammed back to the break-in at her house. Song sheets for “Double Minds,” with the word Stolen written across it. Her prowler knew about the theft!
Had Brenna managed to copy the master of Serene’s recording, before she redid it with the new lyrics?
Not likely. Butch would never have left it lying around. And Brenna didn’t have enough clout to go in and out of studios during sessions. And the rooms were soundproof. She wouldn’t have even had the opportunity to hear the song.
Then it hit her. It could have been much simpler than that. Parker had her own demo recordings on her laptop computer. They were lined up and labeled in her iTunes program. Brenna could have easily downloaded them onto an iPod when she was at Parker’s computer. There were so many times that Parker had left her laptop on her desk when she’d run an errand or gone to lunch.
And if Brenna had heard Serene’s musicians mentioning the titles of the songs on her album, Brenna and her father could have chosen those to sabotage Serene’s album.
She pulled back out into traffic, tears blurring her eyes. She had felt so badly for the girl who’d been murdered right there on the floor in front of Parker’s desk. She’d had no idea that Brenna was stabbing her in the back, that she’d been at Colgate simply to find a way inside Parker’s computer.
What other of Parker’s songs were on Tiffany’s new album?
She sat in the parking lot at Colgate and looked up Tiffany on iTunes again. This time, she downloaded the whole album to her iPhone. She waited, heart pounding, as each song downloaded. Then she checked each one. There weren’t any other stolen songs. But “Altar Ego” was the only release they needed to sabotage Serene and keep her album from coming out on time. Now they would have to ditch that song and record something else. Parker would be expected to replace it.
She listened to “Altar Ego” again, eyes closed. They’d kept the original message, unlike Serene’s new version, which had no mention of Christ. Tiffany, who had clearly stolen it
before
it was rewritten,
was
spreading the message of Christ. What irony.
The phone rang, and Serene’s face lit up her screen. She clicked it on. “You heard?”
Serene was hysterical. “Butch just told me what happened. This is a hoax, right? Some kind of joke?”
“No, Serene, I think Brenna stole the song out from under me. We’ve solved the mystery of why she was at Colgate.”
“Did you leave a disk of my rough cut lying around?”
“I didn’t
have
your masters. Either she got into your studio while you guys were on a break, or she stole my demo version off my laptop.”
“Parker, this puts me in serious trouble. I can’t release that song now. If I have to find another one, I’ll never get my album out on time. What’ll we do?”
“Has Butch contacted a lawyer yet?”
“Yes, we’re meeting at three this afternoon. You have to be there.”
“I will.”
“I’m not giving up this song!” Serene said. “I’m going to fight her in court if I have to. I’m going to make sure every radio station knows that she’s a thief.”
Parker didn’t know what to say to that. As she drove home, she thought of that message about the double-minded man, unstable in all his ways … the story her father had inspired. The message she had written in the middle of the night, hoping to impact people for Christ. Nigel Hughes would hear about this mess and write about it. What would it say to the world about Christianity?
If only she had a publisher or label who could fight for her. Instead, she’d chosen to self-publish her songs. Having a contact like Serene meant that she didn’t need a publisher shopping her songs around. It had seemed like a waste of money to split the profits with a publisher if she didn’t have to.
Because she didn’t have time for all the paperwork required to register each of her songs, she’d hired an accountant to handle that for her. She merely wrote the songs and turned her rough, computer-cut demos over to him, and he registered them with the copyright office and ASCAP, who collected her royalties whenever the songs were played.
Now she wondered if having a publisher would have put her in a better position to fight copyright infringement. Maybe it was a police matter. Property had been stolen. Gibson would know if she needed to file a police report.
“She did
what!
” he said, when she got him on the phone.
After he’d cooled down, he said, “I’ve never worked a stolen intellectual property case,” he said. “But I have the security tape. I’ll look at the tapes for the days Brenna worked at Colgate and see if they show anything. This might be a criminal matter. But not my area, of course.”
“They would have had to steal the song weeks ago for them to have gotten it on the album. But Gibson, whoever broke into my house knew.”
She could almost hear his mental wheels turning. “I’ll go back to the tape around the time she started working at Colgate.”
“Her laptop was the same model as mine. How will you know if the one on the desk is hers or mine?”
“I’ll see if we can figure it out from the tape. This really stinks, Parker. Let me know what the lawyer says.”
When she got off the phone, she prayed for wisdom. This was one of those times when the wisdom of man wasn’t going to cut it. This could be the end of her songwriting career. Butch might even kick her off the tour for being careless with the song.
And as far as Parker was concerned, they still didn’t know for sure who killed Brenna Evans.
Gibson signed Brenna’s laptop out of the evidence warehouse and took it back to his desk. The security tapes had turned up nothing. Gibson found it impossible to tell whether Brenna was working at her own laptop or Parker’s, since they were the same model. If there had ever been a time when she’d been found working on Parker’s MacBook, she could have claimed it was hers. But clearly, she didn’t have hers at work with her the night of the murder. And all she would need was her iPod to download all the songs she wanted.
Brenna’s iPod was gathered with her other possessions the night of the murder, and returned to the Evans family a few days later. Thankfully, he didn’t surrender the laptop. If she downloaded the songs to her iPod that night, they wouldn’t have made it to her computer. But if she’d been downloading a few at a time each time she found the opportunity at Colgate, there might be some there. All Gibson needed was one of Parker’s songs to prove that Brenna was the one who stole “Double Minds.”
He scrolled through the hundreds of songs she had there, looking for a grouping that didn’t have the usual pattern—song title, artist, album name. Parker’s unproduced demos would look different.
