Music: Out of the Box 26 (The Girl in the Box Book 36)
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MUSIC: OUT OF THE BOX 26
The Girl in the Box, Book 36
ROBERT J. CRANE
Ostiagard Press
MUSIC
The Girl in the Box, Book 36
(Out of the Box, Book 26)
Robert J. Crane
Copyright © 2018 Ostiagard Press
All Rights Reserved.
1st Edition.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Chapter 96
Chapter 97
Chapter 98
Chapter 99
Chapter 100
Chapter 101
Chapter 102
Chapter 103
Chapter 104
Chapter 105
Chapter 106
Chapter 107
Chapter 108
Chapter 109
Chapter 110
Chapter 111
Chapter 112
Chapter 113
Chapter 114
Chapter 115
Chapter 116
Chapter 117
Chapter 118
Chapter 119
Chapter 120
Chapter 121
Chapter 122
Chapter 123
Chapter 124
Chapter 125
Chapter 126
Epilogue
Teaser
Author’s Note
Other Works by Robert J. Crane
Acknowledgments
CHAPTER ONE
Nashville, Tennessee
Neon lights lit the sidewalks of Broadway, and music spilled into the night. Some of it rang out hard, some of it pitched sweet; all of it was loud, the competition on to get the attention of the tourists and locals moving by on the sidewalks. Broadway was like a piece of old Vegas dropped into Nashville, packed crowds bustling past. Honky-tonk bars lined the street, their windows pushed open and music blaring out like an attempt at an open air concert into the cool—but not cold—February evening.
Brance Venable came along Broadway at an easy saunter. His heart was thudding about a million miles an hour, warring against his attempts to keep cool as he went. He was a little taller than average, a little thinner than average, looked a little better than average, based on his luck with the ladies. The words of Alan Jackson’s “Chasin’ That Neon Rainbow” were bouncing around in his head as he threaded his way through the teeming, living mass of humanity threatening to spill over the metal sidewalk barricades and into Broadway itself, where the traffic was at a complete standstill waiting for the next light. Brance noticed none of it; not the overripe tourist spitting a curse at the homeless guy next to him, not the scent of margaritas wafting off the loud bachelorette party passing by him.
Brance was focused on one thing, and one thing only.
Screamin’ Demons was a honky-tonk on 2nd Avenue, just off Broadway. It was ahead. Everything else...well, everything else needed to be behind him right now.
Because this was it.
Brance had moved to Nashville a month ago from Cody, Wyoming. A month of craziness, of trying to get his crap unpacked in his tiny apartment in Germantown. He’d gotten the lay of the land in Music City, USA, and now he was ready to make his debut. He’d chosen everything carefully, figuring the optimal venue that he, a nobody, could succeed at. And he’d found it.
Open mic night at Screamin’ Demons, which was a honky-tonk and a dive bar all in one.
The red neon lights off the Screamin’ Demons sign were like the fires of hell, ominous and crimson, casting the glow out on the street. Screamin’ Demons wasn’t even a block off the chaos that was Broadway.
Brance slipped in through the open door of the honky-tonk, nodding at the big dude in black bouncing at the door. The bouncer nodded back, barely. It was the most human contact Brance had gotten since he’d moved here.
He bellied up to the bar as the lady on stage warbled a broken version of Patty Loveless’s “I Try to Think About Elvis.” Her voice broke on the chorus, and the crowd—half full at best, mostly with young people out for a Wednesday on the town—evinced a collective disinterest, paying more attention to their drinks and conversations than her crackling vocals.
“What do you want?” the bartender asked. Guy looked about Brance’s age, mid-twenties, buff.
“Mich Golden Light,” Brance said, and chucked a thumb over his shoulder toward the stage.
“And where do I sign up for that?”
The bartender pulled a beer bottle out from under the bar and popped the top, then pointed down the bar. Ah. A clipboard.
Brance made his way over, cold beer in hand, condensation working its way down his grip. The list on the clipboard was long, filled to five pages. He stared at it only a second before adding his name and settling back at the bar, squeezed between a couple and a lone dude who weighed about three-fifty and was fully done up in a cowboy hat and boots with a Roy Rogers shirt. Brance tried not to stare at the rhinestones as he sipped his beer. Talk about out of date.
Nashville nowadays was Dierks Bentley and Kacey Musgraves. Had it ever been that ostentatious? Maybe in the seventies, long before Brance’s time. He chuckled in a self-satisfied way into his beer. Only a month and he was already thinking like a local.
