Authors: Terri Blackstock
Serene smirked. “And you’re willing to split the royalties with another songwriter, or give them up entirely?”
She hadn’t really thought of that. She did need the money, and she deserved to have those songs added to her catalog. Why couldn’t Serene just be happy with them the way they were?
Butch sat next to Parker. “Your song ‘Double Minds’ could easily be a love song if you changed a few words. The story about the guy looking for light in a dark bar could be about a guy mourning a lost love.”
Parker winced. When she’d written that song, she’d thought of her father, trapped in darkness. How could she massage it into something else? “But I thought that was the title song. You named the album after it.”
“We can still keep that title,” Butch said. “If we could just go over the songs again, you could rewrite the lyrics in a flash. I’ve seen you write. We could knock it out tonight. We want your genius, Parker. Serene wants you to get full credit as the writer.”
Her throat was dry, and she wished for water.
Serene got that whine in her voice. “Parker, if we get this done on time, I won’t have to cancel any tour dates. I’ll still be playing to my fans. But Jeff Standard can get us bigger venues and more dates. I won’t just be playing in churches.”
“What’s wrong with churches?”
“They don’t generally hold that many people. Stadiums and coliseumshold more.”
Butch went to the stereo and plugged his iPod in, and the rough cut of “Double Minds” began to play. Parker closed her eyes and listened to the song swelling over the speakers. Serene’s voice transformedsimple words and crude melodies into works of art.
She wondered who the real genius was.
Parker listened as the words of Scripture played across the chorus, weaving itself through the song. How could she untangle that to remove it? The song had been birthed in Scripture.
Serene sat on the coffee table. “These are the songs we’re going to use, because they’re fabulous, Parker. We’re a killer team.”
She couldn’t deny that.
Butch pulled out a sheet with the lyrics written down. He thrust it at her.
She took it and looked down at it. He’d crossed through God, sinners, cleansing hands …
“If we do all this we’ll have to take the double-minded references out. That doesn’t even make sense as a love song.”
“Sure it does,” Butch said. “The guy wants to get back with his girl, but he can’t give up his old ways—double minds. It works.”
She brought her dull eyes back up to Serene. “How sure are you that Standard’s going to buy your contract?”
“I’d say ninety percent. He’s in negotiations with the label now.”
“And you think NT is going to let you go?” That didn’t seem likely to Parker. NT Records had a tremendous investment in Serene.
“If Jeff Standard pays them enough, they will. And he seems pretty set on making this happen.”
That sounded serious. “What if I say no?”
Serene’s eyes rounded. “You’re my best friend, Parker. Like a sister. I want to take you where I’m going. You could ride the wave with me. It could be your ticket.”
Serene’s clichés were the reason she didn’t do her own writing. “
My
ticket? To where?”
“If my records get into the hands of millions more people, then artists all over the place will be fighting for your songs.”
“Most people buy records as mp3s these days,” Parker said. “They won’t even see the liner notes.”
“I’ll tell them on my interviews. We’ll be like Elton John and Bernie Taupin.”
She didn’t doubt that Serene would do that. But it wasn’t enough to sway her. “I wrote those songs in worship … some while I was praying. I just did a concert tonight, and everybody was into it. The Holy Spirit was working. They were lifting up their hands and singing—kids with twenty-second attention spans. That’s why I write, Serene. That’s why I perform.”
“Who are you kidding, Parker? You know you want to do more than youth groups!”
Parker let out a long breath and realized how tired she was. It had been a long day, and a girl lay dead. “You know, tonight’s not a good time to talk about this. Let me sleep on it and we’ll talk tomorrow.”
“You’re not going to sleep on it,” Butch said. “You’re going to be up all night thinking about Brenna.”
“Maybe,” she snapped, “but that’s nobody’s business but my own.”
“Parker, come on!” Serene blurted. “You know you’re not safe going home.”
Maybe she should go to her mother’s. Her mom would be glad to have her there, especially in the aftermath of her recent fake death. Parker got up, feeling weariness aching down her spine. She picked up her heavy handbag and slipped it over her shoulder. “Tomorrow we’ll talk.”
“This is urgent! I have to get this done right away.”
