Righteous Obsession

RIGHTEOUS OBSESSION

By Rose Riker

All Rights
Reserved

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Many thanks go to the people who helped me with this
book. Cindy Carnes, Beth Hotvedt, Sherry Junck, and Lu Lunning who read my
manuscript, made suggestions, and encouraged me to publish it. Additional
thanks to Beth for the thinking up the perfect title when I couldn’t and for
checking my grammar and punctuation. A big shout out of thanks to Romy Banciu
for the fantastic cover!

Colin Matthews sat out on the deck of his Victorian
Home in Sausalito, California with his feet propped up on the deck railing. 
Twenty-eight-years-old, Colin was 6’2 with a well-toned body, broad shoulders,
slim hips and long legs.  He had a thin face with high cheekbones, deep brown
eyes with long, thick lashes, a sensual mouth and a slight cleft in his chin. 
His thick, wavy auburn hair hung below his waist and an earring dangled from
his left ear.  He stared out at the San Francisco skyline which tonight
appeared hazy, the usually bright lights of the buildings muted.  He thought
about his band, Unforgiven’s first headlining tour that would start in two days
and that led to his thinking about their interview with Metal Now tomorrow
morning.  It was not one of the band’s favorite rock magazines and he wasn’t
looking forward to it.  Their reviews of Unforgiven had been, so far, uniformly
bad.  Colin toyed with his earring as he wondered, not for the first time, why
no reporter had as yet picked up on the mystery in his past.  He had expected
questions on it as the band became better known and speculated on what might
happen when the information became public.  He wasn’t sure if he really wanted
to find out.

It was a warm spring night in the small, Midwestern
city of Brunsville, a suburb of Minneapolis. For the students of Our Lady of
Grace High School it was the perfect end to a perfect day. It was the day of
the annual, all-school spring picnic held every year, two weeks before
graduation.  It started with a hayride followed by a cookout.  Other student
activities included softball, volleyball, horseback riding and hiking.  The day
ended with a dance, now in progress, in the Catholic Youth Center. 
Excruciatingly loud rock music drifted outside through the doors left open to
circulate fresh air.  The room’s simple, but attractive decorations consisted
of red, yellow, blue, and green streamers and balloons. The students were
dressed casually in jeans, T-shirts, sweaters and blouses.

‘Only one more hour of this insanity,’ Sister Thomas
Mary thought as she glanced at her watch.  Why did I ever agree to chaperone
this dance?
 
The noise is enough to render one completely deaf!’  The
Sister was a tall, bony woman in her early fifties with thin lips, sharp
features and pale, stern eyes.  Her formidable appearance was enhanced by the
fact she had chosen to retain the traditional garb of her Order, rather than
wearing the modified version.  The students referred to her as ‘the old crow’
behind her back.  From her seat, as far away from the band as she could get,
Sister Thomas Mary surveyed the crowd of students, gyrating around the dance
floor.  She could see Debbie Simpson wore indecently tight jeans and a sweater
that clearly revealed to all she was not wearing a bra.  Her best friend, Diana
Conrad, was standing beside her.  ‘Birds of a feather
,
’ Sister Thomas
Mary sniffed.

Standing in front of the girls was Father David
Michaels who had been teaching at the high school barely five months.  He’d
replaced Father Casey whom the Bishop had transferred after he got involved in
one too many protest marches.  Father Michaels, though young and newly
ordained, was very conservative in his beliefs.  Unlike Father Casey, Father
Michaels believed that if Catholics followed the Church’s teachings without question,
everything else would fall into its rightful place.  He taught the eleventh and
twelfth grade religion classes and was, no doubt, an excellent influence on his
students.

Father Michaels, twenty-six, had an average height and
build.  He was handsome with a rather thin face and high cheekbones, big blue,
thickly lashed eyes and a sensuous mouth with a full lower lip.  His thick wavy
hair was dark blond, cut conservatively and neatly combed. Many of the junior
class girls thought he was hot, but agreed that he was creepy with his
self-righteous attitude and his staunch beliefs.   He conveyed the idea,
whenever possible, that women were weak vessels and very much prone towards
sin.  Unlike the casually dressed students, Father Michaels wore his clerical
garb and Roman collar.  Several teenagers, laughing and chattering, surrounded
him, but he riveted his attention on the conversation of the two young women
standing behind him.

