Killing Me Softly (12 page)

Daemon kept reading with a growing sense of horror. The newspapers had picked up the story, glorying in the accusations of the defence lawyers that the two sisters had led Lyndon James on, feeding him drugs that made him unstable, and were in fact running a sex-for-money operation. The claims were unsubstantiated, as the police report proved, but the newspapers ran with it anyway – the scandal was too delicious. The Jameses were rich and influential; Lyndon’s uncle was a very powerful man and had pulled all sorts of strings to keep Lyndon’s history of mental instability quiet. The defence lawyers pulled out all the stops to get their client acquitted. Alexia and her sister had become victims all over again.

One police report detailed how the Deninghams were being harassed. Alexia could go nowhere without being followed and hounded. She received abusive phone calls; objects were thrown at her as she entered the courtroom. She was constantly mobbed by the press.

Alexia and her family refused the constant requests for an interview to tell their side of the story; in fact they said nothing but ‘no comment.’ The press retaliated by repeating more lies from the defence. If Daemon had only read the newspaper reports, he might have come to believe that the Deningham sisters were social-climbing bitches who’d sent poor Lyndon mad with their sexual games, drugs and manipulations. The reporters never actually came out and said it, but the inference was that they deserved what had happened to them.

The report ended with a clip about Alexia’s parents’ deaths in a tragic car accident, but no mention as to what had happened at the end of the trial. Daemon closed the folder, his mind spinning.

‘What ended up happening?’ he asked.

‘Justice was served; Lyndon was sent to prison for eight years.’

‘I don’t call that justice,’ Daemon growled.

‘No, maybe not, but he never made it out. He was killed in prison a few years after he went in.’

Daemon raised his eyebrows. ‘Really? What happened?’

‘He attacked a prison warden. Almost ripped the guy’s throat out. The other wardens had to beat him senseless to get him off. He died a few days later in the prison hospital from a stroke brought on by internal haemorrhaging. Pretty gruesome end.’

‘It’s better than he deserved,’ Daemon muttered. He shook his head slowly. ‘Alexia and her sister suffered so much. Why didn’t they defend themselves to the press? What were her parents about, letting those things be said about their daughters?’

‘Keeping their heads down and trying to get through the worst in the best way they knew how, I suspect. After all, you never defended yourself in the press when Darla made all those accusations about you.’

‘That was different.’

‘Really?’ Nigel cocked his brow, a knowing look on his face.

Daemon ignored him, tapping the report. ‘Still, her parents should have done more.’ He tilted his head to the side and sifted back through the report as a thought hit him. ‘Do you know what happened after they died?’

Nigel nodded. ‘There was barely any money left. They’d had to re-mortgage the house to pay for Catriona’s medical bills, so Alexia sold the house to pay the debt. She was forced to place Catriona in a state institution because she didn’t have the money to look after her. Then Alexia disappeared. She visited her sister every few months but always after-hours. The name on the register was the only sign that Alexia Deningham was still alive. You know, if you hadn’t been able to give me her real name, I don’t think I would have found anything about AJ Denholm. She became pretty good at hiding. She made a whole new identity for herself and no-one was ever the wiser. A couple of newspaper journalists tried to track her down but had no luck.’ He paused. ‘For someone to disappear in the way she did and cover her tracks so thoroughly . . . That sort of thing hardens people.’

‘What are you trying to say?’

Nigel shook his head, reached across the table and closed the file. ‘I don’t feel comfortable having you and the band mixed up with someone who has such a bad past.’

‘It wasn’t her fault!’ Daemon fumed.

‘I’m not saying it was. I’m just saying I can’t imagine what kind of demons she has. I don’t want you or the band getting caught out if any of those demons pays her a visit.’

Daemon nodded slowly, thinking about the other night when she had run from him, fear stamped so firmly on her face. With slow, sickening certainty, he understood what had caused that reaction. Had a sudden urge to find her, cradle her in his arms and protect her from harm. Yet Nigel said he didn’t trust her. Maybe he was right. If Alexia had run from him just because he kissed her – a kiss she had wanted – how else might her past and her unresolved feelings manifest? Could she have a breakdown before they finished the album? Might her instincts be off?

