Almost Ordinary (The Song Wreckers Book 2) (2 page)

Chapter 2

“Why do you think it’s him?” Caleb said in business mode. “Are you sure?”

My words rushed out. “I felt someone staring at me. When I looked I saw Adam and he smiled at me and with the way he was dressed I just knew. It’s him, Caleb!”

“I believe you. Where are you right now?”

I described the best as I could which bathroom we were in. He promised to call me after talking with the Romulus police, the city the airport was in, who would then, I assumed, make arrangements with the airport police, as well as Detective Lindsmere, the original detective in charge of my case.

The urge to peek out and check to see if Adam lurked out there taunted me.

I squeezed the handles of the stroller for something to do while I waited for Caleb or the police or whoever the hell was going to come rescue me. Franny chewed on her thumbnail, waiting for me to explain, but kept quiet beside me. My mind began clicking the pieces of The Creep into place.

Adam used to hit on me. I always turned him down, and he had a hard time accepting I had no interest in him. This was probably why the word
bitch
was written on the first note he left me. Click.

He had been in and out of jail for years. The only time I received his “gifts,” he was out of jail. Click.

Dismissing Adam as The Creep was so irresponsible of me, but really, had I ever considered him? God, why had I not considered him? He fit the description to a T; about five feet nine inches with a small build for a man. He never talked throughout the attack. Of course not, I knew his voice. And when I thought about it, since the attack he’d made sure to avoid me as much as I avoided him. Even when I filled in as a temporary member of his band.

I played guitar with his band for almost two months and still didn’t figure it out?
Convincing myself that the sick bastard who’d attacked and almost killed me, couldn’t be someone I knew had been a mistake.

This past weekend was a Wreckers Weekend, the first Friday and Saturday of every month at Brett’s bar where my band, The Song Wreckers, played. Adam played drums for the band Crawling Home After Midnight, all of whom were at Brett’s last Saturday, including Adam, and Caleb and I hung out with them during the breaks and discussed how I’d be leaving for Nashville Thursday morning. I knew The Creep still lurked out there, but there had been no notes or stalking of any kind since my attack. It never entered my mind to keep my travel plans secret, that the person I needed to fear was someone I occasionally came into contact with.

Stupid, stupid, stupid! The puzzle in my head finished clicking together so loud I flinched. I had almost forgotten about Franny standing next to me, fidgeting.

I turned to her. “Okay, long story short. You know how Caleb is crazy obsessive about my safety?” She nodded. “Well it’s because I was almost stabbed to death behind Brett’s. You know, the bar where my band plays every month?” She nodded again. “Well the police never found out who did it, and neither did Caleb.”

“Wow, my uncle brags that Ram is one of the best,” she said.

Pretty much everyone called Caleb “Ram” since his—our—last name was Ramsey. Caleb worked as a private investigator and bodyguard, and we met when Brett, the owner of Brett’s, hired Caleb and his boss to protect the band once I’d started getting threatening notes from The Creep.

“He is one of the best. But The Creep—that’s what I nicknamed the guy who attacked me—was good. Too good. Anyway, he’s here.” Shit, shit, shit!

“You saw him out there and that’s why we’re in here?”

“Yeah, I’m sorry. Are you okay? Do you need anything?”

Franny seized my hands in hers, and stepped on my foot to stop the tapping. Caleb did the same thing when I tapped. “Listen, Molly. Breathe.” I sucked in two deep breaths. “Do you want me to see if he’s out there?”

“No!” I barked. Then quieter, “Please don’t. You’re not sure what he looks like. I’ll do it.” Adam might have seen Franny with me. No way I’d send her out there like bait.

Not knowing if he waited, maybe mere feet away, man that ate at me. I told Franny to stay in the bathroom with the boys so I could check the concourse. I scrutinized the immediate area and didn’t see him.

