Keeping the Beat

by Marie Powell

  “You were worried,” she said. That meant he still cared. There was a chance.

  “Worried?” He shook his head. “I was terrified. The thought that something had happened to you.”

  Iza reached out to grab his hand before the old shyness could stop her. “I’m so sorry, Luke.”

  “You don’t have to apologize,” he said, before she could finish. “You were in Vegas, you’d just won the show and we never talked about … I mean we never said we were exclusive. We’ve only been dating for a few months. I can’t expect —”

  “Yes, you can,” Iza said. “And I do need to apologize. I messed up. I was so pleased that we’d won that I wasn’t paying attention to what I was drinking and there were these guys getting me more drinks … I should have stuck with Lucy or Toni. Or I should have told those guys that I didn’t want any more to drink. But I didn’t, and then Lucy found me and she and Ash took me home. Together.”

  “I’m sorry you were alone,” Luke said, shaking his head. “I should have been there.”

  “I should have taken care of myself,” Iza said. “I’m perfectly capable of that. I think I know that now. But … Luke … I did kiss him. Ash, I mean. I was so beyond wasted that I don’t really even remember it. I didn’t mean for it to happen, and I’m so sorry and it’s never going to happen again. But I don’t want you to ever feel like you don’t know everything.”

  Luke didn’t say anything, so Iza pressed on.

  “I understand if you don’t want to be with me anymore, but if you give me a second chance, I promise it will never happen again.”

  Luke was just standing there, staring at her. God, this was it. He was going to break up with her.

  He kissed her.

  Iza twined her arms around his neck and kissed him back with everything she had. He was kissing her, surely that meant —

  “You forgive me?” she asked, pulling back just far enough to whisper into the thin space between their lips.

  “You’re my Iza,” he said, kissing her again. “How could I not?”

  The sound of clapping infiltrated Iza’s bubble of happiness.

  It was coming from inside Robyn’s hospital room, Iza realized. Her ridiculous bandmates were applauding. Cheeky cows. Iza grinned against Luke’s lips. His arms tightened around her. She could feel the laughter building in her chest, but she resisted the urge to giggle. She wanted to keep kissing Luke forever.

  Toni’s wolf whistle was the last straw. Iza buried her face in Luke’s shoulder and shook with laughter. Thankfully, he was laughing just as hard.

  “I guess I’ll have to get used to an audience, if I’m going to date a rock star,” he said, still chuckling and holding her close.

  She hadn’t known she’d made the decision until he said the words “rock star.”

  She pulled back to look him in the eye. “You’re not going to have to get used to dating a rock star.”

  A stricken look flashed across his face and she hurried to clarify. “No, no, don’t worry. I only mean I don’t think I want to be a rock star, that’s all. I definitely want you to get used to dating me.”

  “What do you mean?” Luke asked. “What about Crush?”

  “I love Crush,” she said. “But I’m not sure this is the life I want. Especially after everything today … I don’t know if I can keep up with something that’s just not me. I want to play the piano on stage, but I want it to be in places like the Walt Disney Concert Hall and I want to play things like Gershwin and Bach and Rachmaninov. I’ve been thinking … It’ll mean going home for a while to finish school, but I’d like, I mean … if you’d like it, too, I’d like to come back to California, when I’ve done my exams. I want to get my music degree. What do you think?”

  “I think I’ve always wanted a good excuse to see more than just the Royal Opera House in London, and visiting my girlfriend is probably the best one ever.”

  Iza launched herself back into his arms and kissed him until they were both completely, utterly, perfectly breathless.

  Lucy and Toni and Robyn were grinning as madly as Iza knew she was, herself, when she walked back into the hospital room.

  “Where’d lover boy go?” Toni asked. “It’s no fun having just the one of you to tease.”

  “He’ll be back,” Iza said, biting her lip to keep from smiling like an idiot again. “He’s gone to find some dinner for us all.”

  “So he’s not upset then?” Robyn said.

