Music: Out of the Box 26 (The Girl in the Box Book 36)

by Robert J. Crane

  The front of the bar was garage-door-style windows, and they were all open to the street. The breeze was coming in, starting to get a little of the night chill but not too much. People were eating outside on a terrace, and I wondered if this was unusual weather for February here. I couldn’t complain; I’d been through enough bitter Minnesota Februarys at this point that this seventies weather was like a blessing from heaven.

  The tacos were great. The Korean barbecue was sweet and tangy, perfect with the kimchi. The Nashville Hot chicken was hot, but also a little vinegar-y, making my mouth burn in just the right way. I didn’t exactly go screaming for a glass of milk, but it was a pleasant heat. I wondered if, given the name, hot chicken was a thing around here. If so, I wanted to try more, because the flavor was top notch.

  By the time I had some tres leches and paid my bill, the sun was down and the lights of Nashville were gleaming. I glanced at my phone, which I’d had on the table the entire dinner but tried not to fiddle with. That had been an exercise in patience. No one was texting, no one was calling. My new bosses were presumably into whatever the hell was going on in DC on an ordinary February night, and Shaw was done with me. I wasn’t close friends with the agents I worked with (my choice, mostly), and so I didn’t get texts from them.

  My actual friends were at a distance because of my choices, because of what I had to do, so they were radio silent.

  It made for a quiet dinner as I resisted the urge to just browse the internet. By the time I stepped out on the sidewalk, I found myself enjoying the silence.

  But also eager for a little more noise. I didn’t want to just sit around my hotel all night.

  So I flipped open my map app and found that the part of Broadway with the bars was a fifteen-minute walk away. I debated—just for a moment—whether I should go back and get my car.

  Nah. I’d check in with Metro PD when I got there. If I needed to get into a chase, better I go with them. I did a quick retention touch; all my guns were still there. I flexed my feet inside my steel-toed boots. They were surprisingly comfortable, and I was ready for a walk.

  Course set, I headed east along McGavock to the corner, then took a left. One turn ahead was Broadway and a bridge that would take me into downtown. With a wary eye out, watching around me carefully, I started that way, wondering if the night’s peace would continue.

  And if so, for how long?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Brance

  “You’re going to be waiting a while,” the lady behind the bar said with a shrug. “Should have been here an hour ago. Open mics and karaoke nights always fill up fast around here.” She didn’t sound the least bit apologetic, but that was fine with Brance. He knew this, which was why he’d taken a month to work up the courage to try the open mic at Screamin’ Demons.

  “That’s okay,” Brance said, casting his eyes to the stage. Of everyone in here, probably ninety percent of them were here for the open mic. Still, that meant ten percent were tourists or eager listeners.

  The bar lady cleared her throat, and when Brance looked over at her, she was pointing at a sign: Two Drink Minimum.

  “Oh, uh,” Brance said, fumbling for his wallet. It was light, but surely he could afford a couple beers. “Just give me a Michelob Golden Light for now.”

  She didn’t put aside her suspicious look, but she did grab him a glass, which he slid some cash across the bar for, then threw the change in the tip jar. That didn’t buy him any goodwill from the bartender. It was tough to buy much goodwill with a buck thirty.

  That done, Brance settled in. Here, he planned to do something a little different, song-wise, than what he’d done at Screamin’ Demons. Which was fine with him, too. He’d have changed everything in his act to avoid a repeat of last night. He was going to go with whatever they had available. No original song tonight.

  Totally fine. He’d make it work.

  Passing back through, the bartender slapped a big three-ring binder in front of him with SONGS in a printed page shoved under the plastic cover holder. Brance took a long pull of his cold beer as someone belted out the Chris Stapleton cover version of “Tennessee Whiskey”—that one was getting a lot of play these days—his voice cracking as he tried to hold the notes and failed.

  Brance just grimaced. It wasn’t going to be hard to stand out in this crowd. He just needed the right song, and for things to not go bad like they had last night. It had to be the equipment. Had to be.

  Brance kept paging through, slowly, because he had a lot of time to kill before he’d be on, trying to figure out what the right choice was to make his mark.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Sienna

  “You guys come get me in there if anything goes off, okay?” I looked Officer Sims of the Metro Nashville PD in the eyes. Broadway was swirling madly around me, the tourists, locals, drinkers, and song junkies apparently undeterred by what had happened at Screamin’ Demons last night.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Sims said, nodding politely. He was parked right in front of Screamin’ Demons, and I could see three other cruisers visible in spite of the thick-packed sidewalks. “We’ll holler if anything happens.”

