Authors: Terri Blackstock
Parker screamed, but Mick threw his hand over her mouth, muffling her. He spun her around, pulling her back against him. “I’m not gonna hurt you!”
She fought him, trying to break free, but he was bigger and stronger. Her muffled screams blended with the music blaring from the stage.
“Please, calm down,” he said into her ear. “I just want to talk to you.”
She knew if he got her into one of the dark, vacant rooms, he would kill her. He would end her life without thinking twice and leave her bleeding on the floor. She thought of those pictures of Brenna in her own blood, imagined Tiffany dead on her own bed.
There would be crime-scene photographs of her own body, from every possible angle.
She couldn’t let that happen. She threw her head back, butting his chin, then elbowed him in the stomach and lifted her feet so she would fall out of his grip.
He lost his hold, and she screeched out her terror as she stumbled away.
“I don’t want to hurt you!” he said. “Parker, just listen!”
If she could just get upstairs into the light of the concourse, she could get help. Someone … anyone … would hear her screams.
She stumbled and righted herself, reached the stairs. He was right behind her. “Parker, I’m trying to save your life. Stop fighting and listen! I know what you think of me, but you’re wrong.”
She rammed herself into the door, but it wouldn’t open. He grabbed her as she pulled it. She slipped free again and got it open, slid out into the lighted hallway.
“Help me! Somebody help me!” she screamed.
“You’ll get us both killed!” he shouted.
She turned and headed toward the merchant tables, searching, hoping, praying for someone to come into sight.
A gun fired. The bullet whizzed past her and she dropped, throwing her hands over her head. He had a gun! Frantic prayers rolled through her mind.
God, help me. I don’t want to die!
Then Mick was on her again. “Don’t shoot!” he yelled.
Confusion sliced through her terror.
“You’ll kill me, too,” he said. “Drop the gun!”
His words didn’t compute in her mind. The music coming from the auditorium now only crescendoed, masking the sound.
“Get her up!” Another voice …
Mick whispered into her ear, “Do as I say, and nobody has to die.”
Trembling, Parker got to her knees and let him pull her to her feet. As she did, she saw someone up ahead, standing in the shadows of another dark hallway.
In a blurry rush of understanding, Parker realized that Mick wasn’t the one with the gun. He was shielding her.
“Be still and quiet.” His whisper was damp against her hair. “We’re safe if I’m between you.”
The shooter stepped into the light …
Parker gasped. It was Marta.
The security room at the Memphis Coliseum held a bank of screens on one wall that flashed video of key areas inside the building. Gibson and LesPaul sat scanning the screens, watching for any sign that Mick Evans had shown up again.
Gibson had had a talk with Vince, the security director, when they’d arrived to set up for the concert that morning. After checking with Nashville PD, Vince had agreed to allow Gibson and Les-Paul to provide more eyes on the monitors as they sat the concert out with him.
So far, they hadn’t seen Mick. They’d given pictures of him to all the security personnel in the building, and no one else had seen him. But Gibson knew it would be difficult to spot him in such a large crowd, even under the best of circumstances. If he’d cut his hair or changed his look in any way, he would be able to slip right past them.
Mostly, the cameras taped the comings and goings at entrances or exits within the building. There was some coverage around the concourse and some of the corridors. But the cameras weren’t sufficiently spaced to show everything that went on in the building.
The phone rang, and Vince picked it up, mumbled something into it, then said, “Where?”
He gestured to Gibson and pointed to the screen illuminating the west side of the building, concourse level. “Probably something in the air conditioning system, but we’ll check on it.”
Gibson watched that area, trying to orient himself. As Vince hung up, he asked, “What is it?”
“Janitor says he heard something that sounded like a gunshot in that area.”
Gibson came out of his seat. He looked at that screen and those around it with more focus. “Can you move those cameras?”
Vince flicked a few things on his control board, and the pictures slid a little farther along the concourse. They showed nothing. He bent down and got the gun out of his ankle holster.
LesPaul was on his feet now, watching the screens that showed the backstage area. “Where’s Parker?”
“Probably in Serene’s dressing room.”