  “No.” Iza shook her head. “When he saw on TMZ that one of us had been hurt and didn’t know if it was me or not …”

  “How massively romantic,” Robyn sighed. “Sit; I want every single detail.”

  Lucy was texting. She looked up at Iza and smiled, but she was clearly distracted.

  “What’s wrong, Luce?” Toni asked, catching the look of concern.

  “Harper’s still not replying to me,” Lucy said. “I’m worried. I don’t know why, but I just …”

  “I’m sure wherever Harper is, she’s fine,” Toni said. “It’s Harper, after all. She can take care of herself.”

  17. Teenage Tragedy

  Thank God for blind spots, Harper thought as she slid into the one in the corner of the entrance hall at Crush House, between the coat closet and the stairs. The last thing she needed was her complete breakdown being broadcast in the “What Happened Next” episode of bloody Project Next.

  She wished she’d never heard of the show. No, she wished she’d never met Rafe Jackson. If only she could take back the day in Year Nine when she’d let Rafe literally sweep her off her feet and carry her over a muddy puddle, when she and Lucy were trying to cross the rainy rugby pitch on their way home from school. If only she could go back and pick another route home. Or tell him to get lost when he picked her up and carried her away, leaving poor Lucy alone on the soggy pitch.

  Why hadn’t she been able to see it then? Why had she let him blind her to everything and everyone else? Blind her to how often she was abandoning Lucy and her other friends after school in the hopes that he’d want to hang out with her after practice. Blind her to the fact that she’d nearly got Lucy killed trying to impress him.

  But she wasn’t going to let him blind her again. Not this time.

  Harper longed to call Lucy. She wanted to think Lucy would understand, that she would help Harper find a way out of this mess. But Lucy didn’t have any reason to be understanding. Not really. Lucy had told Harper that Rafe was dangerous. She’d begged her not to get in the car with him. And Harper had ignored her. Why should Lucy have any sympathy now?

  Harper pulled out her phone and switched it on. A tidal wave of text messages and voicemails burst through as the iPhone powered up — a dozen from Lucy, a few from Toni, one from Robyn and a couple from Iza. And about twenty from Tomas, devolving from threats to pleas to completely mad babbling.

  She ignored them all and dialed a familiar number.

  It rang eight times, then clicked to voicemail.

  “Hi, you’ve reached the McKenzies. We’re out, and Harper is in Los Angeles being a rock star, so try our cell phones if you need one of us; otherwise, leave a message and we’ll call you back!”

  “Mom?” Harper said into her phone. “Dad? You there? Are you screening?”

  Nothing. No one was home.

  “I guess not,” she said, trying not to sound like she was crying. “Just calling to … to say hi. Tell you about the show. We won, but you know that. I texted you. It was pretty great. Hope you managed to watch the finale when it was on …”

  She couldn’t seem to form any other words without bursting into tears, so she just hung up. She could try her parents’ cell phones, but they were probably busy. They might not even pick up and somehow that would be worse than not talking to them at all. She’d just have to deal with this herself. Just as she always did.

  An
d the first thing she had to do was report Rafe Jackson to the police. She pulled herself to her feet and headed into the living room.

  Harper had to clamp a hand over her mouth when she stepped into the room to stop herself from screaming.

  The room was trashed. Holes had been gouged in the walls and stuffing had been torn from the sofa cushions. Chairs were overturned and tossed around at odd angles. The baby grand piano had been torn open and its strings had been ripped out.

  Where do you think I get my product, Harper? The tooth fairy?

  She’d known what Tomas had meant. He bought drugs from bad people. Dangerous people. She’d thought … She’d only meant to let Tomas stew a bit. Let him feel the panic for a day or two before she gave it back. Had she been wrong? Was she alone in the house with a criminal in search of drugs they thought she’d stolen?

  She so, so couldn’t deal with this on her own.

  “Harper.” She almost bolted before she recognized the voice. It was Rafe, calling to her from the garden.