I described Adam the best I could for Franny, then swung the stroller around and headed out into the concourse. We inched our way against the wall several feet and stopped. Caleb had instructed me to stay very close to this bathroom, so I didn’t dare move any further away.

We waited, trying to appear casual while surveying our surroundings. The attack played over and over in my head and I wanted to run out of there. Finally, my phone sang “Good Man” by Tim McGraw and I jumped, my focus broken. “Please tell me you’re almost here,” I said to Caleb.

“I’m about ten minutes from the airport. I have Taylor and John with me. We’re going to meet up with the Romulus police when we get there. Detective Lindsmere is on his way. The airport police have been given a description of you, Franny and the boys, and at least one should be by where you are. Do you see anyone?”

I looked side to side and saw an officer approaching from my left. He stepped around the crowd in front of him and we made eye contact. He nodded at me in acknowledgement. “Yeah. He’s here.”

“Good,” Caleb said. “Your plane should start boarding soon.”

“I don’t want to go to Nashville now, I want to get home!”

“Princess, listen to me.”

Princess. His stupid nickname for me. Secretly I liked it, and hearing it now soothed me. I breathed deep, in through the nose, out through the mouth. “Okay, I’m listening.”

“Adam has to have a ticket for somewhere if he’s past the security checks. The officer is going to escort you, Franny, and the boys to your gate and stay with you until you’re boarded. I cancelled your hotel reservation and called Kent. The four of you are staying at his house.”

Kent was the main talent scout and talent coordinator for Crystal Records. I lived with him for an entire summer while I mentored Gina Swinger and taught her the songs I’d written for her album. I considered Kent a friend, but going to Nashville and to a party when I just discovered the identity of the man who attacked me? No way.

“I want you, I want home. Caleb, come get me. What if The Creep is going to Nashville?”

“You’re safer in Nashville. Adam won’t follow you there, the police will make sure of that. They won’t let him board the plane.
I
won’t let him board the damn plane. I don’t want you or the boys around when we take that bastard down. I want you far away from him.”

I opened my mouth to argue then shut it because he was right. Damn it. Instead of fighting Caleb about following through with the flight to Nashville, I promised to call him once we were settled in at Kent’s and made him promise to tell me everything that happened.

Kent stood waiting for us at the front door when we pulled into his driveway, and helped us transfer everything from the rental car to the house. Kent and I had remained friends, and he knew me well enough not to bombard me with questions right way. Instead he said, “You’re the only woman I know who can afford to have a nanny stay home to take care of her kids but bring them with you anyway. Welcome back, Molly.”

I froze for a second. Leaving the boys home with Franny had never occurred to me. I hated the thought of them being so far away from me. “Thanks, Kent.”

I claimed “my” bedroom, and Franny settled in the bedroom next to mine. I nursed the twins and put them down for a nap, then tiptoed next door to Franny’s room.

She was already unpacked and lying on the bed, eyes open. “Okay if I call Caleb in here?”

Franny sat up. “Yeah. I want to hear what Ram has to say.”

I dialed then pressed the button to put it in speaker mode. At the first ring I breathed as deep as I could. The second ring, I tapped my foot. The third ring made me bite my thumb nail. On the fourth ring I hopped up, unable to remain sitting. Why wasn’t he—

“Princess.”

“The boys are fine, I’m fine, Franny’s fine, you’re on speaker phone, what the hell happened?” I waited, no answer. “Caleb?”

“We lost him,” he said.

“He’s not in custody?”

“No.”

Mother fucker! I hopped up to pace, then remembered he was on speakerphone and Franny deserved to know the details. “How? How is it possible that he got away again?”

“Hold on.” There was a short, muffled conversation, then the sound of a door shutting which cut off the busy office background noises. “I’m still at the airport police hub. Here’s what we pieced together so far. Adam had a one way flight booked to Chicago. We’re assuming he did that because he never intended on getting on the flight and going anywhere. It’s one of the cheapest flights out of Detroit Metro, which leads us to believe he was there for you.”