There were no cameras in there. Gibson’s pulse pounded in his head. “I’m going to find my sister while you check out that sound. You have an extra radio?”
Vince grabbed one, checked that it was working, and tossed it to him. Then he radioed for the security detail on that side of the building to check out the area from which the sound had come.
LesPaul followed Gibson around the building and down one of the staircases that led into the backstage area, on the ground floor. He went down the hall toward Serene’s dressing room. Why had the lights gone out in that area? He radioed Vince and asked him where the light controls were. Vince told him, and Gibson turned them back on. No one lurked in the hallway.
He reached the star’s dressing room and opened the door. “Parker?”
No answer. He went in, checked the bathroom. No one was here.
LesPaul stood in the doorway. “These stairs over here lead up to the area where the janitor heard the sound.”
It could be nothing, Gibson told himself. But where was his sister?
He pushed past LesPaul and went up the stairs. He pulled open the door at the top and looked both ways, then slipped into the brighter corridor. He turned to his right, toward the stage.
A security guard was stooping with his radio at his ear. A spent cartridge lay at his feet. Gibson’s face went white. “The janitor heard right.”
The security guard pointed up to the wall. “There’s your bullet.”
Gibson wiped sweat from his forehead. Thankfully, there was no blood. He spoke into the radio. “There’s an armed gunman somewhere in this building. We have to find him. And I don’t know where my sister is. Rewind some of the tape and see if you can locate her.”
He turned and looked in both directions, then ran toward the merchant tables. No, this was wrong. No one holding a hostage would have come this way. He turned back, ran to the quieter end of the hall. Nothing.
“Call Mom and Dad. See if Parker’s with them.”
Their parents were sitting in the audience, watching the show. LesPaul pulled his phone out and pressed his mother’s number on speed dial. “Mom, is Parker with you?” He put his hand over the phone and said, “She’s not.”
“Where are they?”
“In the C section, back row.”
“Tell them to get out of the building. Tell them to wait in the van.”
Parker’s breath came in gasps. Mick kept his arm clamped around her stomach, as if he were the hostage-taker. At gunpoint, Marta had moved them into a dimly lit equipment room.
The machinery in the room, probably meant to cool the coliseum, roared with the potential to mask voices and gunfire. Blue-paintedpipes snaked around the room with words like
Chilled Water Return
and
Condenser
written on the sides. Parker scanned the room for a way out—or a weapon.
A spiral staircase went down a flight. She didn’t know where it led, but if she could get to it, maybe she could escape.
“I don’t want you to kill anyone else, Marta.” Mick’s arm was sweating through Parker’s shirt. “Enough people have died. If you shoot her, you’ll shoot me.”
“Then move away from her.”
“Why do you want to kill me?” Parker managed to ask. “What did I do to you?”
Marta’s teeth ground together. “He has a strange attachment to you, and I don’t like it.”
Parker heard his unsteady breath. “That’s not true,” he said. “She has nothing to do with you or me.” He spoke as if trying to calm a wild animal.
“Yes, she does,” Marta said. “I had to kill Brenna because of her.”
Parker sucked in a hard breath.
“Nobody had to kill Brenna,” Mick said. “I had it under control. I could have talked them out of using the songs. I told you about it in confidence. I didn’t mean for you to
kill
anybody.”
“Spoiled little brat had it coming. Treating you like you were nobody. Treated me like that, too.” She lowered the gun, and her face twisted. “I’m the only one who’s ever stood up for you, Mick.”
“I know you are. I … appreciate that.” Fear rippled in his voice. “Put the gun down and let Parker go, and we’ll run away together. Isn’t that what you want?”
Marta clenched her teeth and fixed her aim. She wasn’t buying it. She glanced at the door of a room nearby. “In that room. Move, now.”
Mick and Parker hesitated.
“Now, I said!”
Parker moved with Mick to the door. He turned the knob and they pushed inside. It was lit up and smelled of popcorn. A stainless-steel box filled most of the room, with an industrial-sized popcorn maker over it. It held crumbs and kernels, but no popcorn. Flattened popcorn boxes were stacked floor to ceiling against the walls.
