When she’d hear about him through one of the band members or their families, he was just taking another class, sitting in with a group somewhere, working on something in a lab. He seemed to travel a lot, too.
She hadn’t been there long before she heard a buzz and remembered that he had a gate bell, similar to the one she’d installed. She quickly headed for the front, freezing in the parlor when she looked up the stairs.
Chase was there, bottom half wrapped in a towel. His shoulders were bronzed and glistening, and his abs and pecs had remained smoothly muscled.
“I’ve got it!” she cried to him. “For God’s sake, get dressed!”
“I don’t know if you should answer the door—”
She ignored him, hurrying on to the front. She pushed the button at the door that opened the gate and stepped out to the porch. It was the food arriving, two burly men bearing boxes and bags. She greeted them pleasantly and directed them to the island in the kitchen and the long table in the dining room. They’d barely gotten things on the table when Chase came hurrying down, now in jeans, a T-shirt and a casual jacket.
She realized the latter probably concealed a weapon.
But he thanked the delivery men as well and saw them out.
“See?” she said. “Food, delivered, safely, and I managed it just fine on my own.”
He didn’t reply to that but said, “Let’s start getting this stuff open and out. Oh, paper plates. There’s a tray of plastic forks and all on the counter... We’ll be ready, and if there’s time...”
“If there’s time, what?”
“We’ll quickly run up to my office.”
“Shouldn’t we do that first? Food gets cold. I see you have crawfish étouffée, gumbo...all the right stuff, huh?”
“One hopes. You’re right. Leave it all covered. That’s a salad—doesn’t matter. Come on upstairs,” he said.
He hurried ahead of her, turning to the right.
His office was impressively neat and well equipped with his computer, a good-sized monitor, printer/copier complete with a scanner and a tray with neatly folded papers. His desk was large with an ergonomic chair, and there was a love seat in the rear of the room and another chair that could be brought up to the desk.
She wondered who he might work with here at times.
And she couldn’t help but feel a bit of jealousy. Did he write music sometimes? Maybe with someone...with whom he could make beautiful music?
“All right, the remaining group. Four guys—one of them my grandfather. Hank always admitted he did some pot in his day, doesn’t care for it now, says he can take a nap at the drop of a hat without it. Drinking—a bit to excess in his younger days, wild, crazy and a success—but he says he respected Jake so much, even when he didn’t realize it, and he learned to temper himself. Yes, he’s my grandfather, and yes, I want him to be innocent.”
“Did any of them go crazy on drugs at any time?” Sky murmured.
“Not really, and certainly not in comparison to a lot of groups out there who suddenly had tons of money and adulation. I looked up a bunch of public-domain stuff. They never went crazy peeing on stage à la Jim Morrison or anything, but Joe Garcia once drank himself into a stupor and ripped up a hotel room and cooled his heels in jail overnight.”
“Brandon?” Sky asked.
“He’s been rowdy a few times, but whatever he has or hasn’t done, it was never bad enough for an arrest. I’ve been with him during Mardi Gras when I was worried that he’d get himself in trouble and I wanted to make sure he’d get home okay. Brandon...he was there that night.”
Sky nodded. “I’ve never seen Mark or Chris have anything more than a beer or two. And if he does drugs of any kind, Brandon certainly has never asked me to join in. Then again, other than being polite when my mom has had anyone around, I haven’t really hung out with any of these people for years.”
“Your dad never frowned on anyone having a drink. Even sober, he’d buy a beer for a friend. He’d be out of there if people were drinking to excess, they... Well, they just didn’t. They respected him, and they followed his lead. They might all owe him their careers—and their lives.”
“Roadies?” Skylar said.
“Okay, let’s just remember we can’t label them as guilty of anything just because we were never as close to any of them as we were the band members,” Chase said.
Sky smiled. “Gotcha. So...?”
“So. Justin West, Charlie Bentley and Nathan Harrison,” Chase said. “Justin has been with the group longest, he’s turning fifty in the fall, and has no arrest record that I can find, and records like that are accessible. I have seen Justin kick back after a show with a lot of tequila, but he’s also a family man, two sons in college, still married to Julia, his wife of twenty-seven years. Charlie Bentley, forty-three, divorced, handsome man, glad to sweep up the ladies after a performance. He had a DUI back in 2008. He was young, and in the biz... Driving under any kind of influence is a sin in my book—plenty of rideshare companies out there—but that’s a personal thing.”
“Not personal at all. Too many people have been injured or killed by impaired drivers,” Sky said.
He nodded. “Still, doesn’t turn him into a murderer or...”
“Drug pusher?”
“Right. Then we have Nathan Harrison. Also in his early forties, also divorced—a couple of times—still a good dad to his kids, so I hear. Coaches his son’s Little League team and is on decent terms with both his ex-wives, no arrest record, but again, likes to party after a show and considers himself quite the hunk for those young women who like to hang around rock stars.”
A buzzing sounded.
“First of our lunch guests,” Chase said, rising. “Let’s see who it is.”
“Everyone responded. Hanging around until sound checks and all tonight,” Sky murmured. “Well, except for Hank, of course—”
“Because Gramps is in the hospital,” Chase reminded her.
“He’s doing okay?”
“He’ll be in there another week or so and then... He’ll be out of any kind of heavy lifting until he finishes with his cardio rehab.”
“Puts you in a bad position, doesn’t it?” Sky asked him.