No, her instincts weren’t off. Look at how she had cut to the heart of the song he’d been writing that morning.

‘I think you’re wrong. She’s strong. And brilliant. Truly brilliant. You should hear what we’ve accomplished so far with the stuff I didn’t think was worth working on. I’ve been sitting on the music I really want to work on until you found out what I needed to know. But even though it’s not my best stuff, she’s brought something to it that was missing and made those songs hits. This morning I wrote a song and she heard it once and made some changes that were spot on.’ He shrugged. ‘She’s made a success of her life despite everything. I don’t think it’s possible for her to break. She won’t let us down.’

‘I’m glad to hear it. I just want you to be careful. You never know what might turn up.’ He tapped the report. ‘Her past was front page news for over a year. Things like that don’t lie down and die. They have a way of coming back and biting you when you least expect it. I don’t want the band caught in the backlash when her past finally catches up with her.’

Daemon frowned again. ‘Why would it catch up with her? We’re the only ones who’ve been able to make the connection. You said yourself that you would never have been able to trace back to this unless I told you her real name.’ He stopped and looked at Nigel’s passive expression. ‘You didn’t tell your source why you were making this investigation?’

Nigel gave him a withering look.

‘Good. That’s good. So, let’s just keep this between the two of us and everything will be fine.’

‘Whatever you say, mate.’

Nigel stood up, stretched and rubbed his stomach. ‘I think I might go for a walk. Have a look around, see what Lyall’s got himself into. I’ll leave you to do whatever you want to do with that.’ He tapped the file.

Daemon stood and walked Nigel to the door and then wandered to his room to hide the file. Once done, he stood looking out the wide windows of his bedroom, staring blindly at the view, his head full of heavy thoughts. He had no idea how long he’d been standing there when he noticed movement below. Alexia was mounted on her stallion, Viking, riding next to Phil and Melissa as they returned across the home paddock to the stables. They were all laughing.

She barely ever laughed. It was good to see.

He shook his head sadly. What a pair they made. They both held secrets and they both lost themselves in their music. He wondered if she realised they had so much in common. He shrugged the thought away. She probably wasn’t thinking about him at all.

The sky was her favourite colour – the crystal blue of a sunlit sapphire with the promise of more turbulent weather on the horizon. The air was full of the scents of spring: rain-drenched soil, the dusty smell of hay in the fields and the floral whispers of blossoms on the trees.

Yet Lexi couldn’t enjoy it.

Anger rose inside her, burning in her chest. How could she enjoy her ride when Daemon and the song he’d written that morning kept occupying her thoughts? With some effort, she turned her mind to the tracks she’d laid down with the band.

She knew they were good because of the little excited buzz she got at the base of her spine. They still had work to do. The story they were trying to tell with this album, the journey, had to make sense, both lyrically and in the build-up of each individual song. Part of her job was to be the weaver, to bring the single threads of each song into a concrete whole, but at the same time to allow each track to stand alone – otherwise there could be no hits. But the story was all-important. The listener couldn’t truly get something out of the album if she didn’t do her job.

She’d always heard the story in music. It spoke to her quite separately from the lyrics. Songs where the music and lyrics didn’t match were jarring and uncomfortable to listen to. When working with various bands, she had sometimes made lyric changes or rewritten sections of the songs and they always ended up listening to her because one thing was true. Alexia knew music.

She felt, lived and breathed music. Sometimes she felt as if she
were
the music, as if she lost a part of herself to it. Music was her refuge, what had kept her sane; what touched her most deeply.

This was probably the reason she couldn’t get the piece Daemon had been working on out of her head. In thinking about the song and the feelings evoked when listening to him play, she thought about him. Thinking about him was ruining her ride. The scenery and the fresh air didn’t bring the usual feeling of freedom. She barely noticed the dark clouds gathering overhead, the build-up of electricity that heralded one of the storms that she so loved. She was lost in the tune in her head. She had tried time and again to change her focus but neither Daemon nor his song would loosen their grip.