  “Great,” I said, and slipped away, hands in my jacket pockets. I’d ditched the hoodie back at the hotel before dinner, done hiding my face and ready to look somewhat professional.

  I walked into a bar called Old Burd’s, just two doors down from the ruin of Screamin’ Demons, which was still closed and covered in crime scene tape. The music coming out of Old Burd’s had drawn me to it; there was a woman with a sweet voice lilting like honey out the open windows and into the street. I had to push through the clotted crowd on the sidewalk and a shoulder-to-shoulder entryway to get in, which told me I wasn’t the only one that had stopped to listen off the street.

  There was a less than zero chance of me recognizing a country song just walking along the street, I figured, given my limited repertory, but this one I knew, thanks to Mom: “New Way to Fly” by Garth Brooks. Mom had listened to Garth’s No Fences album on repeat on our stereo for weeks, which meant I’d listened to it, too, though I’d complained bitterly to her that I did not like it.

  But I did, a little. And I think she knew that.

  Just another thing we’d never have a chance to really set straight between us. I ignored a feeling that crawled up from my guts into my chest, and elbowed my way—mostly gently—to the bar and took a stool at the end.

  “Get you something?” the bartender asked. She was a twenty-something with powder blue hair cut in a bob and a nose ring. She raised her voice to make herself heard over the music.

  “Sprite?” I asked.

  She nodded. I guess they had it. “Want a maraschino cherry in it?”

  I blinked a couple times. “Hell yeah.”

  She grinned and went off to get my drink as I turned on the stool to listen to the singer. She was winding her way to the close of the song. She finished with a flourish, and I actually liked her finish better than the original, to my surprise.

  “Sprite,” the bartender said, delivering a drink behind me. The sweet smell and the sound of the fizz over the sudden quiet now that the song was over preceded thunderous applause by a second as my ears caught the full power of a packed house smacking their hands together in wild approbation.

  I managed my flinch from the noise as I handed the bartender some cash. I didn’t need the calories from more than one Sprite, especially on a day when I hadn’t done much but walk around a little. My meta metabolism was good and all, and certainly faster than a normal human’s, but I’d proven it had limits for caloric intake a few years back and had been watching those limits ever since. Not quite as hawkish as a professional athlete or anything, but I wasn’t all willy-nilly about it anymore either.

  “Thank you, thank you,” the lady singer called from the stage, flush with pleasure at her reception now that the applause had died down. “I’m Maesie May, and this is muh band, the Spotlighters.” She nodded at th
e three guys behind her on bass, keyboard and steel guitar. “See that tip jar there?” She nodded to it, sitting at the front of the stage. “I take requests, so come on up here and be generous by supporting the arts. Thank you, darlin’,” she said to a guy in a cowboy hat who put a twenty in the jar. “What do you want to hear? I’ve got three songs in the queue, and after that, you’re up. What do you want?” He muttered something to her, and her smile never wavered. “That’s a good one. All right. Next up—”

  “She’s good, isn’t she?” I turned back to find the bartender looking past me to Maesie May on the stage.

  “Oh,” I said, a little surprised. “Yeah. I heard her from the street and wanted to hear, uh...more.”

  “Yeah,” the bartender said, nodding. “She draws like that a lot.” She smiled, then nodded to indicate the packed house. “She’s going to be big, I think.”

  “That’s...that’s good,” I said, not really sure what to make of that or what to say back. What did I know about music, after all?

  The bartender must have taken my cue that the conversation was over, or maybe she just had work to do, because she went off to the other end of the bar as I turned my attention back to the stage. The Spotlighters were well into the opening licks of a song I didn’t recognize, and Maesie May’s eyes were closed in concentration, head swaying from side to side on her thin neck in time with the beat.

  I stared around me for a moment, checking the crowd for danger, something I usually did a lot more often. There was no sign of any; everyone was focused on the stage, and there was not a malign-intent face to be seen. Everyone was as enthralled with Maesie May as I was. I settled back on my stool, sweat beading on my cold Sprite, and listened as she started to sing.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Brance

  “Hey. You’re up.”

  Brance slipped off the bar stool and headed for the stage. There was a low hum around him, voices of the crowd all blurring together as he walked. Everything seemed a little louder these days than before, and he grimaced. Then again, though, Nashville was a bigger city than Cody, Wyoming, and the bars here were more crowded, the volume surely louder.

  Every step his cowboy boots clicked, heel down, on the wood dance floor. Tables had been pulled over most of it to accommodate the throbbing crowd. Brance leapt up and took the microphone from the last guy, who seemed reluctant to let it go. He left a sheen of sweat on it, pure nerves given liquid form, and Brance tried not to make a show of wiping it against his pants. The last thing he needed was the mic slipping out of his hands before he could start.

