Authors: Terri Blackstock
“He still lied. That’s suspicious. I’m telling you, something stinks.”
She opened the mayo and sniffed the contents. She put the sandwich together on a plate, then shoved it across the counter. “He didn’t kill her,” she said. “He’s so distraught he can’t even think straight.”
“I mean it, Parker. Whether you’ve exonerated the guy in your mind or not, don’t go near him again. You’re going to make me lose my job.”
She thought of taking the sandwich back. “Me? How?”
“You’re intimately involved in the case, which gives me a conflict of interest, according to the chief.”
“So did he take it away from you?”
“No, he gave me a few days. He’ll renege on that if he finds out my little sister is going around trying to solve the stupid case for me.”
“I’m not trying to solve the case. You don’t have to worry.”
She saw the despondent slump of Gibson’s shoulders as he dropped to the couch, his plate on his lap. He bit off a third of the sandwich, as if he hadn’t eaten in days. Maybe she should make another one.
He picked up the remote and turned on the television. Fox News came on with a report about a tamed alligator somewhere in Florida. “Look at this,” he said. “Maybe I’ll get some pointers for dealing with my roommate.”
“You should move out.”
“Can’t. The lease is in my name.”
“Then lay down the law. Tell him his girlfriend can’t live there. Make
him
move out. It’s ridiculous that you can’t sleep in your own place.”
“You talk tough, Parker. But you’d do what I’m doing. I’ll deal with it as soon as I have time to think. Subject closed.”
“A little defensive, aren’t we?” Parker muttered. “Okay, how about a new subject? Confidentially, Serene had some news last night. Apparently, Jeff Standard is considering buying out her contract. He wants to cross her over.”
She had his attention now. “Are you kidding me? That’s great!”
“Not so great,” she said. “They want her to tone down all the songs on her new album.”
“The songs you wrote.”
“That’s right.”
“And what does ‘tone down’ mean?”
“Just what you think it means. Take out the Christianity and make them love songs. She’s all gung ho about giving Standard what he wants, lock, stock, and barrel. The musical tracks won’t have to be changed. Just the lyrics and vocals.”
“No hill for a climber.”
She sighed. “I don’t know. It goes against my grain to make my songs superficial.” She went back to the kitchen to make him another sandwich. “I want them to make people think of God, not some fictitious boyfriend out there in
Billboard
land.”
“Are you crazy? What good is it to have all these great songs if nobody ever gets to hear them? You could make so much money, Parker. Your songs are great. This could be your ticket.”
She stared at him over the counter. “You think I should do it?”
“It’s a no-brainer, Sis. Why
wouldn’t
you do it? You could buy a bigger place.”
“So I’d have a room for you?”
He ignored the barb. “You could travel. You’ve never even been out of the country.”
“Yes, I have. I went to Mexico on a mission trip.”
He got up and came back to the counter separating the kitchen from the living room. “Parker, you can’t say no to this. It’s not like you’re going to hit it big performing. Songwriting is your gift.”
That stung, and Parker tried not to wince.
“Take this time off and hammer out those lyrics. It’ll open all sorts of doors for you. I can see the charts now. Serene won’t just have the number-one spot. She’ll have five or six spots. And people will hear about Parker James, the songwriter. You’ll be in huge demand. Other artists will start begging you to write for them. Big ones. This is your chance, Parker. Do it.”
She went back to making another sandwich.
“Parker, look at me,” Gibson said.
She looked up grudgingly, aware that her face was burning.
“I know you’re trying to honor God. That’s important. But God doesn’t only call us to do things in Christian arenas. I’m not a Christian cop. I’m a cop who’s a Christian. I don’t just solve Christian murders.”
She grinned. “Okay, I get your point.”
“I’m just saying, no matter how big and famous you get, you don’t have to write anything you don’t want to write. You can let your Christian influence shine in your life and all you do. And the songs you
perform
can still be Christian songs.”
