The Devil's Reprise (12 page)

“Sage!” a woman reporter yelled, making Angeline and I look over in curiosity. “I am with an American news service here, and the people in my office want to know if you have a girlfriend.”

Oh no.

I expected Jacob to butt in and say it was none of their business, next question please, but he merely looked at Sage for his answer, as everyone else was doing. I hadn’t realized I’d been holding my breath.

Sage didn’t even look my way. He just shook his head and said, “No, I’m single.”

I felt like disappearing.

Angeline looked back to me, her smile now smug. She knew. And she was enjoying this, enjoying watching my ego get pummeled. I tried to put on a brave face, but I knew she could see right through it.

She leaned in and I caught her smell—heavy perfume, like cheap vanilla pudding I ate too much of as a kid. “If it makes you feel better, this is much better for his image here, no? He will be more popular if it looks like he is unattached. Fucking, as we both know, is allowed, bien sûr.”

I sucked in my breath and tried to keep my temper reined in. I was seconds from losing it, tired of this roller coaster of highs and lows all because of him. I didn’t give a fuck what looked better for Sage; the fact was I had meant something to him, I had to have, and even if we were officially together instead of this weird starting-over, in-between stage, he’d still probably lie about it to the press.

I caught Jacob staring at me, willing me with those sharp eyes of his to be understanding, to stay calm. Now I knew why he asked Angeline to make me leave. The more I hovered around this zone, this part of Sage’s job, the more complicated things became for everyone.

“Don’t worry,” I managed to say, my eyes holding hard on Jacob’s. “I’m leaving.”

I turned on my heel and stormed off down the hall. Within seconds I heard Max running up behind me.

“Wait,” he said as he caught up. “You changed your mind?”

“You heard the question,” I muttered as I kicked open the back door leading to the alley. It was raining now, and there were only a few smatterings of die-hard fans under umbrellas, waiting for a glimpse of Sage. They looked disappointed as hell to see me. I knew how they felt.

I hurried through the puddles in the alley, cursing myself and everything else. Max had tucked his camera in his pack just in time, and he lifted his leather jacket high above our heads to shield us from the rain.

“What question?” he finally asked as we got to the street and started looking for a cab.

I eyed him dryly. “The answer to if he had a girlfriend. That he said, no, he was single.”

Max cocked his head to the side, considering it, as water droplets rolled off the tip of his jacket. “Well, I mean you aren’t…he isn’t…”

I narrowed my eyes, lashes clumpy from the rain.

He shrugged. “Sorry, little lamb, but I’m with Sage on this one. Sometimes a rock star’s gotta say what a rock star’s gotta say. You should know that better than anyone.”

I sighed, knowing that Max was probably right, but it didn’t mean I had to like it. I just hated that it happened so soon after we slept together, after I fell in love with him onstage all over again. And I really hated that Angeline had to witness it. Ugh.
Fucking, as we both know, is allowed
. Why the hell didn’t I punch her for that one?

Because the Metro closest to us wasn’t running anymore, we ended up walking around in the rain for a half hour before we finally got a cab. By the time I got to my room, my clothes were soaking wet and my spirits were equally damp. Everything about the night had been absolutely amazing until the very end. Once we were back at the hotel, I fell asleep trying to erase it from my mind.

I woke up to my phone ringing. It took me a few moments to once again realize where I was. The room was dark, and the rain was pounding hard on the window. I was covered in blankets, but my teeth were chattering, my hair still damp from earlier.

I slowly rolled over and reached for the phone. Calls in the middle of the night were never a good thing, but maybe with the time difference it was Mel or my dad. I only got to speak to him briefly the other morning.

I pulled the covers around me tighter and snatched up the receiver.

“Hello?” I asked, my voice hoarse from singing at the concert earlier.

Static crackled in my ear. It definitely sounded long distance.

“Hello?” I repeated. “Mel?”

“Dawn.”

My entire body was immediately blanketed in in goosebumps, my heart seeming to beat through sludge. This couldn’t be who it sounded like because if it was, then it was
really
long distance.

I swallowed, the sound loud in my head. “This is Dawn,” I whispered, my voice quivering.