“No one’s going into the studio tonight. In fact, Colgate might be closed for days. It’s a crime scene now.”
Butch groaned and looked at Serene. “I told you you needed to put a studio in your basement like everybody else in Nashville.”
While they argued about it, Parker made it back to her car.
As she drove back to West End, Parker wondered about the wisdom of going home. But her mother’s house probably still swarmed with her Bible study group, and Parker didn’t feel like being pumped for behind-the-scenes information. Gibson had called as Parker left Serene’s and asked if he could talk to her again tonight. He preferred that she not be at their mother’s, since Mom would freak if she saw the other pictures he needed to show Parker.
Parker already felt sick. “Will you meet me at my house?”
“Can’t,” he said. “Not yet. I’m on my way to talk to Brenna’s parents. Don’t be afraid. I really don’t think the guy was after you.”
But what did
he
know? He’d been in this job for all of a month. His first case had been a domestic violence case. The wife, who’d been beaten, had shot her husband, then called the police and turned herself in. The second had been a barroom brawl with dozens of witnesses. And the third was a DUI accident that left a child dead. None had been difficult to solve.
It wasn’t that she doubted her brother’s competence as a detective—there was no doubt involved. She was
certain
he didn’t know what he was doing. He probably wouldn’t know a murderer if he waved a gun in his face.
If only she hadn’t helped him study for the exams, she would be able to trust in his instincts.
Gibson’s history was one of gut impulses and bad choices. He’d flunked out of college because he attended more frat parties than classes. Then he had to get a job. He lost his first two sales jobs because he couldn’t drag himself out of bed to show up. His womanizing had left a trail of heartbroken ex-girlfriends who thought they could change him.
Lynn finally pushed him out of her nest, praying he’d sprout wings. He picked himself up and joined the army. They made him an MP and sent him to Afghanistan in the first wave after 9/11. That was where he embraced Christ and vowed to turn his life around.
The military gave him a sense of discipline and purpose. When he got out a few years later, he joined the police department and began working nights as a studio musician—a good fit, but his ups and downs kept the family from trusting him just yet.
Parker was a firsthand witness of how poorly prepared Gibson had been for the homicide detective exam. He’d gone to take the test with hope and a prayer, and she sat at home waiting for word that he’d failed. When he passed, she wondered if the examiner got his test mixed up with someone else’s. But apparently he’d passed fair and square. And as much as she doubted his investigative abilities, she did value his protection. At six-three and 225 pounds, Gibson made a good bouncer.
If he couldn’t meet her at home yet, she could drive around until he was ready. She could spend that time praying for Brenna’s family. But why burn up all that gas? She tried to think of an all-night Starbucks, but there weren’t any.
Finally, she went home and sat in the car in her carport, letting the engine idle so she could whip it into reverse if anyone jumped out of the shadows. After a while, she realized that was crazy. She turned the key off, slid out of the car, and closed the door quietly. Then she bolted for her side door. She fumbled for the key, stuck it in the knob, and went inside.
She turned on the light. No one moved out of the shadows or pounced from behind the refrigerator, and there weren’t that many places for full-grown humans to hide. Her small kitchen stood to the left of the door she’d come in, her counter separating it from the living area, which was just big enough for a couch and a small easy chair, an entertainment wall with surround-sound, and a baby grand piano in the corner. She’d sunk more money into the piano and entertainment system than she had in all her furniture combined, since hearing her songs at their best was a priority.
She hurried through the kitchen and down the hall. She’d converted her extra bedroom into a music room, where she had an electric keyboard, a desktop computer, and several guitars. Though the room was full, there were no hiding places. She looked in the open closet in which she’d wedged a desk and shelves. Nothing had changed.
Her bedroom looked the way she had left it. Her bed was high off the floor, and nothing hunkered beneath. She breathed a sigh of relief.
Then it hit her that it might not be wise to let people know she was home. Even though her car sat in the carport for anyone with a flashlight to see, she worried that the media might come knocking, hoping to clear up the confusion. Better if the lights were out. She went back through the house, turning out all the lights, then felt her way back to her bedroom.