  “Rafe?” she called, climbing over the destroyed furniture to get to the door. “What are you doing here? Did you see who —”

  The words dried up in Harper’s throat as she stepped out onto the patio and saw the familiar red canvas bag in Rafe’s hands. Tomas’s stash.

  “What are you doing with that, Rafe?” she asked, trying to sound calm despite the panic that was stabbing its way up her spine.

  “It took me ages to find it, Harp,” he whined, as though she’d somehow hid the little bag extra well just to annoy him. “If you’d just let me hide it in the first place, I wouldn’t have had to rip the house apart like that.”

  “What?” Harper gasped. “You did this?”

  “I had to,” Rafe said, still sounding like a four-year-old. “I had to find it.”

  “Why?” Harper demanded. “What is wrong with you? Haven’t you done enough damage today?”

  “I had to show you,” Rafe said.

  He walked toward her, nearly stumbling into the pool as he went. He was wasted, Harper realized. Beyond wasted. How much of Tomas’s stash was already coursing through Rafe’s veins?

  “I had to show you … You girls don’t know how to deal with these things. I found it, didn’t I? So will they. This way I’m the only one who knows, Harper. This way I can take care of you, and no one else has to know you kept all these drugs so long.”

  He tossed the red bag from hand to hand, like some kind of a crazy circus performer. “We can destroy it, you see. Together. I can protect you. Hiding drugs for someone, that’s accessory after the fact, Harper. That’s a crime. And a bad one, as well.”

  His smile glowed neon in the moonlight. “I’m pre-law at college. Did you know that, Harp?”

  Harper nodded, edging backward toward the door. “But there’s no way to prove I handled the drugs, Rafe. Tomas hid it here, that’s all. That’s all the police will think.”

  “You’re wrong, Harper,” Rafe insisted. “If they find this, you’ll be in trouble. And Robyn will be in trouble. But I can help you. I will help you make Tomas and the drugs and all of it go away, and in return, you can tell them that you hit Cesar. It was an accident, but you panicked. Or,” he said, brightening like he’d just had a brilliant idea, “you didn’t even know you’d hit him! You thought you’d just scraped the garage or something and you’re so sorry.”

  “Why can’t you just say that?” Harper asked. “Why blame me?”

  “You’re a minor, Harp, and you’ll pass a drug test and you know I won’t.” He was begging now. “They probably wouldn’t even punish you, not really. Me, I’d end up in jail. Real, adult jail. I wouldn’t survive in prison, Harper.”

  “Rafe,” Harper said slowly, “even if I didn’t get charged with anything, it’d ruin things for us. Ruin Crush.”

  “So?” Rafe demanded. “It would ruin my whole life. Or get me killed in prison.”

  “You wouldn’t get killed in prison, Rafe. You wouldn’t go to prison. Your father would make sure of it.”

  “He doesn’t care!” Rafe yelled. “Nobody cares. Nobody cares about me, apart from you.”

  He closed the distance between them before she had the chance to back away.

  “I know you love me, Harper,” he said, pulling her close, “and we could be together, if you help me. It wouldn’t matter what happened to Crush then. You’d have me.”

  “It would so matter what happened to Crush,” Harper said, pushing him away.

  “Why?” he asked, looking puzzled. “You only started the band to get back together with me. Everyone knows that. You can have what you wanted, Harper. You can have me. All you have to do is say you were driving. That’s all.”

  “No, Rafe,” she said. “You might have been what I wanted, but not anymore.”

  “No!” he shouted, stepping closer again. “You love me! I know you do!”

  “I did,” Harper agreed. “I really did. But you never loved me, Rafe. Not really. Not the way you were supposed to. But there are people who do love me, people I love, who need me now. I have to call the police and tell them what you did.”

  Then she turned and walked away from him. The back door was only a few steps away. If she could just make it inside, she could get away. She was sure of it.

  “No!” Rafe howled. “Please, Harper, don’t leave me alone.”

  He sounded so pathetic.

  Harper turned back to Rafe and her heart dropped straight through the white paving tiles below her.

  He was holding Tomas’s gun.