It had to be a wrong number, it had to be a wrong number.

“Dawn, sweetie, I’m so glad it’s you,” she said.

The voice of my mother.

My mother, who committed suicide when I was sixteen.

My mother, who I discovered dead in the bathroom with bleeding wrists and empty eyes.

“Sweetie,” she went on, her voice suddenly sounding so clear that it was nearly impossible to tell myself that I was dreaming. But I had to be dreaming, I had to be dreaming. “Dawn, you don’t know how good it is to talk to you, to finally talk to you. Oh, honey, I’ve missed you so much.”

The terror was so great that I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. I could only hold that phone to my ear, powerless against the fucking horror that was coming through the line. It sounded like my mother, but oh God, it couldn’t be.

My mother was dead. I saw her die. She was dead.

“Who are you?” I found myself croaking out.

“I’m your mother,” she said, her tone hurt and shocked, but still
so
her. “You must still remember me. You wanted me to come back. They’ve let me go. They want us to see each other.”

The room went deadly silent, deadly cold. I started shivering uncontrollably.

“You aren’t her.”

There was a pause. This was the time for someone to admit they were playing a sick joke.

But it sounds just like her.

“Let me come see you,” she said. “Will you let me in?”

“You are not my mother.” My voice was cracking now, my heart threatening to leap clear out of my rib cage.

“Dawn…how could you not trust me?”

“Because you’re dead!” I screamed into the phone. “I saw you die. You killed yourself and left me in charge!”

Another pause. This one was heavy and long enough to make me start questioning my sanity. I could hear her breathing over the line, ominous and steady, and even that was familiar.

When I was a young girl, maybe seven years old, before she got depressed and went down the slippery slope of medication and mental illness, she bought me a stuffed horse. This was before I had Moonglow. I loved that fluffy pony to bits, and I carried it with me everywhere I went until Eric got a hold of it one day.

“If you’re her,” I said slowly. “Tell me the name of the plush horse you bought me. When I was young. What did I name the horse?”

The seconds ticked on by. I felt the world slowing down in this blackened, ice-cold room.

Finally she said, quietly, sweetly,
too
sweetly, “You named the horse Miss Piggy.” I sucked in my breath. She was right. “And you loved that dear horsie. You loved it so much, even though your brother cut the legs off of it and pulled out its guts and plucked out its eyes.” Her voice changed to a horrifically loud, inhuman demonic growl, straight from the depths of Hell. “And that’s just what I’m going to do to
you
!”

I screamed, dropped the phone, and leapt out of bed. My feet tripped over each other, and I slammed into the ground, biting down on my tongue. In seconds the door opened and the lights flicked on. I was so terrified, so fucking terrified that I’d see my mother standing there or the man in black, but it was Max, wearing a wifebeater and boxers, looking down at me in concern.

“Lordy, Dawn!” He dropped to his knees beside me. “Are you okay?”

I nodded quickly, tears threatening my eyes.

He wrapped his hands under my arms and pulled me up to my feet, and I collapsed against his chest, looking at the phone, the receiver lying on the bed.

“Did someone call you?” he asked. All I could do was keep nodding. He walked over and snatched up the phone, putting it to his ear. “Hello?” He eyed me and said it again. Then he shook his head and hung it up. “No one there. Who was it?”

I couldn’t even speak. I started shaking uncontrollably.

“It’s okay,” Max said in a hush and came over to me. “Want to come stay in my room? I’ll sleep on the floor and stay awake all night if I have to.”

I managed to say “thank you” and quickly grabbed my robe, suddenly conscious of the fact that I was wearing only a Sabbath shirt and cotton underwear. He led me out of my room and down the hall, and I couldn’t help but look behind me at Sage’s door. It was closed. I was grateful for Max being so nice, but it should have been Sage’s room I was going to, Sage’s arms giving me comfort.

He hadn’t even opened the door to check on me.

Sage

“Remember, I want to see you in the lobby at ten hundred hours or we are going to Nice without you,” Jacob barked. Every day he was sounding more and more like a drill sergeant.

I winced, head pounding, and put my face in my hands. “Could you please keep it down?”