She swallowed the urge to ask him why she’d perform at all if, in his opinion, she wasn’t going to hit it big. But she didn’t like sounding bitter. “But if I give her the songs, the original lyrics that I thought God gave me will be dead. I can’t perform them. Who would want them if Serene’s made the other ones famous? Those songs started out as acts of worship, Gibson.”
“Hey, would God open doors that he doesn’t want you to go through?”
“Maybe it’s not God opening the door.”
“And maybe it is. Just consider it, okay? Don’t slam the door shut without at least peeking through.”
She didn’t want to talk about it anymore, so to shut Gibson up, she promised to give it more thought.
But later, when her phone began to ring, she didn’t even check the caller ID. She decided to ignore it. It was probably Serene, and she didn’t have an answer for her yet.
The funeral was on Saturday at Two Rivers Baptist Church, which was packed to the gills with celebrity mourners. Parker and her brothers, who’d gotten there early, found a seat in the middle of the sanctuary. Gibson had come to get a look at the mourners, thinking the killer might show up, but LesPaul, her younger brother, came because he knew Brenna. LesPaul was one of Colgate’s most in-demand studio musicians, as well as one of their house engineers.
LesPaul took the end of the row and spent most of his time on his feet, shaking hands of people he knew well from spending hours with them in the studios. Parker knew a lot of them, too, but she sat quietly, not feeling social at a time like this.
Her eyes scanned the heads in front of her, and she caught the eye of Nigel Hughes, the
New York Times
reporter. He played the role of mourner on the tenth row, but he sat sideways on his pew, taking inventory of the Chris Christian leaders in attendance who might wind up as stars in his upcoming articles. He smiled and offered her a wave.
Parker waved back, then quickly looked away.
When the Evans family was led in, she saw Tiffany, lookingas forlorn and heartbroken as a mother could look. She leaned on her husband, who seemed to support her weight as they slowly walked in. His face looked like granite, gray and hard, unreadable. Behind them trailed an entourage of family members—some who looked devastated, some who didn’t. Funerals were funny things, she thought. People laughed and shook hands at them, told stories and laughed, and enjoyed seeing people they hadn’t seen in years. But that buoyancy was never a barometer of their grief.
The funeral was long, complete with a compilation of videos of Brenna growing up. Had the parents chosen this, or had some well-meaning friend put it together? Whoever did it, Parker wondered whether it might shift the family’s mourning into overdrive. It seemed to Parker that it might be horribly painful for the parents and friends, even if it was a precious tribute to the murdered girl.
As the pastor spoke, friends eulogized, and stars sang, she felt no celebration of Brenna’s life—just a heavy, overwhelming sadnes sat the way she had died, a sense of despair that heaven couldn’t assuage.
As the pastor wrapped up his sermon with Revelation 22, a piano riff began to play. Startled, she realized that it was her phone ringing. She’d forgotten to turn it off. She tried to find her phone at the bottom of her purse. Amid all the junk she kept there—hand lotion, a tape recorder, her appointment book, a small notebook to jot her song ideas in—the phone hid itself.
“Turn it off!” LesPaul whispered harshly.
The piano riff continued. Ta-dada-da-da, Ta-dada-da-da, like some burlesque orchestra backing up Gypsy Rose Lee. By the time she found the phone, people were turning to look. She couldn’t remember how to switch the ringer off, so she answered and whispered, “I can’t talk right now.”
“You’re not gonna believe this!” The voice was Serene’s. “Jeff Standard is doing it for sure. This afternoon I’m signing the contract. He bought me out of my previous contracts and I’m on my way to my dreams coming true!”
“I’ll call you back,” Parker whispered.
“No, don’t hang up. I need your commitment now. Will you rewrite the songs or not?”
On the phone, Serene’s voice packed the punch that it had in a stadium full of twenty thousand people. Parker knew that everyone within several feet of her could hear the conversation. “Not now,” she whispered through her teeth, and clicked the phone off.