“He heard us talking about my plans at Brett’s last weekend.”

“Yeah. I don’t know where else he could’ve heard it. Anyway,” he continued, “we figured once you spotted him, he disappeared shortly thereafter. You said he started to follow you. I think as soon as you went into the bathroom he knew he had a few minutes at best before every employee in the airport stayed alert for someone matching his description. The whole place has been searched. We found nothing except his image on multiple security cameras showing he left.”

I checked the time on my watch. “It’s been a good three, three and a half hours since I spotted him. Is anybody even doing anything?”

Franny leaned close to me. “I’m sure Ram is making sure that the police are out looking for him. Right Ram?”

"Yes. Princess, we will find him. I promise. He lives on the north side of Tipton and the Tipton police have already been sent to check things out. No report of him yet. They have a unit watching the place, but—”

“But he’s smart enough to not return there,” I finished for him. “Shit.”

“Double shit,” Franny echoed.

After the sound of a door opening, I heard the hubbub of a busy place again. “Thanks,” he said to someone. “Listen. Both of you. We’re checking out any family he has in the area, the rest of his band, even Belinda Nord.” The woman who started the fight with me first in order to weaken me for The Creep. “We will cover every angle and we’ll capture him. Bye, Franny. Princess, take me off speaker phone.”

“Bye, Ram,” she said as I hit the button to undo the speaker.

I slipped out into the hallway, let out a shaky breath and leaned against the wall. “This sucks. Since The Creep hasn’t made any contact with me since the attack I hoped he was a non-issue for me. Us.”

“I love you. I know you’ll obsess over this, but you have to trust that I’ll do everything in my power to find him. You have to at least try to focus on your career.”

“Easier said than done.” He was right, and for him, I’d try.

“You go do what you do best and let me do what I do best, okay?”

“What I do best is kick ass, and what you do best is have sex with me.” I’ve been in my fair share of fights, though I swear to God I’ve never started any of them.

Caleb barked out a laugh and I heard an “
eewww”
from Franny.

“No, Princess. You do the music thing and I’ll do my investigation thing.”

“Oh yeah, music and investigations.”

“Well your mind went in the gutter so I know you’re okay. Seriously, you concentrate on business and keeping my boys happy. Make sure you call me every day when they’re awake so I can talk to them.”

I couldn’t help the big smile I sported. Was there anything sexier and more heartwarming than a father being fatherly? “By the way, they told me to tell you fart, fart, hiccup and fart again.”

“Just like their mother, then.”

Fucker. I let it go. “I love you.”

“I love you too. Call me tonight.”

We hung up. I moped into Franny’s room. “You wanna nap or go meet Kent?”

“Kent,” she said, so I grabbed the baby monitor and we plodded downstairs.

We heard Kent rummaging around the refrigerator so I knew to head to the kitchen.

I plunked down on a kitchen chair and indicated for Franny to do the same. “Hey Kent.”

He grunted in response and continued to dig in the fridge. He emerged a few seconds later with two armfuls of food. He set lunch meats, bread and a variety of toppings in the middle of the table then sat down across from us.

“Here’s food.” He raised one eyebrow and looked at Franny, then me. “What in the hell is going on?”

Chapter 3

Franny introduced herself to Kent, and we began eating. I didn’t realize how famished I was until I bit into my sandwich. I dug in for a second bite, then found Kent staring at me. “Sorry,” I said with my mouth full.

Kent already knew the story of my attack by The Creep—Adam—so I filled him in on what happened a few hours earlier at the airport.

“Do you think he knows where you’re at?” Kent asked.

“Yeah. He heard me and Caleb talking about it at the bar last weekend. That’s how he knew I’d be at the airport.” I felt confident he didn’t follow me to Nashville, but it scared me that he knew where I was.

