Authors: Terri Blackstock
Back in the security room, Gibson stood with LesPaul and Vince Summers, the security director. “I rewound the tape, and here it is. Something right here.”
Gibson saw someone pass across that screen. Parker, with a man holding her …
His stomach flipped as they moved by again. He couldn’t see where they’d gone. “They’re out of the frame. Is there another camera that picked them up?”
“There’s a short blind spot there.” Vince pointed to another screen, backed the video up on that one. Nothing. “They must have gone into one of the rooms near there. There’s no video of them leaving the building. They vanished right there in that area.”
“What are the rooms?”
“There’s a chiller room, a boiler room, a janitor’s closet, a concession storage room, the popcorn room, a prop and stage set room—”
“Are there cameras in any of them?”
“No, no cameras.”
Gibson addressed the cops who’d answered the call. “He’s got my sister. He’s killed two people, and he’s probably armed and dangerous. We have to figure out where he’s holding her.” He turned back to the security director. “Lock the exits. Don’t let anybody out. LesPaul, go get word to Serene to stretch out the concert to keep everybody here.”
The cops were rallying, unsnapping their weapons, fanning out around the building. They’d been trained for terrorist activity, and this qualified. His heart pounded as he ran behind some of them toward the area where Mick and Parker had disappeared.
Lynn and Pete had no intentions of going to the van. The question LesPaul had asked on the phone was sure evidence that something had happened. If Mick Evans had come back, then Parker was in danger. Lynn got her All Access pass out of her purse and ran around the concourse, down to the backstage area. Pete was on her heels.
It was time for Serene’s costume change—the part of the show when Parker would have done her three songs. Now they seemed to stretch out the time with the band playing a long instrumental, while Serene ran to change her clothes.
Lynn saw LesPaul, waiting beside the stage as Serene shot off. “Serene,” he said, blocking her. “You have to extend the concert. Parker’s in trouble. They’re locking down the exits to keep anyone from leaving.”
Serene’s makeup artist stood waiting. “Come on, honey. There’s not much time.”
Serene didn’t budge. “What do you mean, Parker’s in trouble?”
Lynn pushed through the people beginning to gather around the star. “LesPaul, where is she?”
He gave her and Pete an irritated look. “Mom, we told you—”
Pete stepped between them. “We don’t care what you told us. Where’s Parker?”
He swallowed. “We can’t find her. We think Mick Evans may be here.”
Lynn’s heart slammed to the pit of her stomach. “Does he …does he have her?”
He avoided the question and pointed in the direction where they’d found the shell. “Someone heard a gunshot in that part of the building on the main floor. Don’t panic, Mom.”
But panic spread like fuel-fed flames through Lynn’s body. She turned and ran toward the dark hallway.
“Mom, don’t! Dad, stop her.”
Pete overtook her and passed her as they got to the stairs. “Let me go first.”
LesPaul ran after them. “Mom, Dad, we found a shell at the top of those stairs. He’s armed and dangerous.”
“I don’t care what he is!” she said. “My daughter may be with him!”
She got to the top of the stairs and opened the door, looking up and down the corridor. Police were already there, going from door to door, checking each room.
A cop stopped her. “Ma’am, we need you to go back downstairs!” “I’m not going anywhere until I find my daughter!”
One of the cops looked around her. “Miss Stevens, we’d really appreciate it if you would get back on stage and keep the concert going. If people start to leave …”
Lynn turned and saw Serene standing behind her, tears on her face.
“The band will keep playing until I get back,” she said. “Please … you have to find her.”
Sweat trickled through Parker’s hair, down her temples. Mick was sweating, too. His shirt was wet against her back.
“Marta, I know your life has been hard,” Parker said. “People let you down. They betrayed you. But
I
didn’t do it. If you love Mick, don’t leave another body for police to find. They’ll think he did it. They’ll come after
him
.”
That seemed to give Marta pause. “I never meant for them to blame him. They never would have if it hadn’t been for him following you. They would have assumed it was Chase. I made sure of that.”
Mick’s voice was louder now. “Marta, they knew it wasn’t Chase when you killed Tiffany. And you’d made threats against Parker. I followed her to protect her from you.”
It was all becoming clear. Mick had been the one to call Parker that night, to tell her that it was about her, but that he would protect her. Somehow, the stolen songs had prompted a fight in that family. Marta had taken their treatment of Mick a little too personally.
