Say it Louder (28 page)

Stella holds one up. “Vicodin. And that’s not her name on the bottle.” She paws through some more bottles. “Ativan. Adderall. Percocet. Xanax. This girl could open her own pharmacy.”

“She’s definitely feeling groovy.” I frown. This isn’t the smoking gun I hoped for. “Did you find anything else?”

“Not in the kitchen,” Beryl says. “Unless being a slob is a crime, in which case I’d give her a life sentence.”

“Nobody’s going to care about her sex toys and shit taste in clothes. She has the Jersey Shore cast’s wardrobe in her closet,” Stella says.

Beryl backs out of the bathroom and opens another door. Hall closet. She pulls down a shoebox on the top shelf, opens the lid, and rifles through it.

I open the last door in the hallway. It’s a second bedroom, but it’s crammed with a desk and at least two dozen boxes. I groan. “I’m going to be here a while.”

Stella finishes with the bathroom and joins me in the spare bedroom, yanking open boxes as I tackle the desk drawers.

My heart sinks lower with each strikeout. I don’t find journals or any written records that Kristina could use against the band, or that they could use against her. I don’t find a laptop.

Behind me, Stella’s huffing and puffing like the Big Bad Wolf as she shoves boxes away from the closet door. I hear the door open and Stella lets out a little shriek.

I whip my head around and freeze.

I can’t be seeing this.

“What happened?” Beryl races into the room. “What did you—?” She sees what Stella and I are staring at and she’s silenced.

Inside the closet, standing side by side like books on a shelf, are canvases. Maybe thirty are crammed in the closet on the floor, with another dozen leaning precariously on top of them.

“They’re mine,” I choke out a whispery cry, strangled by so much emotion.

My art.

My work.

The one canvas facing us is a vibrant cityscape, one of my favorites, a red and orange sky behind indigo and teal buildings. I painted it on a happy day, the day when Nancy came in for her second tattoo, when she gave me the ticket that would change my life.

The ticket took me to Paris.

Seeing the paintings in the Louvre and Orsay, and learning the artists’ stories of struggle, inspired me to keep making street art.

And that led me to Violet.

She led to the magazine feature.

The article led to the art show. Like dominoes lined up, a perfect chain reaction.

And now this. It takes my breath away. How can one person be so consumed with elation and anger at once?

Beryl steps forward to see the paintings more closely but Stella snaps, “Don’t touch!”

“Why not?”

“It’s evidence,” Stella says. “If we tip the cops that Kristina stole these, she’ll get busted for that.” Then an evil grin stretches her face. “And the police will be very interested in the pills, too.”

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

I’m cleaning up after my last client of the day when the bell tinkles, signaling another customer. Thomas is up front so I just keep cleaning.

A pair of strong warm hands gently squeeze my shoulders.

“Willa.”

I whirl to embrace Dave, tears pricking my eyes. His dark eyes are clear and bright and full of hope.

Nothing like the shadow I met a few weeks ago. The haunted, hunted look is gone.

“It’s done?” My voice reflects the hope on his face.

He nods. “I’m cleared. I called you the minute it was done but you were in with a client, so I hopped on a plane and came straight back.”

I bury my face in his neck and squeeze him with relief. And we just stand there, swaying a little, clinging to each other like we’ve been to hell and back.

We have.

He pulls away a little but cups my face in his hands. “How did you know?” His voice is hoarse with emotion. “How did you know to look past the evidence? I thought you’d … given up on me.”

The image of the slamming door, the
go to hell
I shouted just before I slammed it, sends a physical pain through my chest. “I doubted you. I’m sorry. But I won’t do it again.”

He bends and his lips brush mine softly. “You saved me. Not just from jail, but from letting me quit, and letting her win.” His fingers thread through the short hair at the back of my neck, fist closing to tug at the pink strands.

I sigh and he brings his mouth down on mine harder this time, a flood of want that sends shockwaves through my body.

He kisses the breath out of me, pressing me to the wall, our bodies blending like two colors, mixed so thoroughly that they make something new. I wrap my arms and legs around him to be closer, to feel him across every inch of me.

“I’m heading out. Locking it up.” Thomas’s voice from the front of the shop cuts through the heat between us and Dave releases my mouth.

“Almost done,” I squeak through the closed door of the room.
I am so, so, so busted.

Thomas just laughs and I hear the doorbell tinkle when he exits.

Dave gives me a grin that’s almost predatory. “Now we have the place to ourselves.” He looks over his shoulder at the padded table I just finished cleaning. “There’s a horizontal surface that’s calling my name.”

My mouth forms a speechless O, but then Dave adds, “Too bad we can’t use it right now.”

“We can’t?” My heart is pounding, my lips are kissed raw, and my ladybits are screaming for
action
in a way that’s practically obscene.
 

Dave runs a hand up my arm, then traces my shoulder and collarbone with a finger. “Trust me, I’m every bit as disappointed about that as you are. But the gallery’s closing soon.”

Dave explains a crazy mess of phone calls he’s somehow managed between his arraignment and travel back to New York. He worked with the lawyer who reviewed my gallery contract and got my paintings released from evidence.

And he’s got a plan for how to sell them differently.

We walk to the gallery holding hands and I catch myself watching him as he tells me about working through the red tape.

Confident. Strong. Proud.