He found a grouping of songs with only the names Track 01 through Track 12. He found his headphones and plugged them into the computer, then clicked on Track 01.
He recognized Parker’s song immediately. It was one of those they’d recorded the other night. This version was a demo Parker had recorded on her computer at home. She’d played it for them before their rehearsal the other night. He clicked on the next one. Another Parker demo. One by one, he went through them, until he came to “Double Minds.”
So here it was. Clear evidence that Brenna had downloaded Parker’s songs. He leaned back in his chair and pulled off the headphones. “Hey Rayzo, over here.”
His partner pulled his arthritic body out of his chair and came over. “Yeah?”
“Found Parker’s songs on Brenna’s iTunes. She couldn’t have had them any other way than outright stealing them.”
Rayzo leaned on his desk. “I don’t even know how this works. How can you be sure?”
“See, iTunes is like a record store. You can download songs or albums and pay through your credit card. Once your card’s been approved, you can have the songs in just thirty seconds or so.”
“So you listen to them on the computer?”
“Yes, or you can plug into an iPod or mp3 player and download the songs to that. Then you can carry your music around and plug it into your car or a stereo, or listen with headphones right from the device.”
He pointed to the stolen tracks on Brenna’s iTunes. “These don’t have titles, because they were rough demos—not purchased. Parker always converts the file format to iTunes format so she can listen to them on her iPhone …”
“I thought we were talking about iPods.”
“An iPhone is an iPod that’s also a phone. Don’t you watch TV?”
“I fast-forward through commercials.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Gibson said. “The songs are here.”
“Any other way she could have gotten them?”
“Nope. No one had copies of the songs Parker was keeping to record herself. Not even me. Brenna could have easily downloaded them to her iPod anytime Parker had her filling in for her and left her laptop there. If she got caught, she could just say her computer was the same model Parker had. People wouldn’t think she was doing anything wrong.”
“Parker seems too smart to leave her laptop sittin’ around.”
“She sometimes eats lunch back in the lounge and occasionally runs errands for Colgate—if she plans to come back, she just leaves it sitting on her desk. Just like the night of the murder.”
“So how do we know your sister didn’t know about this before? Maybe caught her at it?”
Gibson frowned. “Because she didn’t. She just discovered it when she heard the song on the radio.”
“That’s what I’m saying. How do we know that ain’t for show? For all we know, Parker could have given Brenna copies of the songs to impress her.”
Gibson stiffened and stared at him. “Wait a minute. Are you saying you think my sister—”
“I’m just thinking like a detective, which I highly recommend if you want to stay in this department.”
“No way. Parker isn’t lying.”
“I hate to tell you, James, but your sister has the strongest motiveyet.”
Gibson shot up, almost knocking over his chair. “My sister couldn’t kill anyone. She doesn’t even know how to load a gun.”
“Maybe that’s what she wants you to think.”
“I don’t think, I know!” He glanced around, hoping no one else heard. Lowering his voice, he said, “She has an alibi, Rayzo. She wasn’t cruising Nashville shooting people through windows that night. She was on stage at a concert.”
“She could have hired somebody.”
“You’re outta your mind!”
Rayzo pulled himself back to his feet. “Maybe we should just do what Chief wanted to do in the first place and turn this over to Carter and Stone. You got yourself a bona fide conflict of interest here.”
Gibson couldn’t believe his partner was becoming a traitor. “Come on, Rayzo. We’re so close. We’re making headway. You know my sister isn’t the one. Let’s just stay the course for now.”
“Staying the course might mean jeopardizing a conviction. If some lawyer faces a jury and tells them we didn’t investigate everyone involved because Parker James’s brother was working on the case—”
“So investigate her! She’s innocent. She didn’t have the opportunity to commit this murder, and she doesn’t have the money to hire a paid killer. Anybody who knows her will tell you she doesn’t have it in her. That’s just crazy. Look, do what you have to do. That’s fine. I’m just telling you ahead of time what you’ll find. If you want to waste your time on that, go ahead. But it won’t get us any closer to closing this file.”
Rayzo ambled back to his desk.
Gibson stared down at him. His jaws were beginning to hurt from clenching his molars. He couldn’t let go of this case and exposehis sister to suspicion. Somehow, he had to put all the pieces together.
The theft of the song chapped him almost as much as Rayzo’s suspicion. He didn’t like seeing his sister taken advantage of, but even worse, he detested being snowed by the family of one of his murder victims. There was something sinister going on with the Evans family, something that might have led to Brenna’s murder. He rubbed his eyes as Rayzo got up again and went to the dry-erase board with the details of the case.
Rayzo had made a list of all the things they knew about the Evans family:
dishonest; corrupt; thieves; rich
.
Under Brenna, he’d listed Secretive; Probably broke into Parker’s
computer
.
Under Nathan Evans he’d put,
Recently lost a lot of money after Christian star got pregnant; Tiffany’s career in the tank. Now he was writing, Sends daughter to work at Colgate to steal Parker’s songs.
Gibson’s gaze shifed to the list about Chase McElraney:
Busted hand—lied about how it happened; Jealous; Suspected Brenna of cheating
. And in all caps, he’d written,
MURDER WEAPON HIDDEN IN APARTMENT
.
Now Rayzo was making a new heading for Parker James.
Rayzo’s phone rang. Gibson stared at the board as Rayzo answered, mumbling. Rubbing his jaw, he prayed for wisdom and insight into this case.
Rayzo got off the phone. “That was ballistics,” he said. “The gun is definitely the murder weapon.”