Playing Dirty (44 page)

They had both her ankles, but she kicked violently and managed to grasp the side of the car. She was almost out.

Then, with one hard jerk from inside the limo, she bounced onto the seat beside Nine Lives again.

Goonie grabbed her, putting his full weight on her arms while Fred sat on one of her legs. She jammed the other high heel into an unknown part of Nine Lives and ground in. Not because this would help, but because she was pissed.

“Would you hold her?” Nine Lives yelped. One of his cat-eye contacts had fallen out. He turned his furious gaze on her: one cat eye, the other eye with the pupil blown out almost to the edge of his hazel iris. He sat on her, too, and felt around on the seat for the lost bottle.

“Don’t do it, man,” Goonie advised. “The concert is around the corner, and we need her conscious to get us past security.”

Everything is going to be okay
, she recited Martin’s litany in her head.
Everything is fine. I’m fine. Everything is okay
. And then, Quentin’s words:
It’s okay to ask for help
.

“Pink-Haired Sarah” neared its end, and Quentin prepared to repeat the first verse. He signaled to Martin to signal to Erin to signal to Owen to change the lyrics, replacing
run
with
come
. He’d sung it this way for them in the album sessions, but Erin nixed this version because she thought Sarah would hate them for the dirty double entendre. It seemed appropriate now, and Quentin had nothing to lose. The crowd whooped its approval at the change as Quentin sang,

Sarah laughing in the sun.

I wonder what makes pink-haired Sarah come?

Come, pink-haired Sarah, come.

A limo with a smashed fender made its way slowly through security to park at one side of the stage. Quentin had thought all the professional wrestlers were in the audience already, but sometimes Mad “Red” Mud liked to be flamboyantly late.

They ended the song to the loudest applause of the night, which Quentin barely registered. Martin had predicted that “Pink-Haired Sarah” would win Quentin his first Grammy. But who cared, if the song’s eponym ran to another hemisphere to disentangle another
codependent band? If she was really angry with him, she might do just that. She might instruct her office not to tell him where she’d gone.

In that case, he could fly to New York tomorrow and do some snooping. He already had an in with the lady in the Stargazer travel office. Or he could sweet-talk Wendy. Or have a man-to-man with Daniel.

Something thwacked him in the back of the head, and Owen’s drumstick rolled in front of Quentin’s toes. Owen kept a stash of extra drumsticks for this purpose. Quentin must have been daydreaming. “Martin wrote this next song,” Quentin said quickly, “ ‘Barefoot and Pregnant.’ You may notice that Erin is taking her shoes off.”

The audience moaned, and Erin grinned defiantly. She tossed one of her low-class high-heeled shoes into the crowd.

“We had to talk Erin into making the announcement,” Quentin went on, “because she hasn’t told her grandma out in Irondale. Sorry, Lillie Mae. And because Erin and Owen haven’t gotten married yet.”

Martin played the first few notes of the wedding march that launched “Barefoot and Pregnant.” These were easy lyrics and it was an easy bass line, so Quentin could think ahead while he went through the motions. At the end of the song, which slowly devolved into a long fiddle solo, Mad “Red” Mud would jump up onstage, grab the mike from Quentin, and holler that Erin was pregnant with
his
baby. The other professional wrestlers would follow him onstage and start the fake fight extravaganza.

Erin, Owen, and Martin were concerned about the extravaganza. Really there wasn’t anything fake about it. They would have to punch each other hard because they hadn’t rehearsed it. But Quentin had insisted on this. It was bad enough that they had to warn security not to intervene. If they practiced with the wrestlers, too, the plan would definitely leak to the press. Besides, the fake fight couldn’t
look
fake. To avoid the fray, Erin would climb up on one of the enormous speakers and play her version of Jimi Hendrix’s version of “The Star-Spangled Banner” while the fireworks started.

And then, as soon as the cameras turned off and Quentin could extricate himself from the tussle, he would see about that flight to New York.

Or not. Just as he stepped back in feigned surprise to let Mad “Red” Mud take the mike, Sarah climbed the stairs to stand behind the speakers at the side of the stage. Thank God!

With Nine Lives. And two enormous goons.

Quentin lifted off his guitar strap and swung the guitar behind his head to use as a weapon. And then stopped short as Nine Lives motioned to the syringe stuck in Sarah’s shoulder, plunger out.

Oh God. What was that maniac doing to her?

Someone tackled Quentin from the back. Quentin landed heavily on his ribs. The guitar went flying. He struggled to stand and make it over to Sarah, but a wrestler jerked him into the fight center stage.

“Would you stop a minute?” he yelled to Red. “There’s a—”

Red socked Quentin in the jaw, and Quentin reeled back toward Sarah. The two goons were coming for him.

Then one of the goons skidded back into a speaker. Owen had fallen into him.

“Owen!” Quentin said, bending over him. “Help me! There’s a—”

The goon was up, and he had Quentin by the shirt. Then a wrestler punched Quentin in the gut, and punched the goon hard enough in the head that the goon went down, on top of Quentin.

Quentin winced at the pain in his hip as he hit the stage. That was his plastic asthma inhaler breaking in his pocket. He was flat on his back, looking up at Erin high on the speaker with her eyes closed, blissfully fiddling “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Several booms sounded. The fireworks were starting.

He pulled himself out from under the unconscious goon and scrambled up just in time to see Martin and the other goon fall off the back of the stage. Maybe Quentin could reach Sarah now that more people were comatose. He punched and got punched, punched and got punched, homing in on her as he went.