She lay back on the bed, staring up at the dark ceiling. This was ridiculous. She had things to do. She couldn’t allow herself to be made a prisoner in her own home. And anyway, this couldn’t be about her. She wasn’t important enough at Colgate Studios for anyone to want dead.
She forced her thoughts away from herself to Brenna’s parents. She prayed for them, imagining their anguish.
After a while, she heard a car coming up the street, saw headlights turning across her curtains. She sat up. Someone was pulling into her driveway.
She slid off the bed and went to the window, peered out through the curtains. Thankfully, it was Gibson’s Bonneville. She watched as he turned his lights off and got out, slamming the door with no regard for the neighbors who had probably gone to bed long ago, oblivious that their neighbor had been pronounced dead. He ambled up the driveway as if nothing had happened tonight.
She flipped on her bedroom light and hurried through the house to the kitchen. She met him as he came in the door from the carport. “Did you talk to her parents?”
Her brother shrugged out of his coat and tossed it over the arm of her couch. “Yeah. They were in shock. Her mother was a wreck. Really sad.”
“Did they know why Brenna was at Colgate tonight?”
“No. They thought she was studying. She had a test coming up. Hey, did you know that her mother is Tiffany Teniere?”
Parker’s jaw dropped. Tiffany Teniere was a Christian star as big as Amy Grant. She’d been riding the Christian charts for over twenty years. “Why wouldn’t Brenna tell me a thing like that?”
“You know how teenagers are about their parents.”
“Yeah, but that’s relevant. We’re in the music business.” She caught her breath when it hit her who Brenna’s father was. TiffanyTeniere was married to Nathan Evans, who owned a couple of major labels. A star-maker, he had taken several unknown artists and catapulted them to fame. “Okay, now I’m really confused. Why would Brenna work for Colgate as an unpaid intern when she could have gotten all the experience she could ever want working in her father’s record company?”
“Good question.”
Parker frowned and tried to remember her first conversation with the girl. “When she called about applying for our internship, she said she was a Music Business major and just wanted a chance to learn.”
“Maybe she just wanted to get to know the people who recorded there.” Gibson went to her refrigerator and stared inside.
“Yeah, maybe.”
“Maybe her dad is one of those tycoons who makes his children come up through the ranks.”
“Still, why wouldn’t she mention it?”
“Probably thought it would be a distraction. Maybe she wanted you guys to know her for herself and not for her famous parents.”
Yes, Parker supposed that made sense. “So, are they okay?”
He closed the refrigerator door without getting anything out. “They’re in horrible shape. A doctor came while we were there and sedated her mother. Her father’s grief was different, though.”
“Different how?”
“He was angry. Really, really angry. Snapping at everyone. Shooting questions at me like he thought I’d killed her. We get that sometimes. People grieve differently.”
Yes, Parker could only imagine how grief like that could twist and cut like barbed wire, making people strike back.
“Hey, can I use your printer?”
She didn’t know why he even asked. Gibson had long ago made her house his home-away-from-home. He couldn’t stand his roommate, so half the time he slept on Parker’s couch. “Sure, go ahead. What do you need it for?”
“I want to print out these pictures. Look at them enlarged.”
“You don’t have printers at the police station?”
“Yeah, but I don’t want to go there to do this. Too much pressure. Besides, I need to talk to you. I need you to tell me everything you’ve ever known about Brenna, starting with the day you met her. Did she come to Colgate through Belmont’s internship program?”
“No, she was a freshman, and that program’s for upperclassmen. She didn’t want credit hours—just experience. So she offered herself as an unpaid intern. She didn’t want anything in return. Hard to pass up free help, so I finally put her through to George.”
The one-by-one-inch display on her printer ran through the pictures quickly, a tease of images of Brenna dead on the floor. Parker turned away.
Gibson ignored her and fumbled with the printer until it began printing. “I’m doing them in eight-by-tens,” he said. “That way we can see the details better.”
“I’m not sure I have enough ink for that.” But she knew she did. She’d recently changed the cartridges. It had cost her whole honorarium for the youth group concert she’d done the week before last.
The printer began to hum. Parker looked back. As the pictures rolled out of the machine, she saw Brenna’s legs over the fallen chair. She turned away again as Brenna’s face came into view.
