Priceless (24 page)

CHARLOTTE’S PHONE STARTED
ringing in the middle of the night, long after she’d collapsed and fallen asleep. The restaurant had been packed, and she hadn’t had time for so much as a drink of water. When she didn’t answer, it stopped, and then the texts started. Chime after chime after chime, long into the night.

Bitch

Bitch

Bitch

Bitch

Bitch

Today

You

Die.

Mr. Karraby had given her the morning shift the next day, so she could be free to do the gig in the evening, and she didn’t have time to check her messages until she was getting ready to perform.

Her phone chimed, with a reminder from Jackson of the club address, and then she noticed the long string of texts from a number she didn’t recognize.

“Are you just going to stare at the phone all night, or can we finish your makeup?” Kat was standing there, holding a dark red lipstick in one hand and an orchid in the other. “You know, I still can’t decide if the orchid is right or if we should go with the headband.”

“Orchid,” Charlotte said absently. “But hang on, I think I need to call the police.” She showed Kat the text messages.

Her friend frowned. “That’s a little uncalled for, isn’t it? How did they even get your number?”

Charlotte shrugged, trying not to let herself get freaked out. She wasn’t sure who to call, so she called Scarsford.

It was good to hear his voice, even if things still felt a little weird between them. Scarsford listened to her read the texts and sighed.

“I’ll call New Orleans PD. Where is the club again?” She told him. “OK, I’ll make sure they send someone over to keep an eye on things. Hang in there, Charlotte.”

She wanted to ask him if he was coming back to New Orleans, but he’d hung up already.

The club was darker and smaller than the first one she and Kat had gone to, but it, too, felt as if it came from another era. Couples ringed the dance floor in velvet booths, sipping cocktails and chatting quietly. Candles gleamed everywhere, and a giant crystal chandelier hung low over the polished dance floor. The band sat on a raised podium right in the middle, with Jackson directing from the center. It was very stylish, and as Charlotte took her place alongside the piano, she suddenly felt the platform move. It turned slowly, so everyone could see everything.

She looked at the piano player, Dave, who grinned at her. “I hope you don’t get seasick,” he joked. “You get used to it, but one time when we played here, a trumpeter had to leave in the middle of the set.” He shrugged. “But that’s brass players for you. Strong lungs. Weak stomachs.”

Charlotte smiled nervously. The text messages had scared her more than she was ready to admit, and she scanned the room anxiously, looking for friendly cops or unfriendly faces. She’d hidden her phone in an evening bag Kat had given her, and now she laid it faceup on the piano so she could see if anyone texted her again. When Jackson saw it, he frowned, but he accepted it once she told him what was going on.

“No one’s going to attack you during the show,” he pointed out. “You’re on a slowly turning platform, surrounded by men, in the middle of a nightclub. Just focus on the music, and forget all about the other bullshit.” He squeezed her hand. “You’re an amazing person, and you’re right where you’re supposed to be, all right?”

She nodded up at him gratefully, thinking how hot he looked in his evening suit. All of the band members were wearing tuxedos and white shirts, and the overall effect was glamorous and sophisticated.

It wasn’t until halfway through the first set that a text came in.

Charlotte had turned off the chime, obviously, but she saw the phone move slightly as it vibrated. She was singing “Heart and Soul” at the time; she waited until applause was filling the room before leaning over to read it.

Nice dress, Charlotte. Gold is the perfect color for you, you thief.

She looked around the room. He was there, in the same room.

Another text.

Kat’s going to be mad when I rip it apart to get to your heart, bitch.

She felt her head start to swim and looked up to see Jackson watching her. He raised his eyebrows, and suddenly she felt safer. This guy was just a jerkoff, trying to mess with her.

Your dad took everything from me. Now I’m going to hurt him back.

She could hardly text a reply, so she just kept singing and reading the evil texts and trying to stay focused.

Midway through “Satin Doll,” she remembered that it was the last song before the break. She was going to find a cop and tell him what was going on. Jackson would come with her. She’d be totally safe.

Couples stopped dancing when the song was over and applauded loudly. Charlotte was scared but also angry. The stalker had ruined the evening for her, and she was sad that she’d been too distracted to notice how well it had been going. She looked around at the happy faces smiling up at her, the people clapping, and then she saw him. One man, standing alone at the back of the dance floor, staring right at her.

Not smiling.

Not clapping.

Just watching.

And as she looked at him, knowing in her heart that it was him, the man who wanted to hurt her, he puckered his lips in a hateful parody of a kiss and melted into the shadows.

“Jackson!” Charlotte pushed her way through the band to reach him, trying not to trip. “He’s here, the man who’s been threatening me. I saw him.”

Jackson frowned. “Are the police here?”

“I don’t know. Scarsford said he’d call them, but I don’t see anyone in uniform.”

Jackson stepped down from the platform and took her hand, helping her to the ground. “Well, let’s find someone.”

As they moved through the crowd, the man was suddenly there, not an arm’s length away. He was moving fast, angling his body past everyone else like a shark. Not very tall but clearly very strong and determined. And furious.