“So, are you getting hot and horny thinking about
seeing Unforgiven, Deb?”

“Are you kidding, Din?  I can’t wait!  I have some
very special after-concert plans for Colin Matthews.”  Debbie Simpson,
seventeen, was tall, voluptuous and looked older than her actual age.  She had
full, firm breasts, tightly toned thighs and an ass that looked really good in
the tight designer jeans that so disgusted Sister Thomas Mary.  Debbie was very
pretty with long lashed green eyes and a milky white complexion set off by her
thick red-gold hair.  Most of the boys in the junior class were dying to fuck her,
but Debbie rarely dated.  The class gossip-vine reported that she preferred
older men.

“How do you know Colin’s going to be panting to fuck
you?”  Diana challenged her.

“I’ve never had any man I wanted to fuck refuse me
yet,” Debbie replied confidently.

The girls moved off leaving Father Michaels in shock. 
He felt a need to be alone and went outside.  Mentally, he flipped through the
pictures he’d recently seen of Colin Matthews.  His mouth curled in hatred. 
Colin already had too much!  He wasn’t going to add Debbie to his collection –
not if he could prevent it!  There was a sudden burst of laughter from behind
him and he turned to find Debbie and Diana.

“Goodnight, Father.”  Debbie said demurely as she
passed him.

The scent of her cologne drifted over to him and even
in the dim light he could see the outline of her erect nipples through the thin
material of her sweater.  He watched as the girls got into Debbie’s car and
continued to talk for several minutes more before Debbie drove away.

“Talking about Colin Matthews, no doubt,” Father
Michaels muttered angrily.  He suddenly noticed that the music had stopped and
the kids were starting to drift outside.  He turned and walked quickly across
the campus, crossed the street, and entered Aloysius Hall.  Without speaking to
anyone, he hurried upstairs to his room and closed the door behind him.  His
room was austere, containing only a bed, a desk and a chest of drawers. 

A
crucifix was hanging on the wall over the bed.  He knelt beside his bed and
began to pray fervently.  He was so deep in prayer he failed to notice the time
passing.  Suddenly he stumbled to his feet, an exhausted smile on his face, and
the light of intense faith shining in his eyes.  He knew what God wanted him to
do!  Father Michaels sat down at his desk and switched on the lamp.  He
unlocked the bottom drawer and took out a manila file folder.  Several photos
slid out of it and fell to the floor unnoticed.  He riffled through its
contents until he found what he needed then picked up the phone.

In San Francisco the object of Debbie’s lust walked
back and forth across his manager’s office, alternately brushing at his long
hair and glancing at his watch.

“Colin, will you please stand still. You’re making me
nauseous,” Steve Crowley, who managed Colin’s band, Unforgiven, complained.  “I
don’t know why you’re so nervous anyway.  It’s just an interview and you’ve
done thousands of them.”

“It’s Metal Now and they’ll slag us no matter how well
the interview goes,” Colin replied, jamming his hands into the pockets of his
jeans.  His dress was casual, consisting of tight, faded black jeans and a
bright green T-shirt.

“What time is he or she supposed to be here?”  Jackson
or, as he preferred, Jake Rousselle, Unforgiven’s bass player, asked, glancing
up from the rock magazine he was reading.

“He or she was supposed to be here a half-hour ago,”
Steve answered and picked up the phone as his secretary, Devon, stuck her head
in the door.  “Steve, Dan Quinn and his photographer from ‘Metal Now’ are
here.”

“Send Quinn in,” Steve growled.

“I guess they think we’re having a major orgasm over
them deciding to interview us.  They think they can treat us like shit and we
won’t care,” Mace Saxon, Unforgiven’s drummer, remarked as he balanced a
drumstick on the tip of his index finger.

Colin watched as the door opened and Quinn strutted,
and that was the only word to describe it, into the room.

“Mr. Crowley, sorry I’m late, but I was in the middle
of a phone interview with Madonna.”

“Mr. Quinn.”  Steve nodded as he rose from behind his
desk.  He was forty, tall, thin and balding.  His face was thin with a long
nose and dark, piercing eyes.  He always reminded Colin of the descriptions
he’d read of Sherlock Holmes except Holmes wasn’t going bald.