Parker saw another closed door across the room. It probably opened into the hallway. Mick stayed close to Parker as Marta came in and bolted the door. Under the light, Parker saw the wildness in her eyes.
“This room won’t do,” Marta said. “They’ll hear us. Let’s go back.”
Confusion. That was good, Parker thought. They could use that. On the other hand, confusion could cause Marta to act without thinking.
Mick didn’t budge. “Marta, you’re making this so much worse for yourself. Every killing is tangling this tighter. I know you think you’re doing the right thing—the noble thing. Even when you killed Tiffany …”
Parker squeezed her eyes shut. So Marta had killed both of them. Marta’s confidential meeting with Parker and Gibson was just part of the cover-up. She must have hidden the gun in Chase’s apartment herself.
“Tiffany. Threw. You. Out.” Marta bit off each word. “You should have killed her yourself. Who did she think she was? She was going to pin the stolen song on you and let you take the fall. She was going to tell them you killed Brenna. You would have gone to prison.”
“I’m wanted for murder now,” Mick said. “How much worse could it have been?”
Parker glanced around the room, looking for something—anything—they could use as a weapon. There were metal scoops in the popcorn box, but she wasn’t close enough to them. On the floor was a fire extinguisher. She could use it if she could inch towardit.
Marta pouted like a scorned child. “I bring good things into your life, Mick. Not bad things, like you say.”
“I know you do,” he said, his voice wobbling. “I want to let Parker go and hold you. But I can’t let you kill her. Come on, we’ll open the door and let her go. Then you and I will leave through the chiller room. Before she gets help, we’ll be long gone.”
Parker held her breath.
Please, God
. Marta seemed to be considering it, but then her gaze grew feral again.
“No. You have this stupid infatuation with her. You were following her like you had some crush. He fought his father for you,” Marta told Parker.
“Not because I had a crush on her,” Mick countered. “I didn’t even know her. I fought my father because he was going to send Brenna to steal. It was wrong.”
The gun was aimed at Parker’s face, dead center. Death would come the moment it went off. No chance of survival.
“He followed you, Parker,” Marta spat out. “He obsessed over you. I can’t let that go on.”
Parker wanted to speak, but she knew the slightest thing could set Marta off. The slightest word from the person Marta loathed.
Mick spoke instead. “I followed her because I was afraid of what you were going to do next, Marta. You were stalking her, watching her every move. You broke into her house and left those song sheets. That wasn’t rational. One minute you think you’re helping her, the next you’re trying to kill her.”
“And that’s the reason I have to kill her. Because of your protection of her. You’ve never protected me that way.”
“I’m trying to protect you now.”
Her laugh had a razor edge. “We can stay here all night like this, Mick. I’ll stand here with this gun until you move out of the way. Or maybe I’ll just kill you both. I could walk out of here. Nobody’s even looking for me.”
Sweat dripped into Parker’s eyes. “Marta …,” she said in a shaky voice, “my brother, the cop, is in the building. He’ll realize I’m not around. He’ll come looking for me. There might have been witnesses, people who heard me scream. Someone may have heard the gunshot. They’ll call the police.” She stopped, tried to swallow the knot in her throat. “If you go now, while no one is here, they’ll never find you.” Her mind searched for things she’d read about hostage situations.
Talk to your captors. Help them to see you as a person. Draw sympathy
. “Marta, I liked you when I met you. We hit it off, didn’t we?”
Marta didn’t answer. “I was acting. I’m good at it.”
“You are,” Mick said. “You … we … should go to Hollywood. You could get auditions. Be in a movie.”
“After I kill her.”
Parker tried again. “My mom is out there, in the audience. Don’t make her find me here. Please. My little brother, too. He’s backstage. I don’t want him traumatized.”
“Your little brother is twenty-four. I know all about your family, so don’t try to make me feel sorry for some kid who doesn’t even exist.”
“If you know about my family, then you know how close we are. If I die, it will affect so many people who don’t deserve it. And I haven’t done anything except listen to you and care about you.”