Blood rushed to her face. Her skin was flaming. She hoped Brenna’s family hadn’t been distracted by the sound. Quickly she turned off the ringer and dropped the phone back into her purse.
When the service broke up, LesPaul leaned into Parker. “Way to go, Parks. Nice ringtone. Everyone liked it.”
She glanced around. “Maybe nobody knows it’s me.”
“Oh, no, they don’t know. Your answering the phone didn’t tip anybody off.”
She wanted to cry.
“It wasn’t that bad, Sis,” Gibson said as LesPaul scurried off to talk to more friends. “Forget it. Are you going to the graveside service?”
“Yeah, you want a ride?”
“No, I’d rather go in my own car, so I can hang back and watch.” Relieved, she headed out to her car and closed herself in. As she waited for the procession to line up, she called Serene back.
“You hung up on me!” her friend said as soon as she answered.
“I had to. I was at Brenna’s funeral.”
“Don’t you know you’re supposed to turn the ringer off?”
“When someone answers the phone and says, ‘I can’t talk right now,’ you’re not supposed to start talking.”
“It’s an emergency,” Serene said. “This is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. You’re my best friend and I wanted to tell you. Are you in with me or not?”
Parker pulled into the procession of Hummers and Beamers, feeling insecure about her Bug. “I don’t know. I need to call you back. I’m going to the gravesite.”
“No, don’t call me back. Tell me now! I need to get into the studio today.”
“You can’t. It’s still sealed by the police.”
“Then I’ll find another place to record. Work with me here, Parker.”
She felt cornered. “Did you try telling Jeff Standard why you went into Christian music in the first place? Did you remind him that it’s those songs about Christ that have gotten you where you are?”
“Parker, let’s not do this again.”
“Okay, let’s not.” She hung up, then held the button until the phone powered down. Tossing it onto her passenger seat, she whispered, “That should take care of that.”
Up ahead, the hearse turned into the graveyard. She slowed as car after car turned in behind it. She followed them down the winding road leading to a tent.
She got out of her car and stepped across the moist earth, walking between graves and headstones toward the tent. She paused as the pallbearers got the casket out of the hearse. Her gaze landed on Brenna’s mother. Tiffany was beautiful in a nip-and-tuck, ageless kind of way. Parker wondered how old she was. Normally, Tiffany could hold her own with most of the twenty-something stars with whom she competed. But today her eyes looked glassy and distant, her swollen eyelids heavy. She’d been sedated after hearing about the murder, Gibson had said. She still looked sedated today.
“Hello again, Parker.”
The whispered greeting turned Parker around. Nigel Hughes. “You know,” she said, “it’s in really bad taste to show up at a teenaged girl’s funeral looking for dirt.”
“Why do you suppose I’m looking for dirt?”
“Because that’s what you do. See, I do my homework, too.”
“Ah, you’ve read some of my articles.”
“And I don’t want to see any more.” She started to walk away.
“Your brother’s working on the case, isn’t he?”
“I told you, I’m not talking to reporters about the murder.”
“No, no, I quite understand. That’s perfectly fine. But I would imagine it’s occurred to them how strange it was that Nathan Evans’s daughter would be working at Colgate Studios. Makes one a bit suspicious, doesn’t it?”
Parker’s attention was snagged. “Suspicious of what?”
“One would simply wonder if Brenna had been sent. You know, to spy.”
She grunted. “You’re amazing. You take a girl’s death and try to manipulate it into one of your hack stories. I have nothing to say.”
“Well, it isn’t outside the realm of possibility, now, is it? Word is that your boss didn’t even know Brenna was Nathan Evans’s daughter. Why do you suppose she would have kept that little tidbit of information private?”
“Maybe she wanted to make it on her own.”
He breathed a laugh. “Come now. Filing and reception work is hardly
making
it. Nothing against what you do, love, but it would hardly be a draw for a young woman wanting to climb the proverbial ladder, now would it?”