‘Bloody-damn-stubborn-aggravating-Irish-bastard,’ she cursed. He kept doing this: ruining precious times for her with his insidious presence in her mind. She wished she hadn’t volunteered to tell him Nigel had arrived.

When she came across Phil and Melissa riding beside the stream, instead of finding another path as she would normally have done, Alexia happily gave up on her solitary ride and joined them. Their light chatter and friendly lovers’ banter helped to keep her head out of the fog the song created. It amused her how two people could argue and still smile at each other. Love must enable a person to put up with a lot. She didn’t think she would ever feel like that.

She argued with Daemon and didn’t find him in the least bit endearing. One of the most frustrating people she had ever met, he made her so angry she couldn’t think straight. Why else would she behave the way she did around him? She didn’t think she even liked him very much. His music, yes; him . . . not so much.

He was moody. She preferred not to show what she felt.

He liked to argue. She preferred to stay even-tempered.

He let his emotions rule his behaviour. She preferred to keep her emotions well tamed.

Yet in the last few weeks she’d argued with Daemon, yelled at him, cried in front of him and kissed him, not once, but twice! She kept telling herself the stress of receiving the letters had made her behave so uncharacteristically. It had nothing to do with him.

Yet something about him called to her. She could hear the loneliness and heartache in his music. His past had left scars; his music bared these scars for those with the ability to hear. He had learned strength and resilience to weather the bad times; the rough playboy exterior covered a deeper, softer side that few people saw. In many ways, he was a lot like her; just more annoying and flamboyant. She could put up with that, though. She would put up with a lot to be able to listen to him create more songs like the one she’d heard this morning.

Irritated, she realised her thoughts had wandered to him again. She managed to banish him from her mind until they rode toward the stable. Standing at his bedroom window, there he was, looking down at them. Their eyes met, held.

‘I think he’s rather taken with you.’

Alexia’s attention snapped back at the quietly voiced observation. Melissa leaned towards her, voice lowered. Phil rode ahead towards Craig who waited by the stables.

‘Who?’ Lexi asked dumbly.

Melissa nodded towards the window but Daemon had stepped back out of sight. ‘I’ve seen him looking at you when he thinks no-one is watching.’

‘That doesn’t mean anything. He’s an observer. He writes about what he sees.’

Melissa shook her head, her strawberry-blonde hair cascading prettily around her shoulders. ‘He always had this look of a trapped animal about him when he was with Darla.’ She pressed her lips together thoughtfully. ‘When he looks at you, it’s different. His whole face relaxes.’

Alexia looked at her as if she were nuts. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about but every time I look at him he frowns.’

Melissa laughed. ‘That’s because you caught him. He’s not frowning before you notice, believe me.’ She paused, considering. ‘I think he’s falling for you.’

This time Alexia laughed. ‘Have you got that wrong! He told me the other day he doesn’t even think he likes me, and, let me tell you, the feeling’s mutual.’

Melissa’s eyebrow rose. ‘Really?’

‘He doesn’t like me; I don’t like him. It’s simple.’

‘Nothing is ever that simple.’ Her laugh was light, lyrical. Alexia responded despite herself. And as Melissa continued, Lexi found she couldn’t tune her lovely voice out.

‘Did you know the first time I met Phil I couldn’t stand him? He seemed so arrogant, barely speaking to the female fans flirting and fawning all over him. I soon came to see he wasn’t arrogant. He is actually shy. He didn’t think he had anything of interest to say, so he said nothing. But he is so kind and caring, although at first I thought that was the act. In my line of work, you see a lot of that.’

Alexia nodded, understanding all about what publicists did. ‘What changed?’

‘I saw him with his family and with the band. He would do anything for them. But what really changed my mind was the uncredited charity work the band does. They all have their own thing. Daemon works with underprivileged children. Craig does work for a number of charities that send goods and clothing to the refugees in war-ravaged countries in Africa. Phil visits a number of hospices. He plays and sings for the residents and holds music classes.’

‘Really?’