I could tell he was watching me, probably trying to decide whether to yell in my face or not. We were sitting at the breakfast table, our last meal in Paris before we had to catch the train that would take us to Nice. Our equipment had already left in the van the night before, so it was just the band and some of the crew.

Everyone except Dawn and Max. It would have worried me a lot more if I hadn’t been so blown over by my hangover, but it was literally consuming me. I barely remembered what I did last night. I know that after the small press conference, Jacob had champagne for me and the boys in the dressing room. Tricky brought out the drugs. Then Jacob left us to our devices, and the last image I could recall was vomiting in the rain outside the Louvre, where a surprisingly rowdy Garth thought it would be fun to try and break into the museum. I couldn’t tell you if it worked or not, but I definitely didn’t come home with any Mona Lisa.

Luckily, the things I could remember clearly were the ones that mattered the most. The show, which went better than I ever could have hoped (save for a few fuckups), and Dawn…fucking the life out of Dawn in my dressing room. Forget the show—
that
was the highlight of 1975. Being inside her, so close to her, making her come with me, watching her want me…I got hard again just thinking about it, and my heart…my heart was getting soft.

“I’ll give you a free pass, Sage,” Jacob said slowly. “Only because you put on such a bloody good show. Keep it up. And I do mean it. Whatever you can do to get rid of your…Sage fright.”

I heard Tricky groan at that pun, but I just shoved a croissant in my mouth and forced myself to swallow it.

“Oh, and there’s the Red Potato now,” Jacob said.

My head snapped up (something I instantly regretted), and I saw Max sauntering toward the table with an apologetic grin on his face and an ugly plaid shirt on his chest. What was it with the gingers and dressing so shittily?

“My nicknames spread fast,” Max noted with a raise of his eyebrows, taking a seat in front of Jacob. “Sorry I’m late.”

“Where’s Dawn?” Jacob asked, folding his arms. I could hear the crinkle of his stiff fabric.

Max’s eyes darted briefly to mine, but for the life of me I couldn’t read them. There was something strange about Max, something about him that made it impossible to know what he was thinking. “She’s not feeling well. She had a rough night.”

“Oh?” Jacob said. “What happened?”

Max shot him another one of those loaded looks. “A nightmare, I reckon. I heard her screaming. I’m surprised none of you did.” He was addressing the entire table but looking straight at me.

“Screaming?” I repeated, my heart sinking faster than a lead weight. My God, my poor angel.

“Yeah,” Max said gravely, reaching for a coffee cup. “She’s okay. She slept in my room.” He caught my eye again, and I swear he almost grinned. “Don’t worry, I stayed on the floor. Stayed awake. She was really shaken up. She should be okay, though.”

Oh, Christ. She was screaming last night—fucking
screaming
—in the room next door to me and I never fucking heard her. I was supposed to help her, to protect her, and I was out in the streets of Paris trying to recreate
The Italian Job
at the Louvre with a psychotically drunk keyboardist and a bassist who tried to climb the Egyptian Obelisk.

I was supposed to be there for her and I wasn’t. And instead she was turning to the first warm shoulder to lean on—Max. I leaned forward in my chair, sticking another croissant in my mouth for good measure, and started scrutinizing him even greater now.

I’d never really been the jealous type—I’d never gotten close to anyone after my ex-wife died. I was the rock star here, I was the one everyone wanted, and I handled that just fine. But Dawn, she wasn’t like everyone. Dawn had loved me and my music, but she wasn’t an idiot. She knew how to separate the music from the man. If I kept fucking up, I would lose what little thing we had left. If I wasn’t careful, she’d turn her back on me—and maybe find the next best thing instead. It might even be a tall redheaded lumberjack with a southern accent and peculiar otherworldliness to his eyes.

I felt like I was going to vomit again. I stood up, knocking over my chair, and quickly excused myself, heading to the toilets off the lobby while Jacob called after me, “Ten hundred, Sage!”

I puked my guts up until there was nothing left, but I still didn’t feel any better.