Her pleading wasn’t working. Marta wanted blood. Her eyes had a vicious glint. “Mick told me your songs spoke to him. I tried to write songs that spoke to him, but they stank.”
Parker searched her memory for what she knew about Marta. She’d been in her room, seen her things. The picture of Mick … it must have been hers instead of Brenna’s. “But you sing, right? You’re a vocal performance major. You must be good, or you wouldn’t have gotten into Belmont.”
“I am good,” she said. “I could be doing what Serene Stevens is doing, only better.”
That gave Parker hope. “If you let me go, I’ll write some songs for you to record.”
Marta’s eyes were dull, uninspired.
“Choosing the right songs is half the battle. If you have good songs and a good voice, you could go far.”
Marta’s grip on that gun was steady. “I can go far without you.”
Parker tried again. Every word bought a little more time. “The Bible says, ‘I have a plan for you … plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’”
“Jeremiah 29:11,” Marta said through compressed lips. “Don’t quote the Bible to me.”
“You don’t think God has a plan for your life?”
“If he planned the family I came from, then I’ll choose my own way.”
So that was it. A damaged past. If Parker could get down to that, probe the inner workings of Marta’s pain, maybe she could make her see that another murder wouldn’t fill the void. Parker wiped her damp hair back from her forehead. Mick still stood behind her, holding her. “What kind of family did you come from?”
Marta’s lips curled again. “The same kind he came from. Divorces and suicides and abandonment and steps and halves …”
“It must have been hard.”
“Yeah, you wouldn’t know, would you? You have that close family, everyone intact.”
“My parents are divorced.” It was the first time she’d ever seen it as a positive. “My father’s an alcoholic.”
Marta gave a mirthless laugh. “Poor Parker.” Her mocking tone turned to hatred, and her lips sneered. “Did you ever get molested by your mother’s boyfriend? Did you ever get consigned to the basement because you’re from a ‘previous marriage,’ and the real family had the run of the house?”
“No, I never had that happen.”
Marta came closer with that gun, only a few feet away from her, just out of reach. Parker pulled her head back, as if putting more distance between her and the barrel would save her life.
Tears ran down Marta’s face, her black eyeliner dripping like mud. “That’s why I loved you, Mick. We were the same. I knew how you felt. I even knew why her songs spoke to you, because they spoke to me, too.”
Parker thought through all of her lyrics, wondering which ones appealed to her. Maybe in some of the verses she’d written, Marta had found her story. Songs were sometimes like mirrors, speaking life or death into wounded minds.
“They spoke to you because God was using them,” Parker whispered. “That’s proof that he’s been watching over you. Trying to comfort you.”
“Where was he when they stuck me in a mental hospital?”
So there it was. She was mentally ill. It didn’t matter which came first, the treatment or the disease. She wasn’t rational today.
“What did they treat you for?” Parker asked.
“Depression, psychosis … drugged me up, calmed me down, tucked me out of the way for six months or so …”
Six months. Her family had her in a mental ward for six months?
“Just like Mick, only
he
got sent to boarding school. Shipped away where he wouldn’t be a problem. Can’t have anybody reminding the new spouse that there was a life before, can we? Even putting in all that church time—going three times a week, choir practice, teaching Sunday School, my mother couldn’t bring herself to be a decent mother to her firstborn.”
Parker’s cell phone began to ring in its irritating riff, startling her. She went for it, but Marta cocked the gun. “Don’t touch it.”
Parker froze and felt Mick pulling her tighter against him, keeping Marta from shooting. As much as Marta wanted to kill Parker, she didn’t want Mick to die.
“It’s my family looking for me,” Parker said carefully. “I told you. You won’t get away with this if they find me dead.”
“Give me the phone.”
It was clipped to her belt. Parker pulled it off and glanced down. Gibson’s picture smiled back at her.
“Give it to me!”
If she could drop it, Marta would have to stoop to get it, giving Parker the chance to kick the gun out of her hand. She tossed, and it hit the ground and skidded some distance away.
“Nice try.” Marta’s aim didn’t waver. She backed over to the iPhone, then stomped on it, the heel of her shoe cracking the screen.