“She was eighteen. She probably didn’t even know yet what she wanted to be when she grew up.”
“Ah, you could be right. But Nathan Evans is known to be a ruthless man.”
Parker walked away, not looking back. She was sure he’d find someone else to pump for information. And they would, no doubt, give it to him.
Already, the seeds he’d planted in her mind began to sprout. She tried to remember everything she knew about Evans Music. The record company was successful, though lately they’d been having problems. One of their unmarried big-ticket Christian artists, Alena Moore, had wound up pregnant, which put a hold on her career in Christian music. Now
there
was a story Nigel Hughes could sink his teeth into. Rumor was that Nathan Evans had taken a huge loss because of it. He’d had a ton of money invested in her promotion. Now he couldn’t get any of the Christian stores to carry her most recent album. And because the songs were so blatantly Christian, they wouldn’t cross over to the secular airwaves.
Parker had prayed for the young artist whose mistake had changed the course of her life. She couldn’t help respecting her for the courageous decision to have the baby. Life was more precious to Alena than her career, apparently.
But Nathan was left holding the bag for an aborted career.
What would he have to gain by sending his daughter to work for the studios? Brenna might have picked up rumors of secrets about competing record companies—but then, no official deals were made at Colgate. Then again, the lounge at Colgate was often filled with artists and their people hanging out, talking, sharing industry scuttlebutt. Parker supposed if one were looking for secrets, they might find some at Colgate.
At the tent, Parker looked around the crowd, wondering if the killer had come. Some of the faces she recognized, some she didn’t. LesPaul could have named half of them.
As Brenna’s family filed in to take the chairs under the tent, a man entered with them—about Parker’s age, hands in his pockets under a tailored suit coat. He paused as he waited for the parents and grandparents to be seated. As he waited, his eyes met Parker’s. He was about five-ten, with long brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. He had the same jaw line and eyes as Nathan Evans.
He took a seat on the end of the front row. Her brother, Parker realized. Yes, he was the one in the picture in Brenna’s dorm.
When the funeral was over, she waited on the outskirts of the crowd, hoping to get close enough to Brenna’s parents to express her condolences. But it was impossible. There were too many people around them. She gave up and headed back to her car.
“Hey, Parker.”
It was Brenna’s boyfriend, Chase. He looked as bad as he had Thursday when she’d first met him. Gibson’s warning about Chase’s lies flashed through her mind. But a little compassion wouldn’t hurt anything. She hugged him. “You okay?”
“No, not really.” He seemed to stiffen under the sympathy. “My girl was murdered. I’ll never be okay again.” Tears welled in his eyes, and he rubbed his mouth. He made an effort to talk. “Her mom’s begging us to get all her friends to come back to their house. Says having us around makes her feel better. There’ll be food and stuff. You can come, if you want.”
This would give her the chance to offer her condolences. Brenna’s parents might have questions she could answer. Brenna had been killed at Parker’s desk. She hadn’t really been Brenna’s friend, but she should have been. “Okay, I guess I can go for a little while.”
As she got into her car, Gibson approached. “What did Chase say to you?” he asked in a low voice.
“He invited me to the Evans house.”
“I asked you to stay away from him.”
“It’s not
his
house, it’s theirs. I just want to tell them I’m sorry for their loss.”
“Then take me with you. Maybe I’ll learn something about the case.”
Parker shook her head. “I can’t do that! They know you’re one of the detectives on the case. They didn’t invite you.” She looked back at the family as they got into a limousine. “Look, I won’t stay long. I’ll let you know if I find out anything.”
He sighed. “All right, but be careful.”
“Do you think the killer was here?”
He shrugged and looked back at Chase, walking to his car. “Could be.”
“Anybody you’re going to follow up on?”
“You go do your thing, and I’ll do mine.”
He didn’t have to be snooty about it.