More headlights moved across her curtains. Another car door slammed. “Who’s that?”
“Probably Rayzo. He wants to talk to you, too.”
Kyle Rayzo was Gibson’s partner. Parker had a feeling that the rough and brusque forty-year-old didn’t much like her. She didn’t know why. Maybe he just didn’t relate well to women.
She opened the door as he started to knock. “Hi, Detective Rayzo. Nice to see you.”
“You too,” he said, not even meeting her eyes. The big man lumbered in, a poster child for high blood pressure and diabetes and all the side diseases that came from being overweight. He’d gained all this weight after being shot in the leg a year ago. The leg had healed, but the inactivity had puffed him up like the Pillsbury Doughboy.
Gibson pulled the pictures out of the printer. “I’m printing these out. Parker was just telling me about Brenna.”
Rayzo went to the refrigerator as if it were his own. “Got anything to drink?”
“Sure,” she said. “Some water and cranberry juice. A little bit of milk.”
He grabbed the bottled water, drank it down, then headed to the tap for a refill.
Gibson took the pictures emerging one at a time from the printer and laid them out on the coffee table. Parker forced herself to go sit down on the couch. She scanned the photos that would have looked benign if she hadn’t known that a dead girl lay just out of frame. How did one get comfortable when two detectives stood in her living room, poring over pictures of their crime scene?
“I’ve got some pictures here of her bedroom. You should see that house. It’s like a palace or something. Parents are stinking rich.”
Rayzo sat on the couch at the opposite end from Parker. Gibson was still adding pictures to the display on the table as they rolled out of the printer.
“You okay, Sis?”
“Yeah, fine.”
“Keep talking. When Brenna started working there, did any friends show up? Phone calls? Weird incidents?”
She tried to think. “No. Her boyfriend, Chase, came by a time or two, just for a minute. She introduced me. He was nice. Mostly she was quiet and just worked hard. She picked things up really fast. We had her doing filing, vacuuming the studios, that kind of thing. After a couple of weeks I let her fill in for me during my lunch hour and stuff.”
Gibson sat in the easy chair. “I want you to pick up each picture of your desk and study it one more time. Anything out of place? You know how you left it this afternoon, right?”
“I … I don’t want to see …”
“Her body’s not in the ones I’m showing you.”
Parker blinked back the tears burning her eyes and forced herself to take the pages. She studied the pictures of her desk, her drawers, her tabletop.
The pictures were bigger and easier to see than they’d been in the two-by-four inch display on Gibson’s camera. But she saw nothing out of place. She’d left her MacBook on, its screen saver flashing across the display in colorful strands of light. It was still doing that when Gibson took the pictures.
“That your laptop, is it?” Rayzo asked.
“Yes.”
“Amazing nobody’s snatched it.”
“I don’t usually leave it there, but tonight I had my hands full when I left. I decided to come back for it after the gig. Cat was there when I left, so I knew it was safe.”
She stared at the photos of the contents of each of her drawers. Everything was as she’d left it. “I just can’t see anything wrong. Brenna’s stuff is there, but that’s the only thing different.”
She reached for the pictures of the studios, saw the messes left by musicians in the throes of production—guitars left on their racks, baseball caps and tossed coats, drink cans and shoes kicked off. The sessions lasted hours, and the bands usually made it their home for the duration. The police must have made them clear out and leave everything just as it was.
“Where were you at the time of the murder?” Rayzo asked.
Parker looked up. “At a concert at Savior Church. I didn’t leave until Gibson called me to come to Colgate. I had to cut the concert short.”
Rayzo made a note of it in his wilted notebook. “All the studios were full except one tonight,” he said. “Your calendar said some dude was booked there, but your log book didn’t show he’d checked in.”
“Johnny Jackson,” she said. “He couldn’t get the musicians he needed, so he can celled at the last minute.”
“Any way he could have shown up, after all?”
“Not with a gun.” Johnny Jackson was a sixty-year-old Christian country singer who would give his own life to lead someone to Christ. No way he’d usher them into heaven with a bullet. Then again, she really didn’t know him that well. “He’s a really nice guy. Besides, when he called he said he was having dinner out with his family. I’m sure that can be verified.”