In Her Sights (The Thousand Words Series Book 2) (8 page)

“Quiet enough that I haven’t noticed apparently,” Dev said. “Don’t tell me this is a sex thing.”

“No! Nothing like that. And you wouldn’t notice. It’s easy to overlook. Jess literally can’t speak to Cassie, and yes, I’m using the word ‘literally’ correctly in this case. It’s not an exaggeration. He can’t talk to her.”

“What?” Dev shook his head, seemingly unable to accept what Kenny was saying. “But at Thanksgiving and Christmas –”

“You know very well he avoids her.”

“He can’t avoid her completely, we have dinner.”

“He sits far enough away to make direct conversation impossible. You know this, you help him,” Kenny pointed out.

Dev sat for a moment, staring at him. “You’re saying we can’t go to Tiffany’s funeral.”

“I think Jess would want to be there to support Cassie. We all would. It’s just that he wouldn’t be very supportive. The first time he tried to offer condolences, and failed, it’d cause more problems than any amount of support our presence could offer. Worse, if he didn’t say anything, she’d question it or take it the wrong way. Especially when the look on his face would obviously show that he wanted to. And even worse yet, if we just left Jess behind, his absence would be as obvious as a neon sign. Any of ours would be. If you went, and the rest of us didn’t, Cassie would question it.”

Dev nodded. “So you’re saying we can’t go to Tiffany’s funeral.”

“I’m sorry, Dev.” Kenny sighed. “Do you understand why?”

To Kenny’s immense relief, Dev nodded again.

“We’ve got to do something about Jess. This can’t go on.”

“I’m working on it. For now, just keep it to yourself. Leave him alone and cover for him.”

“Fine. I’ll go tell Cassie we won’t make it.” Dev stood but Kenny stopped him.

“I’ll talk to Flynn and Alec. Let her think we tried, it’ll make her feel better. Flynn and Alec will cover for us. Wait to call Cassie back. I’ll let you know.

“Also, go see Bryan about taking one of his anxiety pills so you can get a decent night’s sleep. We have to tell Jess in the morning.”

○ ○ ○

Kenny called Flynn and told him the problem with Jess. Flynn wasn’t happy and Kenny promised him a longer conversation later. For now, Flynn agreed flying back wasn’t an option. In fact, Flynn couldn’t think of anywhere he’d rather Jess was when Cassie was hurting than in another hemisphere.

Dev didn’t mention it, but the car that hit Tiffany also clipped Cassie. Maybe Dev didn’t know. Tiffany caught the full impact, while Cassie would be attending her best friend’s funeral on crutches with a rainbow of bruises. Flynn said she portrayed a pathetic picture right now, and the longer they could keep Jess from seeing her, the better.

The next morning, Kenny got everything straightened out with Alec, and reluctantly even Gere, then sat Bryan and Jess down to tell them. Dev huddled miserably in a corner of the room but claimed he wanted to be there. He was stressed and, for Dev, that meant being with them was the best thing for him.

Kenny handed Jess a beer and told him the bare-bones version of what was going on.

“What?” Jess asked, staring at Kenny, then glancing back over his shoulder at Dev.

“Dev already knew. He heard it from Cassie last night. You weren’t around,” Kenny brought Jess’s attention back to him as Bryan slid back on the bed to sit quietly by the younger man. Kenny watched Dev for a moment while Jess took another drink of his beer. He didn’t look good.

“What were they even doing in New York? Cassie’s supposed to be at Berkley and Tiff was at Harvard,” Jess demanded.

“Cass flies out every now and again. It’s summer. They were probably shopping,” Bryan answered quietly. “I’ll tell Bren, assuming she doesn’t know already. She can grab Lindsay, maybe Sophie, and spend some time with Cassie. I assume she’ll be at home for a while. Doing the girl-thing at the mall or whatever might help.”

“Good idea, Bryan. It’ll distract her a bit from the fact that we won’t be there,” Kenny agreed.

“What? We aren’t going home for the funeral? Tiffany was Cassie’s best friend. She’ll need our support,” Jess protested.