Kent had come home from work to unlock his house and make sure we were okay. He pushed his chair back when he finished eating. “Molly, are you all right? I can postpone the negotiations.”

“No way,” I said. “Adam will be caught soon and I’m not going to let him ruin this. I’m looking forward to it.”

Negotiating my role in the first album had gone better than I’d expected. I wanted the same with the second album. I told Kent I’d see him in an hour and he left.

Franny yawned for the umpteenth time, so I insisted she sleep. Coffee, nerves, and lunch gave me energy for the time being. She held out her hand for the baby monitor, and I handed it to her.

She reached for the plate but I swatter her hand. “I’ll take care of this. I’m going to clean up in here, then freshen up and head to the office.”

She thanked me and traipsed off. As I loaded the last cup into the dishwasher, my phone rang. My heart leapt for a split second before I realized it wasn’t Caleb’s ringtone, or even my best friend Katie’s. It was the generic ring tone I assigned to people I rarely talked to and unknown numbers. I slid the phone from my pocket, and the screen read,
Unavailable (000)555-0000.
The last time I answered an
Unavailable
call it was a phone solicitor. Right now I didn’t want to talk to anyone except my husband or the police. I ignored the call.

Upstairs, I changed out of my long-sleeved shirt into a nicer blouse, brushed out my hair, and applied mascara and lip gloss, careful to be quiet since the boys and Franny were out cold. That was as professional as I was going to get. I grabbed the car keys and headed to my meeting.

Crystal Records sat among a million other music studios located in Music Row, along with other music related businesses in Nashville. Being part of the country music industry was surreal. I never thought I’d go from teacher and guitar player in a hot, local country band, to ex-teacher turned professional music writer. And guitar player in a hot, local country band.

My phone rang the generic ring tone again as I pulled into a spot in the parking garage. I let my head fall against the headrest and closed my eyes for a second. I shouldn’t ignore any calls until this Adam mess disappeared—like I hoped he would do, just in case.

“Hello?” I answered.

Silence.

“Hello?” I repeated.

More silence, so I said, “Please add this number to your do not call list. Thank you.” Stupid phone solicitors. I hoped.

I shook off the irritation. Adam occupied one part of my brain as I made my way through the main doors, past the receptionist, and onto the elevator. The other part of my brain fought to overcompensate for my personal life’s explosion so I wouldn’t appear unable to rise to the challenge of writing Gina’s next album.

Breathe, Molly.
In through the nose. Out through the mouth.

Barging through the conference room doors, I knew what to expect. They demanded a strong writer who could deliver hit songs, so that’s what I promised them. Feedback from “Caught Misbehavin’” was great according to the online world. Album sales hadn’t been too shabby either.

I reminded Bubba, the owner of Crystal Records, and their lawyer, that I had been writing songs for fifteen years, quality songs more than a decade. Katie taught me to play guitar when we were fourteen, then convinced me to start The Song Wreckers with her in college. At first we were a cover band that wrecked popular songs and made them into rocking country versions, then eventually we phased out the covers and replaced them with almost all originals. To this day Katie and I wrote all our songs.

I could
do
this, I insisted. I gave up my teaching career to write music full time, I reminded them.

So after a lot of convincing, they approved me writing Gina’s entire next album for a nice chunk of money, plus a minuscule percentage of the album’s downloaded sales. We agreed that I’d check in with them at least once per month so they could be sure I progressed enough to deliver on their time table. Fine with me, they had to cover their asses.

We shook hands and their lawyer left to draw up the contract. I sauntered out behind him, high on my second successful negotiation, to wander around the studio and say hi to the various studio musicians and office workers I’d befriended. By the time I arrived back at Kent’s house, though, I was kind of shitting buckets. I mean, what if from this point forward I couldn’t write a single sentence, much less hit songs?

Franny lounged in Kent’s family room watching TV while the boys lay on the floor. A half empty pizza box, plate and napkins were scattered on the coffee table.