Charlotte gave a little moan of fear and pulled at Jackson’s hand. But he misunderstood and pulled the other way. In a split second, she was adrift, dragged by the crowd. Some people were trying to talk to her, to congratulate her on her performance, but she turned and tried to make her way toward the door to the club. Panicking, all she could think of was getting away. Smiling faces loomed up on all sides, but she could hear the heavy breathing of her pursuer, and once she felt his fingers on her shoulder, grasping.

She turned to look, terrified, and he was right behind her, snarling, apparently unworried that anyone would see him.

The crowd thinned, and she broke loose, almost stumbling in her haste. The heavy dress kept wrapping itself around her legs, and she sobbed in frustration and fear. The stalker hissed her name, and suddenly, he was on her, a flying leap knocking her to the ground, a sharp pain in her side making her scream.

Hitting the ground knocked the wind out of her, and for a moment, all she felt was blind panic, animal fear. Trying to scramble to her feet, she could feel the weight of her attacker pinning her down. The club was a riot of whirling lights and yelling faces and above it all the insane muttering of the man who was trying to kill her.

“Bitch, bitch, bitch …”

And then he was lifted off her, and Charlotte saw Jackson through streaming eyes, his face contorted with rage, pulling back his arm and punching the madman in the face, doubling him over. Behind Jackson were two cops, and as she rolled to her knees, she saw the doors to the club open and more cops come rushing in.

And behind them, of course, came the cameras.

YOU WOULD THINK
the police would have emptied the club, shut the place down, tied it all up with crime-scene tape, and done a thorough investigation, but this was New Orleans. People got attacked all the time, apparently, and so what actually happened was that the guy got arrested and taken downtown, and Charlotte got back on stage and finished the set, to general applause. Cameras whirred, and the club owner decided that the publicity canceled out the cost of the broken glasses.

The sharp pain in her side had been the guy trying to stab her with a short-bladed hunting knife, but God was in the details, as usual, and the heavy beading on her dress had deflected the blade.

“I’m telling you, couture saves lives.” Kat was pale-faced and hyper. “What if you’d been wearing something less incredible? You could be dead!”

Charlotte laughed despite herself. She was going to have a heck of a bruise on her side, and the dress had lost some of its beads, but both of them were in better shape than they had any right to be.

She’d looked at the man as he was taken away, screaming and raving that her dad had destroyed his life, taken all his money. She’d never seen him before, had never met him, and yet he’d wanted to kill her, had apparently stalked her all the way from New York. It was incredibly sad.

The police asked her to come down to the station once the set was over to make a statement, and she was on her way, sharing the back of a cab with Kat, who was still very chatty. Even though she was shaken and hurt, she was enormously relieved that it was over. Maybe now she could get on with her life.

Inside her bag, lying next to her on the seat of the cab, her phone vibrated, unnoticed.

That was close, bitch.

Nearly got beaten to it.

But it’ll be me that kills you in the end.

Getting on with her life wasn’t going to be as easy as she thought.

WHOEVER WAS BEHIND
the Charlotte Williams Sucks Web site had a field day, posting photos of the guy, photos of Charlotte walking into the police station, photos of her walking out, shots from inside the club—the whole nine yards.

“Charlotte Williams Nearly Made to Pay!

“Charlotte almost got what was coming to her last night at a nightclub in New Orleans. Local police sources have identified Gavin Albert Paddoray as the man who attempted to stab Charlotte, and we at CWS wish him all the best in any future attempts he’s able to make. Charlotte seems to be trying to come up smelling of roses out of all of this, singing with a popular New Orleans band in an attempt to pretend she isn’t the spawn of a thieving parasite, and an unholy bitch whore herself.”

Charlotte had discovered the new texts from her old stalker while she was at the police station, and the detective in charge of the case had dutifully written it all down.

“It could easily have been Paddoray who sent these. You know how sometimes texts get delayed. Don’t panic and assume
there’s someone else out there, OK? Most of the time, these crazies just threaten anyway.”

“He didn’t.” She inclined her head in the direction of Paddoray, who was now raving about being the angel of death—or Marlene Dietrich, it was hard to make it out exactly. “And these texts clearly refer to him, so how could they be from him?” She was shaken to the core that there had apparently been two people in that club who wanted to kill her.

The detective just shrugged. Last year in New Orleans, there had been more than one hundred fifty murders, nearly half of them committed in broad daylight. The detective had seen things he’d never thought possible. The city was rich in cultural variety, history, and general weirdness. He dreamed of retiring to somewhere quieter, like Baghdad.

A couple of days later, Charlotte sat at a mahogany dining table the size of a small state and decided that a knife-wielding madman might have been easier to face than Mrs. Karraby.

Kat had been right. Her mother, having heard all about Charlotte from both her husband and her daughter, not to mention the local and national news, had demanded an audience. Rather than just inviting her around for coffee, Leila Karraby was throwing a small dinner party. Small turned out to mean twenty people, but Charlotte had been forewarned by Kat and had dressed up. In fact, she had pulled out all the stops, and she could tell from Jackson’s expression (she had brought him as her date) that the effort had been worth it.