The Fame Equation (7 page)

“My barn manager and I are supposed to pick up the furniture tomorrow, after the movers finish,” I said with caution. “It was nice of Melody to give me things that meant something to her. She easily could have given them to someone else.”

Davis nodded, and put the note back on the table. Then he shoved his hands into his pockets and walked through the rooms of the house. We both knew Melody wasn’t there. There was no sense of her, and that was unsettling.

“Could Melody have gone to her family?” Davis asked, sliding into a chair. “She did that once before after a call from her mother. Claudine is . . . needy, or at least pretends to be.”

“No. Well, I don’t think so. All Melody ever said to me about her family was that she was done with their dysfunction and had decided to let them sink or swim on their own.”

On the other hand, I thought, if a desperate call came in from one of them, would Melody have blown off an important interview and lunch? I shook my head. No. She might have found someone else to come to her family’s aid, but she would not have put her career in jeopardy to do so. They had never been good to her.

“The house closing!” I said the words so loudly that I startled even myself. “Maybe she’s at the closing. Maybe the time got moved up and she forgot to tell anyone.”

Davis jumped up, cell phone in hand. “Do you know who her Realtor is?” he asked.

“No.” My heart plummeted into my stomach. “She did her house hunting when I was busy with horse shows. But, if we look around maybe we can find a card, or some paperwork.”

Despite a pretty thorough search, during which we found songwriting notebooks, an organized collection of gas and fast food receipts, and a stack of church bulletins, no indication of a Realtor or closing attorney was in sight. Probably, she had all of that with her in her car.

Davis called Scott Donelson, Melody’s attorney, to see if he knew anything, but his assistant said Scott was in court. Davis didn’t want to give too much away as the tabloids had spies everywhere, so he left a message for Scott to call him.

While he was on the phone I made a quick call to the church, finding their number in one of the bulletins.

“Why no,” Ruthie said. “We haven’t seen her today.”

I was somewhat surprised that the pastor had picked up the phone herself.

“The, uh, address book in my phone isn’t working,” I said after a pointed look from Davis, “and I can’t remember her number. I, uh, wanted to wish her luck with her new house.”

Ruthie said she would pass the message on.

“I guess we can leave a note for her,” I said after I hit the “end call” button on my phone.

“Sure,” Davis said. “In case she hasn’t gotten the four thousand texts and emails Buffy and Scott and Augie, and I, and even Keith, have sent her in the past few hours.” Then he threw up his hands. “Sorry. I’m worried. I didn’t mean to snap at you.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m worried, too.”

And I was. The Melody Cross I knew wanted success so much that she would never have missed an interview. Not if she could help it.

A
FTER RETURNING HOME, GETTING CAUGHT
up on lots of paperwork, and tucking the horses in for the night, I spent the evening talking to Brent. If we didn’t see each other, we often ended our days filling each other in on our recent activities over the phone.

Tonight Brent was in his clinic with a cat who had ingested some sort of poison. After doing all he could for the poor thing medically, he was now giving her emotional support. That was the kind of animal doc that Brent was.

I also called Melody numerous times, and even texted her and sent an email or two. Then I called the Lowe’s, as I remembered she was supposed to spend the night there. A snooty receptionist insisted Melody wasn’t there, even when I used the code name she sometimes used, Aria Bender. Then I sent Buffy a text to ask if she knew if Melody had checked in, or if she had closed on her house.

By the time I turned in at ten P.M. I had not heard from anyone and was so upset I couldn’t drink my evening hot chocolate. Where was Melody? Had she been kidnapped? Mugged? Had an accident and driven into a ditch? We had many steep roads with no shoulders and deep drop offs in our area. I tossed and turned all night, wishing I had thought to get Davis’s phone number. Maybe he had heard something.

The next morning I sent Darcy to school with the reminder that she needed to be at the riding center no later than three. Then Hank and I headed to the barn to work with Jon and Petey. Unless it was very hot or very cold, Hank usually slept in the barn. He often wandered up to the house after Jon fed him his breakfast, however, in hopes of some of my breakfast scraps. He usually got some, but they came from Darcy. I was a harder sell.

As soon as I walked into the barn Jon said, “What’s wrong?”

People who work with horses together are dialed in to each other more than other co-workers might be. Because horses know more about people’s emotional state than people often know about themselves, it is important to only try to teach a horse something when you are fully focused. Jon had sensed right away that I was distracted. Of course, the bags under my bloodshot eyes might also have tipped him off.

I filled Jon in, knowing he was the last person who would ever blab information about Melody to a member of the press. After I stopped talking, Jon nodded. He wasn’t a person who analyzed things; he was a “just the facts” kind of guy.

“You’re a good friend, but you’ve done all you can do,” he said. “Do you want to skip the session with Petey today?”

I considered. No. I didn’t. I couldn’t wait to see the expression on Darcy’s face when we showed her Petey pulling a cart. I had bought a sleek, black wooden training cart with large, spoked wheels, and had it hidden under a tarp behind the barn. We needed to keep Petey moving forward.

“Give me a moment and I’ll get my brain on track,” I said.

By the end of the session we were able to hook Petey up to the travois and jiggle it, although we did not ask him to pull it around. Maybe tomorrow.