Marta moved to the side, as if trying to get an angle where Mick wouldn’t be hit. Mick stayed glued to Parker. “You’re not that good a shot, Marta. You shoot her, you kill me.”
“Then let her go!”
“No. Just give me the gun. Come on, Marta. We have no future if you don’t.”
“I don’t have a future anyway!” The noise from the nearby chiller room muffled her cry. “You don’t love me. I had to hold you hostage to keep you with me. You tried to leave me, too! You said I was crazy!” Marta was crumbling. Her eyes shifted wildly back and forth across the room, as if puzzling whether it was worth it to kill them both.
Suddenly, someone jiggled the doorknob. Marta spun, and the gun went off.
Parker screamed and dropped to the floor, praying no one on the other side of that door had been shot.
Lynn lifted her face from the floor where she’d dropped when the gun fired.
God, she’s in there! Help her!
Police backed away from the room, all of their weapons poised. Gibson was among them, right in the line of fire. She found LesPaul on the floor, getting to his knees. Pete was up and pulling her back to the staircase.
And then she saw Serene … lying back against the wall in a growing pool of blood. “She’s hit! Serene’s hit!”
Chaos ensued around them as two cops fell to Serene’s side. Others gathered around Lynn, Pete, and LesPaul, pushing them into the staircase, forcing them toward safety.
She heard one of the police officers radioing for paramedics. Someone radioed back that they were already in the building and on their way.
Lynn rushed to the bottom of the stairs and fell into Pete’s arms. “Oh, Pete, we have to pray,” she cried.
Marta swung back around, revolver clamped in her hands. “Now look what you’ve done!”
Mick shoved Parker against the wall and dove for Marta, tackling her. She kicked and thrashed, and Parker saw Mick grab Marta’s wrist. The girl’s finger was on the trigger, ready to pull. Mick gritted his teeth as his full weight pinned Marta down. He slid his hand up beyond her wrist to her hand, to the gun—and with a quick movement, he twisted the gun from her grasp and scrambled to his feet. “Against the wall, Marta!” he yelled. “Now!”
She lay crumpled on the floor in fetal position, hands over her head. Parker managed to get up and stumbled to the door. She opened it, and saw the guns aimed at her. Throwing her hands up, she screamed, “Don’t shoot!”
She backed out of the way as the cops pushed in. Gibson crouched behind his own weapon. “Drop the gun, Evans!”
Parker screamed. “No, it’s not him! Don’t shoot! It’s her!”
Mick tossed the gun toward Gibson so Marta couldn’t get it again and weakly lifted his hands. Marta lay in fetal position, sobbing against the floor.
“Sis, you all right?” Gibson asked without taking his eyes from Mick.
She tried to catch her breath. “Yes.
She’s
the killer. The one who shot Brenna and Tiffany and hid the gun in Chase’s apartment. She did it all. Not Mick.”
The local cops took over, and Gibson took Parker out of the room. The music was still playing onstage, an instrumental Parker didn’t recognize. Serene wasn’t singing. Then Parker saw that blood smeared the floor …
As they pulled the gurney out of the staircase, she saw her friend. “Serene!”
“She was shot,” Gibson said, holding her back. “Let them work.”
Dizziness closed in. “Is she … alive?”
“I don’t know.”
The music still played, the musicians oblivious to what was going on. The audience was beginning to shout and stomp, calling for Serene to come back out, bored with the instrumental. Some began to spill out of the auditorium and saw Serene’s bleeding body being rolled out on the gurney.
Parker followed it to the ambulance and climbed inside with her. Serene was unconscious, and the medics were hooking up IVs and oxygen, and radioing stats in to the hospital.
“Are you okay, ma’am?” one of the medics asked Parker.
She didn’t realize he was speaking to her.
“Ma’am?”
Startled, she looked up from Serene’s face. “Yes … I’m fine.”
“You can ride with her, but is there anything we can do for you?”
She swallowed and forced her mind to focus. “Save my friend,” she said.
The bullet that hit Serene had ricocheted off the concrete wall and torn through her lung. After hours in surgery, she spent two weeks in ICU on a ventilator. When they finally put her in a private room, Parker insisted on staying with her.
Parker sat on the edge of her bed, trying to make her friend smile by reading her fan email. There were thousands of them, all offering prayers and hopes for her recovery. She stopped reading when Serene’s eyes began to glaze over.