“I’ll allow you to interview Unforgiven this time,”
Steve began softly.  His voice rose as he continued, “But if you or any of your
colleagues ever pull a stunt like this again, you’ll be out in the street on
your ass!  I don’t give a goddamn if Elvis is on the phone – if you’re going to
be late, call!”

Quinn looked astonished and Colin had to duck his head
to hide his grin.  Obviously nobody had ever dared lay down the law to him
before.  People sometimes assumed they could walk all over Steve because he
seemed so mild mannered. He did have a temper and more than one person in the
industry had found that out fast!  Quinn, short and slightly pudgy, sniffed,
sat down, and pulled out his cassette recorder.

“I’ll be upstairs if you need me,” Steve said.  His
management firm, located in a converted warehouse, was several miles from the
Marina district.  The ground floors contained a recording studio and rehearsal
hall, the second floors contained the business offices and the third floors
were Steve’s living quarters.  Fortunately, it had escaped the ‘89 earthquake
with only minor damages.

“Tell me about Unforgiven for our readers who aren’t
familiar with this band,” Quinn said.

“I play guitar and sing lead, Jake plays bass and
sings too.  Mace is our drummer and Liam plays keyboards and right now, does
some background vocals,” Colin explained.

“Both you and Jake were kicked out of your former
band, Body Snatchers as I recall.”

“We had a difference of opinion about the kind of
music we should play.  Mark Damon wanted to do top forty drivel and we wanted
to rock out,” Jake added.

“We stole Mace from a Los Angeles band called Dungeons
and Drag Ass and with Joey Jamieson, our original keyboard player, Unforgiven
melded,” Colin continued.

“Why did Joey leave the band?”

“He decided he just wanted to work in the studio.  We
were on the road so much at first that it was playing havoc with his marriage
so he quit at the end of the tour last year,” Jake answered.  “Fortunately for
us, Liam agreed to come on board.”

Quinn looked at Mace.  “Your name’s pretty unusual. 
How’d you come by it?”

Mace smiled and shrugged.  “It’s a nickname I’ve had
since high school.  I wrestled and I was undefeated – never pinned.  The kids
had this special cheer for me.  They’d scream mace in your face during the
matches and it just stuck.”

“How long have you been playing drums?”

“I’ve been playing drums since I was ten.  I played
drums in junior high and high school marching bands.  I was always getting in
trouble for doing these fancy drum rolls.”

Quinn turned his attention to Unforgiven’s newest
member, Liam Matthews.  “Tell our readers about yourself, Liam.”

“I’m nineteen.  I play keyboards and I do some of the
background vocals.  I joined Unforgiven just before we started to record our
new CD.”

“He turned down a scholarship to Julliard to play with
us and we all feel really lucky to have him,” Colin added.

“This will be your first big tour then?”

“I’ve played in the clubs around here, but I’ve never
played in front of an audience of more than a couple of hundred so I’m pretty
nervous.”

“What about you, Jake?  Tell our readers something
about yourself.”

“Well, I’ve been playing bass since I was a kid,
too.”  He laughed suddenly.  “When I got my first bass, it was taller than I
was!”

“And he’s almost the same size now,” Colin snickered. 
He yelped suddenly as Jake slugged his arm.

“I played in various garage bands and semi famous
local bands until I joined Body Snatchers and met up with Colin.  That’s when
our dreams really took off!”

“You didn’t know one another previous to that?”

“We’d seen each other around, of course, but we’d
never played in a band together until then.”

“Tell me about your new CD.”

“It’s called Too Strong for Fantasy and it’s our third
CD.  Paul Marshall, who did Body Snatchers’ ‘Things Happen’, produced it.  All
of us contributed the music and lyrics for it,” Colin answered.

“Interesting title; what’s it mean?”

Jake spoke up, “It means we’re a live band.  We write,
play, and sing our own songs.  No phony shit here!”

“My sources tell me you have an unusual concert tour
planned.  Can you give me any details?”

“Sure,” Mace replied.  “We’re going to be doing the
smaller concert halls as well as the usual arena circuit.”