  “Oh God, Rafe. Put that away. Please. You’ll hurt one of us. Please.”

  “I don’t want to hurt anyone,” he whined. “I don’t. You’re making me. You won’t help me. I don’t have a choice.”

  “I’m sorry, Rafe. I can’t do what you want me to do, but I can help you.” She tried to take another step away from him, but she couldn’t seem to convince her feet to move. “Just put that down and come in the house with me. This will go better if you call the police yourself.”

  “NO!”

  His voice was so sharp, so loud, that she almost didn’t hear the gunshot.

  She looked down at the front of her white tank top and found it blooming with red. She hadn’t thought fresh blood was that red. It was only that color in movies. But that made sense. This couldn’t be real blood.

  Rafe was staring at her, practically hyperventilating.

  “Rafe,” Harper whispered, stumbling forward, trying to stay on her feet. It didn’t hurt, not really, but she just couldn’t seem to move her feet properly. She was going to fall in the pool if she wasn’t careful.

  Rafe backed away from her, gun still dangling in his hand. “I’m so sorry,” he babbled. “Oh, Harper, I didn’t mean to … I didn’t want to hurt you. But I can’t go to the police. They can’t know. He can’t know. Can you imagine what he’d say? My father. Not that he’d be surprised; he always did say I was a disappointment. But I can’t let him down again, Harper. I can’t. This way he’ll never know. They’ll see the drugs. Tomas’s gun. It will look like you walked in on someone robbing the place. They’ll never know. They never have to know.”

  Harper didn’t try to reply. She couldn’t. She wasn’t there anymore.

  She was back at the beach. Rafe’s arm was around her, dragging her toward the BMW. Lucy’s hand was reaching out for hers. Lucy’s voice …

  Harper. Come with us. Please. He’s had too much to drink.

  But this time … this time Harper reached out and took Lucy’s hand.

  This time she let Lucy lead her to the SUV. Away from Rafe.

  This time, a whole life was there, stretching out before her.

  Touring with Crush.

  Growing up.

  Falling in love with someone who loved her in a way that Rafe Jackson would never begin to u
nderstand.

  Travel.

  Friends.

  Sitting on a porch somewhere tropical with a gray-haired, wrinkled Lucy, playing Scrabble just as they had when they were Year Sevens at St. Gabriel’s. Still using only made-up words that made no sense to anyone but them. Still giggling madly the whole time, just like they had when they were only thirteen years old, sitting in the shade of the big old tree in the Goslings’ garden.

  She was still there, giggling with Lucy in a future they would never know, a life they would never share, when her eyes began to grow heavy and the world began to fade. Lucy’s laughter grew softer. Her face less distinct.

  It was getting so dark.

  Then, there was nothing.

  Harper McKenzie was dead.

  18. I'll Cross the World (Reprise)

  Lucy felt like she was having a nightmare, but she knew she wasn’t. This was real life. She was sitting in the living room of the Crush house, clutching Toni’s and Iza’s hands while an LAPD detective asked them questions.

  “It looks like a break-in,” Detective Hernandez said. “The house is in pretty bad shape and there was cash scattered around the patio. We found the gun in this, in the canyon below the house.” He held up a red canvas bag.

  “Tomas!” Toni gasped.

  “You recognize it?” Detective Hernandez asked.

  “There was a drug dealer named Tomas Angerman who gate-crashed a party here at the house about a week ago,” Iza told him. “He got arrested. That bag is his.”

  “I think … I think Harper had taken his stash, hoping that he wouldn’t be charged and keeping Crush from being involved …” Lucy said. “She must have hidden it here.”

  “Check if he’s still in custody,” Detective Hernandez ordered the police officer writing it all down. “He may have come back for the stash. And if she interrupted him …”

  “He killed her,” Toni finished, eyes filling with tears again.

  “I wish we had video evidence to back that up,” Jason said, striding into the living room. He must have broken a dozen traffic laws, getting there so fast, Lucy thought. Less than twenty minutes had passed since Toni had called him.