It’s part of the guy I fell for—like somehow I knew he was there under all of the poor-me bullshit.

We walk in the gallery and some of Dave’s magic rubs off on me, because I stand tall, confident even though I’m wearing exactly the same thing I did on the day I was told
sorry, no public restrooms.

“Willa, I’m so glad you could make it in,” Patricia Alton’s voice oozes sweetness as she shows us to the glass-walled conference room and offers us a drink. “I understand from Dave that you now have more work available for us to sell?”

Dave frowns. “That’s not precisely what I said on the phone. I said she has more work available. Forty-two canvases.”

Patricia’s brows lift so fast I’m afraid they’d fly off her face. “Oh, my, that
is
good news. And when will you have them here?” She points to the gallery beyond the glass wall, where my art hangs. Next to every work is a little white card with the name of the piece, its materials and price, and a round red sticker that indicates “sold.”

“We’re proposing a new contract,” Dave says. “We’ll offer you first rights to Willa’s set, if you’ll give her another opening show, and a better percentage from the sales.”

“Oh, I’m not sure we can do that. The rate is quite standard in our industry,” she says.

This time, it’s Dave’s turn to lift his brows. “Really? Because the Jensen Gallery and the Wooten Fine Art Collection were both eager to talk to us on these terms.”

Patricia’s lips thin. “I see. And when can I see these new works?”

“You’ve seen them. They’re what you initially reviewed in Willa’s apartment. They’ve been … recovered.” Dave pulls a short stack of papers out of a file and slides them across the table to her.

While Dave and Patricia go back and forth on contract clauses and details for the opening, I sit back in my chair and just enjoy the moment. Dave’s a little bit scary as he works his manager magic. With the sums they’re talking, the price for each piece could be well north of five thousand dollars.

It takes me a few minutes to do the math.

A quarter-million dollars.
That’s how much these paintings are worth.
 

When Dave and I leave, he takes my hand again. “You saved me again. You know that?”

“How?”

“Taking your paintings is felony theft. Even if the cops can’t prove who stole them from you, at least they’ve got Kristina on possession of stolen property.”
 

We put together the pieces of how Kristina did it as we walk to my apartment. She tracked his phone to my apartment and Righteous Ink. When she called me
street rat
in the bar, she knew more about me than we realized.

She might beat the charges for hit and run, but this is enough to destroy her.

“There’s a clause Eric threw in the contract that was supposed to buy her silence,” Dave adds. “No legal contract could prevent her from reporting a crime. But the contract says if she
lied
about me, I’d never give her another cent.”

I’m staggered. “She gets—nothing?”

“Better.” Dave’s smile lights his face, lights me up inside. “She gets what she deserves.”

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

We’re tuning instruments and talking about the crazytrain that Kristina’s become when my phone rings. I click to answer just as my brain processes the caller ID.

“Don’t hang up.”

Chief’s voice is almost the last one I want to hear right now. My finger hovers over the button to disconnect. “What do you want?”

I hear him take a big breath. “I’m calling to apologize. I know you hate my guts, but music is a small community, and I don’t want there to be any bad blood between us.”

I snort.
As if
I could accept this apology.

“Dave, please. I heard about what happened with Kristina. What she tried to do to you.” Chief waits but I refuse to fill his silence. “She called me.”

“What did she want from you?”

That gets a chuckle out of him. “You know her so well. She wanted bail money. You shut off her credit cards and she didn’t have anyone else to go to. And she asked me … well, I just wanted you to know I told her she could rot in jail. Or hell. I don’t care.”

I can’t help my smile and I glance up. Gavin’s listening in to my end of the conversation and I give him shrug. “Neither do I. Thanks.”

“There’s something else.” He pauses for a moment. “I just wanted you to know I think you’d be a really good manager. You were always on my ass when I took over. I mean, I didn’t like it, but you were always thinking three moves ahead of anyone.”

“Thanks,” I say again, not sure why he’s telling me this.

“I saw that girl drummer who replaced you for the concert in Pittsburgh. And she’s good—better than you, even though I know you’ll hate me even more for saying that. But what I wanted to say is that you’re good, too. You were a great manager. Maybe it’s time for you to step out of being a player and into being a coach.”

I’m silent on the line, chewing it over. What do I say to that?

“Anyway, I’ve said what I needed to. If you ever need anything, I owe you one.”

***

We’ve played through a few songs at Tyler’s loft and I’m feeling good, the beat pulsing through me, when Ravi shows up with the babysitter.

My pretty-damn-good mood takes a dive.

Gavin cuts us off and we circle up on the couches. Everyone takes the same places we sat when just a few weeks ago Jayce gave me that ultimatum.
Either Kristina goes, or we break up the band.

But now Ryan’s sitting with us, all prim in some old school dress, and it feels like we’re still about to break something.

“Let’s talk release.” Ravi walks us through plans for the release of
Wilderness,
which he declares ready for primetime. “The question is, how are we going to position the band? We’ve got new material, different than the fans are used to, and now we’ve got Ryan.”

She looks down at her hands and fidgets. I glance around to the rest of the guys and Jayce and Tyler are nodding.

“I think you should consider hiring her as your drummer,” Ravi adds. His voice is quiet, patient, just like it usually is, but that statement lands on me like a grenade.