I kneeled between the boys and tickled them. “Feeling less like a zombie?” I asked Franny.

“Yeah, thanks for letting me sleep.”

I grabbed a blanket and draped it over myself. Franny saw me and shook her head. “I fed them an hour ago. They’re good for now.” Of course, since they’d take bottles of formula from anyone except me.

I watched Franny clean up her pizza mess, glad I had eaten a healthier dinner once I finished at Crystal Records. “You can go do your homework,” I told her. “I got the boys.”

She went upstairs to work on a paper for school. I made myself a comfortable spot on the floor where I could lean against the couch. I pulled the blanket the boys lay on in front of me and called Caleb.

“Hey,” he answered. “How rich did you make us?”

I detailed the deal I’d made, then asked what happened since we last spoke.

He blew out a noisy breath. “I didn’t spend long at the airport so I could check out some places I thought Adam might be. I drove to the office, grabbed Smith,” someone he worked with, “and headed out.”

“Where’d you go?”

“First I drove home to make sure he hadn’t been on our property, or worse, in our house. No indication of that so we drove to his apartment in Tipton. We circled around and didn’t see anything so we went inside.”

“You broke in?”

“No, the door was open about three inches. The whole complex is really run down and several doors and windows were messed up. Anyway, he wasn’t there so we drove to his parents’ house and talked to them. They let us look around insisting that Adam would never hurt anybody. He wasn’t there either, but his parents did admit that he’d been in trouble for the last few years and that his disappearing act might be suspicious.”

God, I wished the boys needed to nurse. I could use the calm it brought me. They babbled on their blankets and stared at their hands. “Did you talk to the rest of his band?”

“Yeah, called every member of Midnight. None of them has seen him in a couple of weeks, and they all seemed pretty fed up with his crap. I may visit them later. Right now I think it’s a waste of time. They all like you; a lot more than they like Adam, that’s for sure. They promised to call me if they heard from him.”

I liked the other members of Crawling Home After Midnight too. I rubbed my temples. “What about Belinda Nord?”

“Detective Lindsmere called me once he finished at the airport. We met up and went to see Nord together. She lives in Tipton, not too far from Adam.”

I sat up straight. “And?”

“Nord was nervous. Seemed pretty scared, too. Kept telling us she hadn’t seen him since the night he attacked you. Claimed she didn’t know anything about anyone and wanted to be able to move on without being reminded of him. She would only talk to us on her porch and shut the front door so we couldn’t see in. When I asked if we could talk inside, she told us her apartment was a mess and she didn’t want anyone seeing it until she could clean it. She tugged at her sleeves the entire time. At first I thought it was a nervous tic. Then I made it a point to look, and I swear I saw some bruising on her wrists. We tried to keep her talking, but she insisted she had to go to work.”

Sympathy tried to break through my anger toward Belinda Nord, but she was the reason I couldn’t effectively fight off Adam. I’d fought her off first. “So she left?”

“Yeah. Her parting comment to us was, ‘Listen, I’m sorry for what that girl went through and my part in it, but you have to leave me alone.’ Then she shoved past us and made a bee-line to her car, hopped in and sped off. That whole conversation raised my giant red flag alert.” He stopped for a moment. “You’re sidetracked because she called you ‘that girl’ and not ‘that lady’ aren’t you?”

I couldn’t help the corners of my mouth turning up the tiniest bit. Most strangers had taken to calling me ma’am. Ugh. So I took an inappropriate moment to appreciate being called “girl.” Sue me.

“Maybe. So why didn’t Lindsmere do something more? Why did he let her go?”

“Don’t know. I’m not sure he picked up on anything weird. It’s normal that she didn’t want to talk to us and appeared nervous. Nord left, Lindsmere jotted a few notes, told me he’d be in contact, then he left too.”

I massaged my temples again as my tension rose. “So what’s next?”