Kenny looked him in the eye and let one eyebrow twitch upward in amusement.

“Oh,” Jess said. He laid back on the bed and stared at the ceiling.

“Yeah. So, no, we won’t be able to make it. Sorry. I talked to Flynn, he knows the timing is just too tight and he understands. Dev will call Cassie back later tonight and break it to her.

“Tiff meant a lot to all of us. She was right there with us through some tough times. Sometimes we fought, sometimes she cheered us on. In a way she was like a sister maybe. It feels a little weird not to be there, but it won’t help her. It’s not really about her anymore. Now it’s about the people she left behind.

“Dev, how much sleep did you get? You look like hell.” Normally Dev was a poster-boy for how to be fashionable and well-dressed. At the moment he looked like he spent the night in a subway.

Dev didn’t answer. He just shook his head and gave a weary shrug.

“Right. Bryan, escort him back to his room, your room, wherever. Make him get some rest. Actually, first, Dev, are you going to make it tonight? Alec has this big ‘the show must go on’ spiel, but if we’re not up to it, I’d rather not disappoint our fans with a half-assed attempt to fake our way through it.”

Kenny wouldn’t have bet on it, but Dev actually made eye contact. “Yeah. Sure. Maybe pick out a song for Tiff.”

“She liked
Everything For You,
” Bryan said.

“We’ll run through it a couple of times before the show,” Kenny nodded. “I’ll talk to Alec about where we can work it in. I assume we all still know it? We’ve played it enough.” He looked around and everyone nodded.

“All right. Dev, to bed with you. Bryan, enforce it. Jess, sit tight, drink your beer.”

“I love German beer,” Jess said, sitting up and finishing his glass as they watched Dev and Bryan leave.

“Thought you’d need that,” Kenny nodded. He walked over to the phone and called down for room service to send up another.

“This is going to be that bad?” Jess asked when he hung up. Kenny held up a finger to indicate that he should wait. A couple of minutes later a knock on the door indicated Jess’s refill had arrived. Kenny signed for it and tipped generously.

“I told Dev,” Kenny said, handing Jess the fresh glass of dark beer.

Jess took a drink then set it on the nightstand. “It was inevitable, I suppose. So how’d the kid take it that I’m not talking to his sister?”

“Concerned. He agreed we couldn’t go home under the circumstances. That shows the depth of his concern, I think. He’s siding with your mental health over supporting Cassie in her grief.”

Jess shook his head. “That’s wrong. She’s his sister.”

“You’re his friend. He acknowledges it’d be too easy to tip off Cassie something’s wrong and that would make it worse for her too. When you get right down to it, Dev’s practical.”

“He can’t be happy about this. I fought with Tiff almost constantly and I don’t feel right about missing her funeral.”

“I didn’t say he was happy, I said he was practical. Cassie has other people there who care about her. She’ll miss us, him mostly, but Sophie and Bren have our backs.”

“Bryan knows, right?” Jess asked, picking up his drink again.

“Not sure when exactly he picked up on it, but yeah, he does. You’re covered,” Kenny told him. He wasn’t going to mention Flynn.

Nodding, Jess took another drink. “For now. I can’t avoid her for long. We’re caught here and theoretically can’t make it back for her funeral. That won’t cut it when we get home. I won’t have an excuse not to come home and avoiding her when we’re living at the same address is unforgivable.”

“You have an apartment,” Kenny pointed out.

“I don’t actually live there. It’s just for dating. You know that.” Jess gave him a withering look.

“I do because I still have to deal with you coming home at odd hours. Flynn does because he has to edge around your car to park in the garage and he still cringes about you parking your Jag outside. Bryan takes a sort of perverse satisfaction in Flynn’s frustration over the car issue. He doesn’t have the attachment you and Flynn share for the Jaguars, you know.”

“I know. And Dev comes back for visits,
as does Cassie,
” Jess snapped.
“
I suspect she might have noticed I still sleep in the apartment over the garage with you. Just a hunch.”