The night dragged on as Brance waited. The crowd was good; they didn’t boo when someone was terrible. Polite applause followed the ones that utterly bombed, voices cracking or lyrics forgotten. There were a couple of solid performers in there, too. One young lady did a pretty good rendition of Elton John’s “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me.”
Brance was still sipping that first beer two hours later, though it was really warm, when they called him up. He finished it in an easy pull, wiped the condensation of the beer mingled with the sweat onto his jeans, and made his way up on the stage.
“My name’s Brance,” he said. He’d decided his stage name was just one word. Like Garth. But without even the Brooks. “And I’ll be singing an original song.”
That didn’t get much reaction. Most everyone was paying attention to their beers or whatever they were drinking. It was tough to see much beyond shadows through the stage lights.
Brance started up, a cappella:
“I see you
out there in the night...”
He really put some effort into his voice, tried to use the microphone to push it out there, project over the crowd and the buzz of people drinking, talking. A couple eyes watched him from the bar. Could they be someone from a record label?
He had to nail this.
“...I see you
at the end of my fight...”
Man, he sang. Voice projected to the rafters, all the soulful sound and feeling he could put into it. These were the daydreams he’d had for all the years of his life since the first time he heard someone singing on the radio one Sunday afternoon while his dad worked on an engine block in the garage. His foot moved in time with the music and Brance watched, tried to mimic it. Then, later, he tried to mimic the sounds, the words. And his daddy’s leg just kept moving in time with the music as he sang.
“...You were always thereeee
always the one for meeee...”
This was it. Time to ramp up to the chorus and really give her hell. If he was on The Voice, this was the part where some chairs would start turning. He was all up in his own head now, perfectly focused on his lyrics, the music, hitting the notes perfectly as he sang. The outside world was just shadows he could barely see through squinted eyes, pure emotion on his face, the stage lights hot on his skin, beads of sweat popping out on his brow. The distant noise of the crowd was just a faint rumble.
This was the moment. His whole life had been leading to this. Ever since that time in the garage when he’d heard the music, and his daddy had smiled—
God, one of the only times it felt like he’d smiled at Brance—
“...Like a desert dream
Like a teenage queeeeEEEN—”
There was a rising scratch in the back of Brance’s throat. It caught him halfway through “queen.” Something happened, something bad, and he hit a different note, real different—
Someone screeched loud enough that Brance jerked. The whole room seemed to be shaking gently, and the lights at the base of the stage all blew out in a blast of glass and sparks as Brance’s eyes jerked open. The speakers blew, too, and Brance stopped singing as the noise in the room swept over him like a wave after a dam broke.
“Ohmigod—”
“Aiiiiiiee! Make it stop!”
The cacophony was painful, pained. His eyes open, the stage lights shattered, he could see the crowd now.
That standing ovation he’d hoped for? Wasn’t happening.
Every single person in the place was on the ground. Clutching ears, clutching their heads. Only a very few eyes were even on him at all.
Brance just stared for a moment, dumbstruck, then realized the microphone was still in his hand. “Are...are you all right?” he asked, then realized his voice wasn’t magnified at all. Oh, right, the speakers.
Then he glanced down at the mic.
The entire top of it looked like it had been shredded off by a metal grinder.
“What the...?” The mic stand that had been parked in front of him was missing its top, too, smoking as though someone had burned it like a candle wick.
“What the hell did you do, man?” someone shouted from the crowd.
“I...I don’t know,” Brance said, clammy feeling falling over him, sweat drenching his brow. He stared out over the darkened bar, wondering what he should say.
“You almost killed us!” a woman’s voice screamed into the silence. Distantly, Brance could hear the noise of Broadway, the crowd. It sounded normal, like nothing had happened there. Nothing like what had happened here—
“I...sorry,” Brance said, and tried to shove the shredded microphone into the ruined stand a couple times before realizing it was futile. Staring at the strange object, he finally just dropped the ruined thing, stepping off the stage.
“Who the hell are you?” a man asked from his knees. “Were you trying to kill us?”
“I...I was just trying to...” Brance stumbled past him, past the others. He made it out the door just as people were getting to their feet.
There was a strange silence in his head as he ran—surprisingly fast—down 2nd, old brick buildings blurring past as he hurried back to Broadway and lost himself in the crowd.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to go tonight. This was supposed to be his chance, his shot.
This was supposed to be the beginning of his dream.
Then why, Brance wondered, as he threaded through the noisy crowd, a ringing in his ears like distant sirens, did it feel so much like the end?
CHAPTER TWO
Sienna
New York City
This was not exactly the stuff my dreams were made of.
“Sienna Nealon, do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”