“Well, I’m going over the complete background check on Nord as we speak. Nothing to cause alarm. She was a decent high school student, been working full time since graduating, currently enrolled at Monroe Community College, living in her apartment for the last three years, and has about two thousand dollars in credit card debt. She’s the typical twenty-four-year-old as far as I can tell.”

“Including that she has horrible taste in boyfriends. God, where is he?”

“I don’t know. It’s possible Nord is hiding something so I’m going to put a couple 3D men on her apartment tonight and tomorrow. I might go talk to her again.”

Caleb worked for 3D Protection, which promised to “cover the three dimensions of personal protection” according to their business cards: bodyguard services, private investigations, and surveillance. It was
the
place to turn to when you needed any kind of protection in southern Michigan. Important politicians, sports stars—Detroit had four professional sports teams—and rich executives. They all went to 3D because 3D garnered results, or prevented certain results from happening. They hired the best, or trained recruits to be the best. Why couldn’t they find The Creep?

There was nothing to do about The Creep but wait and see what tomorrow brought. I rubbed the boys’ bellies to get their attention, then placed the phone in the middle of them and put Caleb on speakerphone for a minute. Their little legs kicked when they heard his voice. We hung up and Franny walked past with her laptop and a few text books, letting me know she was going to work outside for a while.

I wished her well—I did
not
miss writing college papers—then brought the boys upstairs to begin the bedtime process.

Franny studied outside, Kent was still at the office. Upstairs was quiet. It’d be peaceful if my brain wasn’t consumed with Adam. And, shit. I should’ve told Caleb about the weird number that called me, but I wanted his focus on The Creep. It blew my mind that Caleb couldn’t catch this psycho. My husband was more than a pretty face and hard body. He had a mind like no one else. There’s nothing he couldn’t figure out. When his bright blue eyes bore into you, he’d read you like a book. Well, he did that to me anyway. Caleb could think his way around any problem or situation and come up with the answer. Franny’s uncle also worked for 3D, which is how we found her, and he was right when he told her Caleb was one of the best. When God handed out deductive reasoning skills, he tripped and spilled the entire bucket on Caleb.

Anyway, Adam already proved himself damn smart and sneaky, and that scared the shit out of me.

I’d be having way more fun at this album release party if I could relax. That same generic Michigan number had called me three more times today. I let it go to voicemail the first two times. The third time I answered it with the intention of ripping into someone. I pressed
talk
and
heard noises—someone eating, and moving stuff around maybe. Five or ten seconds of silence later, I pressed
end
.

If it had been a normal couple of days, those calls wouldn’t unnerve me. No one butt dialed that much, though, and phone solicitors spoke after a three second delay.

Adam, right? Had to be. Every other member of his band had my cell number, so he could’ve easily looked me up on one of their phones. It wouldn’t surprise me if he’s had my number for years.

Breathe. Just get through the party.

Crystal Records didn’t break the bank with Gina’s album release party, but it was nicer than any party I’d ever been to. All I had to do was smile and shake hands with a lot of people I’d never met who were important to the music industry. I accepted a lot of compliments. I insisted the album would be nothing to speak of if it wasn’t for Gina.

I called Caleb during spare moments I snuck throughout the night. He didn’t answer any of my calls which was weird since he knew I’d be dying for information. And shit, I wanted to report the calls I’d been getting.

I held the same damn glass of champagne all night. I hated the stuff and wouldn’t drink it even if I wasn’t nursing, but it gave me something to do with my hands. Had it been a mixed drink I’d be tempted.

I tried to leave a couple times but someone always caught me. Then I’d be whisked away to meet what’s-his-face or so-and-so.

My feet ached in heels I wasn’t used to wearing, and it sucked not being there to put the boys to bed for the first time.

When no one was paying attention to me, I set my champagne down and slipped out of the main room. A hallway ran to the right of me, about thirty feet, then ended at a lighted, indoor fountain with no one else around. A ledge rimmed the fountain to sit on.