“I like this driving stuff,” said Jon as we brushed all traces of harness marks from Petey’s shiny coat. “Reminds me of my gramps.”

The hand that held the brush I was using stopped itself in mid air. “Your gramps?” I asked.

“My grandpa. Gramps.”

This was a rare opportunity to learn more about Jon and I knew I needed to tread carefully. “So how does driving Petey remind you of your, um, grandfather?”

“Gramps had this skinny, gray draft horse who pulled his plow. A few times I got to ‘help’ drive old Slim to the shed Gramps called a barn. I was six, maybe seven. Thought it was pretty neat.”

“Where did all this take place?”

Jon looked at me as if I was a moron. Then he smiled. “Oklahoma.”

He meant, I knew, the Cherokee Nation in eastern Oklahoma. In a strange turn of events, I had recently learned that Jon was half Cherokee, as well as a mix of Norwegian and German. My question about location had really meant if the driving had taken place on tribal land or his grandfather’s small acreage. Jon had interpreted the question differently and that’s why people around the world misunderstood each other. Life was all about clear communication.

Love you, too.
Jon’s words when he ended his mysterious phone call jumped into my brain. Who was he communicating with then? Before I had time to ponder that thought, Hank dropped his stick and let off a beagle howl loud enough to curl my toes. Then the barn door opened and Keith Carson stepped through.

I gave a worried glance to Jon who nodded and continued to finish up with Petey. Somehow I found myself running down the aisle toward Keith. The words, “Do you have news about Melody” were on my lips, but Keith’s angry voice jumped in first.

“Have you heard from her?” he asked.

I shook my head. “No.”

“We’re supposed to fly out at noon for the first leg of our tour. The production trucks are already in Louisville and her sound check is at four.”

Holy moly. I had forgotten the Louisville concert was tonight. Agnes lived in Louisville and Melody had arranged with Davis to put her on the VIP guest list. If Melody did not show up, Agnes would drive everyone bonkers asking why. I looked at my watch. It was already after ten, but Keith was probably flying out of the small, private John C. Tune airport in West Nashville, which was a little over twenty minutes from here, rather than the commercial international airport on the east side of town.

“What happens if Melody doesn’t show up?” I asked, my voice a lot smaller than I wanted it to be.

“We’ll make an announcement, say she’s got food poisoning or something,” he said, hooking his fingers through a board on Bob’s stall front. Bob woke up from his nap and came over to brush his nose against Keith’s fingers. Bob was not a mouthy horse so I did not worry that Keith might lose a guitar-picking finger.

“Augie booked the date and just now called some song-writers I’ve co-written with to fill in,” he said. “One of them is Brad Paisley. The audience will think it’s a special night, and for them it will be. But, we have Columbus, Ohio tomorrow night, and St. Louis on Sunday. If Melody doesn’t make herself front and center soon, we might have to cancel the tour.”

Melody had taught me enough to know that a cancelled tour could mean millions in losses for the artists, record label, agent, manager, promoter, and venue, and more than one probable lawsuit. Keith looked like he was about to cry and I reached up to grab his shoulders.

“She will show up,” I said, looking him in the eye. “This is not like her. There has to be a reason, a good reason.”

Keith nodded, then steeled himself and nodded again. “You’ve got my number,” he said. “If you hear from her . . .”

“I’ll call or text you. And you’ll do the same?”

He nodded again before he turned to catch his plane.

“Hey, Keith,” I called after him. “I hate to bring this up now, but remember that Sally Blue’s owner, Agnes Temple, lives in Louisville and has a backstage pass for tonight.”

Keith looked perplexed for an instant, then smiled. “Is she the one who gushes? The one with bright blue hair who says her horse is psychic?”

“That’s her.”

“Ah. Thanks for the reminder. I might introduce her to Brad. He’s got a guitar I’ve been hoping he’ll sell me. He might give it to me real quick if I tell him I can make Agnes go away. Thanks, Cat. Your Agnes is going to be the highlight of my night.”

After Jon and I picked up Bubba at Cheatham Middle School, the three of us met Darcy at the Mighty Happy Therapeutic Riding Center promptly at three. Robert greeted us, and ushered us right into the barn. Jon’s eyes widened at the red brick floor and the open concept stalls, and he gave a slow nod of approval.

“Our volunteers undergo training in safety, horse behavior, various disabilities, and our program procedures,” Robert said to Darcy as we stood by the arena gate and watched a lesson get started. “The mounting process can be tense, especially when we have riders with severe disabilities,” he continued. “Getting an unbalanced rider on a horse can turn into an accident if everyone, including the horse, is not well trained.”

I looked at Darcy. She wasn’t a touchy-feely kind of person and I thought the close, physical contact the volunteers had with the riders might make her uncomfortable. But, her sharp eyes were scanning the scene, and I could almost see her brain taking it all in. Forget the bored expression on her face and the annoying snap of her bubblegum. Darcy was into this. I think we had a service project!

“What’s wrong with that little boy?” she asked, nodding at a small child on a brown and white pony.

“He looks mighty happy, doesn’t he?” said Robert. “And there’s nothing wrong with him. He’s perfect in his own way. His brain just processes things differently than yours or mine. See, they’re playing a counting game.”

We watched as the little boy threw one large, soft, stuffed dice and watched it tumble to the arena surface.