“Tour’s a wash,” she whispered. “They’re postponing all my dates.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Parker said. “The publicity will sell more CDs than the tour would have. You’re world famous now. The star who took a bullet for her friend.”
“It wasn’t like that,” Serene whispered.
Parker stretched out on the bed beside her. “It sort of was. You didn’t have to be there.”
“Neither did your mom or dad, or Gibson or LesPaul.”
“That’s right,” Parker said. “I have to say, Gibson really came through. I didn’t have enough faith in him. But it’s pretty clear that the rest of the family’s insane. Including you.”
Serene smiled at the implication that she was family. “This has taught me a lot, though.”
“Oh, yeah? What?”
Serene paused, her face strained by emotion. Her lips pressed together, and tears rimmed her eyes. “It’s taught me that I don’t want to die. Not from a bullet, and not from anorexia.”
Parker raised up on her elbow. “Yeah?”
“As soon as I get out of here, I’m going to that treatment center for eating disorders you told me about.”
Parker caught her breath. “You are? Really?”
“Yes, really. I’m sick—sick enough I could have died from it. The bullet almost got me there first, but starvation would have, eventually. When I’m well, I’ll talk about it onstage. Maybe it’ll keep others from going down the same path.”
Parker took her friend’s hand and smiled. Could it be that God’s hand had been on this whole crazy story from the beginning?
She thought of Mick Evans. She hadn’t seen him since the shooting, but she’d given a statement to the police that she hoped would help him. Marta had been arrested for two counts of murder, two counts of attempted murder, and kidnapping, since she’d held Mick against his will in the basement of a mountain cabin for weeks. He’d managed to get away from her when she got him to the Memphis Coliseum. If he hadn’t captured Parker and made himself her human shield, Marta would have murdered her for sure.
Mick was still being charged as an accessory, since he hadn’t gone to the police as soon as he suspected Marta.
Parker had seen news reports of Nathan Evans bonding Mick out of jail. The two had a lot of fallout to sort through. She hoped they’d find a way to be there for each other as they navigated their way through their grief and trauma, and the legal minefield awaiting both of them.
Marta’s attorney was making noises about an insanity plea. Parker prayed for the girl each day—that somehow, she would reach out to God and find the peace so desperately lacking in her life.
As Parker lay on the bed bantering with her friend, she said a silent thanks to God for seeing them through. Maybe it was time for a new beginning for all of them.
The audience smiled up at Parker with rapt attention, captivated by the words and melodies she crooned. Being held hostage had raised her celebrity a notch. Her case had made national news for several days. It wasn’t how she’d expected her fame to hit.
But no one in this audience knew who she was.
She glanced at Daniel as she sang and played her guitar. The light spilling off the stage caught the pleasure in his eyes.
There were probably fifty people here, all homeless or desperately poor, who came to the Nashville soup kitchen for their one hot meal of the day. They hadn’t expected a concert today.
They swayed to her music with tears in their eyes, wiping their wizened faces with stained fingers. Some of them closed their eyes and raised their leathered hands to heaven.
She’d never felt a greater thrill, not even in a coliseum with twelve thousand people. How could she have wanted more than this? The things she had once sought had a bitter taste now. They tasted like lost money, hurt pride, stress, and disappointment. She’d had enough of it.
Her mission as a writer was to lead people to Christ, to help them praise him and worship him and remember his glory, to help them understand their blessings and show them where to turn when things went bad … and when things went well. There would be no more watered-down songs with her name on them. She would only write those that had eternal value.
And her mission as a performer was to sing for those who couldn’t give anything back.
As the chorus reached its crescendo and the raspy voices began to sing, she stopped playing and listened to the lovely sound of their voices singing without her. Closing their eyes in prayer, they sang off-key, some of them tone-deaf, but the sound had never been more beautiful.
Teary-eyed, she slipped off her stool and winked at Daniel.
The men and women continued to sing as she began to make her exit, but he reached out and grabbed her arm, pulled her back, and pressed a kiss on her cheek. Heat flushed to her face as it always did when he kissed her. He let her go, and she slipped out of the room. Her guitar case was in the hall where she’d left it. She packed it up.
The poor and needy were singing louder, their voices carrying down the long church hallway. She lifted her case and walked out to her car, comfortable in the knowledge that she’d performed her best for her audience of one.
She didn’t need or want the applause this time. All she needed was the warm sun of God’s good pleasure.