The syringe was out of her shoulder. She’d kneed Nine Lives in the groin and elbowed him in the eye. Nine Lives kept coming after her. He pinned her facedown on the stage. Then he put his arm around her throat, jerked her up, and backed her down the stairs, toward the open door of the limo.

Quentin rushed for her. He had to grab her before
Nine Lives disappeared with her again. He’d almost reached her when Owen tackled him.
No!

A shot rang out, high and sharp, separate from the fireworks.

“Dumbass!” Quentin yelled, tossing Owen off him. Sarah was gone.

He found her crumpled at the foot of the stairs.

Pulling her high-heeled shoe free of Nine Lives’ grip, Quentin picked her up off the ground and sat down on the stairs with her. “Where are you hit?” he coughed, looking desperately at her arms, pulling up her shirt.

“Everything is fine, I’m fine, everything is okay,” she recited. “It’s not me. It’s him.” She pointed to Nine Lives howling on the ground.

Martin, hunched over, walked toward them under the stage. He shoved his gun into his pocket and pulled at Nine Lives’ arm to flatten him on the asphalt. A hole in the thigh of Nine Lives’ black jeans oozed dark blood.

Martin pressed his hands over the wound. He said over his shoulder, “Q, you’re wheezing.”

“Where’s your inhaler?” Sarah breathed.

Quentin pulled it out of his pocket and showed her the broken plastic. He bulleted it at Nine Lives, who screamed, “Ow!”

Between fireworks blasts, running footsteps sounded behind Quentin on the stage. He started around, ready for another wrestler, but it was only Erin. “Q,” she cried desperately, “Owen’s stitches came out.”

“Put pressure on it,” Quentin called as best he could. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

Erin bent down and handed a plastic-wrapped inhaler to Sarah. “Wedding present,” she said. “You owe me.” She ran away again.

While Quentin inhaled the meds, Sarah climbed off his lap and descended the stairs. She bent over Nine Lives, whispering in his ear. He spoke back to her, too low for Quentin to hear over the fireworks finale. Apparently Nine Lives said the wrong thing, because Sarah slapped his face hard and whispered to him again.

Pocketing the inhaler, Quentin stood behind Martin and snapped his fingers. Martin handed him the gun. Quentin shoved it in his waistband and headed behind the dressing room trailer. He motioned for Sarah to follow him.

He looked around to make sure they were alone. The huge crowd sounded distant, and the only witness to their conversation was Vulcan himself. “Do you think any TV cameras caught Martin shooting Nine Lives?” he asked Sarah hoarsely.

“There’s no way,” she said. “The cameras were all in front. Martin was on the ground behind. He shot Nine Lives through the skirt at the base of the stage.”

“How about people in the audience filming with phones?”

“No. Wrong angle.”

“Good. You didn’t see anything,” he instructed her.
“I’ve got the gun. If you have to tell the cops something, tell them I shot Nine Lives.”

“I can’t do that to you,” she said, looking up at him with her big brown eyes. “Even for Martin.”

“You have to,” he insisted. “If they take Martin to jail and test him right now, they’ll find the junk. That will ruin a self-defense plea.”

“No, it—”

“It was my fight,” he insisted, taking in her mussed hair and a small scrape on her cheek.

“Maybe it won’t come to that,” she said. “I told Nine Lives to blame it on his bodyguard. They won’t be able to prosecute the bodyguard, because they won’t find the gun on him, but at least that will keep them off Martin’s trail. And I told Nine Lives that all of them have to go to rehab and make it stick. My job is safe after this hullaballoo, and I’ll have more clout with Manhattan Music to get him dropped from the label if he crosses me again.”

“You’re good at this.” He chuckled. “You’re better at this than
I
am.” He stepped close to her and took her hands. His fingers hit diamond. “You found the ring!” he exclaimed. “You’re
wearing
the ring.”

He traced his thumb down his fiancée’s cheek, across the scar below her chin, and back into her soft, crazy hair. He kissed her, then kissed her harder, amazed all over again at the force of the longing and the love that had overcome him in ten days. The way she responded had him wondering how soon he could possibly do her.

He broke the kiss reluctantly at the wail of sirens. “I forgot about Owen’s stitches.”

Sarah squeezed his hand. “I’d better go help Rachel and the art school girls. It’s going to be another long night.”

“Whatever time we get through, meet me back at Owen’s big-ass truck,” Quentin told her. “We’re not sleeping. Not tonight.”

I accept your resignation. Archie is not going to like this after the Nationally Televised Holiday Concert Debacle. I hear online sales for the Cheatin’ Hearts AND Nine Lives are through the roof already, and Manhattan Music is going to be upset that Stargazer let you get away. But working for the Cheatin’ Hearts will be a good fit for you,
if you know what I mean.
Tell your green-eyed hick-hunk—Well, never mind. You don’t have to tell him anything. Now that things are settling down with the baby, I have some work at home to keep me busy.
If you know what I mean.
;)

Wendy Mann

Senior Consultant

Stargazer Public Relations

Vulcan’s butt glowed majestically in the orange light of sunrise. Sarah would have thought any view was picturesque from a blanket in the back of Owen’s truck, with Quentin’s arms wrapped protectively around her. Even the trash littering the empty park looked quaint. The police had finally given up and gone home. She and Quentin had the park, the trash, the sunrise, and Vulcan’s butt all to themselves.

She told him what her evening had been like. After a few moments of peaceful silence, Quentin let her go and slid to the side of the truck bed.