On my way back to my room, I stopped by Dawn’s door and gently knocked. There was no answer. I had no idea if she was in her room again or still in Max’s, and I didn’t know what room that was, so I decided to try again later and quickly got myself all packed up. I moved about as fast as molasses, with just a little blow to speed up the process. It made me feel better everywhere except in my heart.

“Let’s go!” Jacob yelled while pounding on my door. I flung it open, my suitcase in one hand, shades pulled down on my eyes.

“I’m ready, chill out.”

He peered at me. “Let me see your eyes.”

“Dude, why? No.”

“Sage,” he warned. “Don’t make me start babysitting you again. You did great last night.” He poked his finger into my chest. “Do not fuck it up.”

“Have you been able to talk to her?” I asked.

“Dawn?” he asked. “Briefly. She says she’s fine. But I have to say, you need to step up your game, boy.”

I debated whether I was going to say the next thing. “Do you think she and Max are, uh…”

Jacob stared at me for a few beats, face completely emotionless, before he let out a snort and shook his head in contempt. “If you think Dawn is going to shag you and then go shag Max, you’ve got her pegged as the wrong woman. She’s not
you
.”

I licked my lips. “Low blow, man.”

“And you’ve had enough blow, I can see that. Now come on, you blooming twat.” He turned and I followed him downstairs and out into the lobby.

Angeline was standing in the middle of it with a clipboard in her hand, my bandmates and crew gathered around her. Somehow that rubbed me the wrong way, and I could tell Jacob would have none of it.

“What are you doing?” Jacob boomed, marching up to her. I looked past them and to Dawn, who was at the edge of the group. Our eyes met. She didn’t smile. I realized I was still wearing the shades.

“I was just trying to get everyone in line since you weren’t here,” Angeline said to Jacob, her voice haughty. Or maybe it was her accent that made everything she said seem haughty. Man, she was a royal pain in the ass last night, following me everywhere, saying she wanted to ensure the “Americans” were behaving, trying to get me drunk at the same time. I’d seen her talking to Dawn earlier, when I was dealing with the reporters, and I knew that couldn’t have gone too well, not with the way that smirk never left her face. Angeline may have been a good lay, but there was no denying she was a manipulative bitch. I’d seen her type a lot in the industry.

“Well, you can leave the band to me, thank you, love,” he said to her, unable to hide the annoyance in his voice. I was surprised he didn’t snatch the clipboard out of her hands. He turned to everyone else. “All right, let’s go!”

I don’t think the hotel had ever been so glad to see guests leave.

Everyone started filing out, shuffling along in their hangover blues, but I stayed put, waiting for Dawn to come past. When she did, I quickly shot Max a “fuck off” sneer, which worked, and gently grabbed her by her forearm, pulling her over.

“Hey, are you okay?”

She seemed to stop with a sigh and looked up at me, eyes tired. The fire I saw last night was gone. “I’m okay.”

“I’m sorry,” I said awkwardly, feeling like a thirteen-year-old all over again. “I heard what happened last night. I never heard anything, otherwise I would have—”

“I know,” she said, cutting me off. “I heard you had a big night. You deserved it.” She seemed to relax a little. “You were amazing last night.”

There was sincerity in that. It hit deep, the warmth spreading. “Thank you.” Then I smiled and added, “You were amazing, too.”

A blush crept up on the apples of her cheeks, and she looked down at the floor with a grin. “That’s not exactly what I meant.”

“But it’s what
I
meant.” I wanted to grab her—really grab her—and pull her to me. I wanted to kiss her in front of everyone, even though the band and crew were already outside by now.

“I heard you’re officially single,” she said, her voice now flat. That certainly put a damper on my erection.

“Oh no,” I said, hoping she’d understand. “That was just…Jacob said…”

“Monsieur Knightly?” A man called from behind me.

Dawn looked past my shoulder and then back to me. “I should go to the others. I’ll tell them you’re held up.” Then she turned and trotted out of the hotel, her red hair bouncing behind her.

I rolled my eyes. Fucking great timing. I turned around to see the hotel manager looking at me.

“What?” I asked impatiently.

He stepped out from behind the marble front desk and waved a cream-colored envelope at me.

“I have something for you.”

He came up to me and placed it in my hands. I turned it over. It was totally blank except for my initials.