“So we’ll say you moved out recently.”

“Flynn would probably cover for me, but Sophie might be a little young to get in on this, don’t you think?”

Kenny considered Dev’s younger sister. Like her brother, Sophie was practical, occasionally. He might be able to reason with her if given sufficient time. She’d be turning fourteen soon, but Kenny wasn’t sure if that was a good or a bad thing for their purposes.

“I’m not sure how to get Sophie on board,” Kenny admitted.

“Then apparently I’m dividing my time between my two beds. It still doesn’t solve my problem.” Jess finished his beer and Kenny refused to order him another one.

“You won’t be back long, neither of us will be.”

“Doesn’t take long to fail to put my foot in my mouth, Kenny.”

“And you’re going to be coming down with laryngitis. As a matter of fact, the last concert was hard on you. Will be hard on you. Will have been – whatever. You’ll be under strict orders to rest your voice because you’re going to need it.”

Jess’s face registered surprise at this information. “I am? For what? Or are you still figuring that out too?”

Kenny hesitated. “I’m going to see if I can get us in to play the Miss North America Pageant.”

“As a favor to Paige? That’s not exactly playing fair.”

“She won’t get the title, Jess, someone else already stabbed her in the back and isn’t playing fair. I just want to level the field a little and see if I can give them a reason to keep her in longer than they would have. They don’t show the competitions for all of them, you know. Just the top dozen or so. She had a chance before, but now she just accepts she won’t make the semi-final cut.”

Jess watched him but Kenny wasn’t going to cave under his silent interrogation. It didn’t take long for Jess to give up.

“Bryan and Dev know yet?”

“No. Not sure how I’m going to pitch it. Assuming I can get Paige to go along with it. And of course the pageant.”

“First, they should want us. It’s televised and it’ll increase their ratings. Second, if we just do a song that’s in our recent play list, we don’t need much lead time, which is good because we won’t have it. Third, and this is important, you’re not bribing anyone. A friend was blackmailed and you’re just evening things out. You already admitted you know she won’t win. She knows she won’t win. You’re not hurting the, we’ll hope, innocent young women who do have a chance to win. No bribes. This has to be clean.”

Kenny considered Jess thoughtfully. “You’re really big on the bribery thing.”

“Bribes are bad, even for the best of reasons. They come back to bite you on the ass. Assume someone will look into this at some point and make it look innocent. Something the press wouldn’t bother with. For the pageant or us.”

○ ○ ○

Kenny sat in the plush, if overly feminine, office of the Miss North America Pageant. He knew they did a lot of things by committee, Paige ranted about it once before she pulled herself together, but he didn’t expect this meeting would be too. He planned on speaking to just one person.

Of course he started with five, Kenny thought as he watched the third woman storm off. At this rate he would be dealing with just one person in only a few more minutes. One woman got called away to deal with some issue with her son before they even started. An older man, who didn’t have a sense of humor, left in a huff when Kenny introduced the idea of having a rock band play at
their prestigious event
. Kenny faced the remaining businessman and former beauty queen sitting across from him. He wondered who he’d end up dealing with. He wasn’t even sure which one he wanted.

“So,” the businessman smiled pleasantly after the door slammed closed. Eric Parker, Kenny reminded himself of his name. “I saw your name on the agenda and took the liberty of looking you up. Quite a name you’ve made for your band. Quite a history. I used to do business with Paul Lovett,” Eric said.

Him, Kenny decided. He wanted to do business with him. “Really? Small world. Paul was helpful in the early days.”

“He was a good man. I was surprised to see Flynn Peterson was your mentor for many years. I ran across him too, although it didn’t go nearly as well.” The look in Eric’s eye wasn’t as friendly. Kenny changed his mind, he’d rather deal with Raquel Hatch, his partner. He liked the way she perked up at the mention of Flynn’s name. Clearly she was a fan of In Like Flynn.

“Depending on when in his life you met him, Flynn might have been an interesting person,” Kenny conceded.

“Shortly before I divorced my first wife.”