“What is this?” I asked.

“A letter,” the manager said.

I raised a brow. “From who? I’m listed as Mr. Underhill at this hotel.”

He gave me a heady look. “It’s from the housecleaner, Mr. Knightly. It’s an apology.”

Damn if my chest didn’t feel like it was filling with ice water.

“Is it an apology from her or the Prince of Darkness?” I asked him.

He raised a thin brow. “I’m afraid I do not understand.”

I smiled caustically. “No comprende, eh, Hombre?” I patted the man on the shoulder. “Gracias.” I turned and walked through the lobby, sliding the envelope through my hands. I was terrified to read it but knew I had to. I just didn’t know if I should do it by myself or with someone else.

I stepped out into the rain and was immediately ushered into a waiting limo. The letter would have to wait for now.

We arrived at the train station in record time, though I was disappointed that Dawn took a cab with Max and the sound guy while we had Angeline in the limo with us, insisting it was part of her job. I caught Jacob’s eye a few times, knowing he was noticing her increasing pushiness. I also tried to tell him I got a letter from the crazy housekeeper, but I guess my telepathy skills weren’t up to par.

Once we were on the train, we had assigned seats, and Angeline was forced to make do with Tricky while I was with Jacob. Dawn and Max were a few rows behind us.

“So,” I said to Jacob as the grey buildings flew past the train’s windows, “that was Paris.”

“That’s Paris when you’re in a band. At least you got to see the Louvre,” he said, bringing out a magazine.

I looked behind me again at Dawn and Max. He was also reading something while her head was resting against the seat back, her eyes closed. Max noticed my gaze, looked up at me, and smiled, just the corner of his mouth slyly jerking up. I quickly turned around before I did something very Jimmy Page.

“Tell me,” I said to Jacob. “Why is it that Max and Dawn are together every time I look at them. Is this part of your planning?”

He didn’t look at me, just licked his calloused thumb before turning the page. “My doing? No. Max is good for her; you should just leave it alone.”

I didn’t want to leave it alone. “I can be good for her.”

That made him pause for a second. Then he licked his thumb again. “You could be.”

I hated these fucking cryptic answers I got from him sometimes. It’s not that I expected him to play hopscotch with me, but man, the guy used to be
immortal
. He knew eons of shit I had no idea about and yet ninety-nine percent of the time, he went around pretending he was absolutely normal. That could fly most of the time—most of the time I forgot—but this was not one of those times.

I brought the letter out from the inside of my jacket pocket. “I got a letter.”

“Oh?”

“From the housekeeper.”

That made Jacob stop short, closing his magazine. He looked at me hard, his face drawn, eyes sparking. “What?”

I handed it to him. “I haven’t opened it. The manager gave it to me as I was leaving.”

Jacob inhaled sharply through his nose and looked around him to make sure no one was looking on. He pulled his nail file out of his pocket and poised it at the corner of the envelope.

“May I?”

I nodded. He deftly ripped the file through it. We both paused, waiting with bated breath for smoke or some fucking curse or something to waft out. Nothing.

He lifted it up and peered inside. “A photograph,” he said uneasily.

He shook the envelope until the photo fell out into his hands.

It was a black-and-white amateur photograph of a stuffed animal, a horse or unicorn maybe, with its eyes gouged out, its legs torn off, and the stuffing ripped out of it. It didn’t mean anything to me, but it made shivers run down my back just the same.

“Do you know what this is?” I whispered to Jacob.

He shook his head sharply. “No.” He took it from me, peering at it up close and then turned it over. On the back it said,
She won’t doubt me next time
.

I automatically looked behind me at Dawn, even though my bones were starting to feel more like lead. She was still sleeping, and Max was gone from his seat.

“Brothers can be so cruel,” Angeline said, and I snapped my head back to see her peering over at us, her eyes fastened on the horse. Jacob quickly covered the photo with a magazine.

“What do you want, Angeline?” Jacob said tersely.

She shrugged lightly and smiled. “Just making sure everything is going according to plan. That’s what I’m getting paid for.” Then she straightened up and walked down the aisle. I followed her every move until she sat down next to Dawn.