  “My name’s Wayne,” Brance said. No way was he using Brance right now. Not after last night. Disappointing, sure, but maybe he could go back to it someday, when he’d started to make his name and all this craziness was behind him.

  But for now...he’d be Wayne. The dream was still the same for Brance, even though his name was not. “I’m going to be singing Keith Whitley’s ‘I’m No Stranger to the Rain,’” he said, and the bartender nodded to him as the first strains of the song started to leak out over the speakers. Brance closed his eyes, waiting for the moment to come when he’d open his mouth and sing.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Sienna

  “Thank you all,” Maesie May said, waving to the crowd. “Thank you. I’m going to take a fifteen-minute break, but y’all stay right there. Keep your requests coming; just hand them to Bobby up here—” she nodded at her keyboard player “—and we’ll get going again at 7:10. Trust me—y’all ain’t going to want to miss this.” She had a gleam in her eye, and with that, she hopped off stage, her drummer, a big dude in a leather jacket, escorting her through the crowd like a bodyguard.

  “Wow,” the guy next to me said to his date, “she’s amazing. That voice—”

  “Yeah,” his date said, sounding a lot more jaded. “A voice like that in this town? Dime a dozen.”

  “But she’s got, like...an X factor, don’t you think?” The guy sounded utterly dumbstruck that his date couldn’t get on board with his starry-eyed assessment.

  “Sort of,” she said, turning her attention to a vodka-based drink in front of her. The bartender had not been light on the pour, and I stuck a hand under my nose to blot out the smell until she drained it of some of the liquid and the scent, because it was making me want a drink.

  I listened to the excited babble of the patrons as Old Burd’s started to clear in the absence of Maesie May on the stage. Apparently they weren’t going to heed her invocation to hang out, because soon enough you could actually see the exit, and the crowds moving past on the sidewalk again where before it had been too crowded with a slowdown and people lining the outside window to see the Broadway throngs moving by.

  “Awesome work,” the bartender said, and for a second I thought she was talking to me.

  She wasn’t. Maesie May was by my elbow, reaching out and taking up a drink that the bartender had put out for her. I took a long sniff; Cruzan rum, pineapple juice. Super sweet. I felt like I was getting cellulite on my thighs just smelling it.

  “Thanks,” Maesie May said, halfway into it. She took a look at me as she put her drink down, then did a double take. “Hey.”

  “Hey,” I replied. “Nice work up there.”

  “Th—well—um—thanks,” she finally managed to get out. She flushed, cheeks going pure red. “Sorry.”

  I raised an eyebrow at her. “For getting tongue-tied? You don’t have to apologize to me. I wouldn’t suggest doing it up on the stage, though.”

  She let out a weak laugh. “Yeah, that’d be hilarious. Also, the stuff of my nightmares.”

  “Really?” I glanced at the stage, where the keyboard player was taking a song request, presumably, from a girl who looked almost too drunk to stand. “Because getting up there at all? Would be my nightmare.”

  “It’s really not that bad,” Maesie May said. She stuck out her hand. “You are...her, right?”

  “Depends on who you think I am,” I said. “If you mean Trisha Yearwood, then I’m afraid you’re outta luck.”

  She laughed again. “That’s not who I thought you were. The lack of blonde gives that one away.”

  “Then I’m probably who you think I am,” I said, taking a sip of my Sprite. I really wanted it to last the night, so I was taking it easy.

  “Wow, a real superhero,” Maesie said, still flushed, but this time with excitement instead of embarrassment. “In Nashville. That’s so lit.”

  “Let’s hope it doesn’t get actually lit,” I said. “I’m not really prepared to deal with fire anymore.”

  “Hah, you take my slang and turn it around into a literal thing,” Maesie said. “That’s something. Not really sure what.”

  “You’re a hell of a singer,” I said, trying to change the subject. “I was really impressed with what you were doing up there.”

  “That’s high praise.” Now she flushed again, back to embarrassment. It was kind of funny how easily she blushed. “I mean, coming from someone who actually does something worth singing about.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that,” I said. “I don’t think a song about me would be particularly...uh...” I searched for the right word. “Family-friendly?” That wasn’t it. It was accurate, but not quite what I was looking for.

  “I think it could be like one of the epic poems of old,” Maesie said, sparkle in her eye. “Like a Homeric ode, you know? Poetry and song, united?”

  “Probably wouldn’t fit well into the current genres, though,” I said. “I mean, where do you even classify that? Not exactly the ‘Baby Baby’ of modern pop, and unless you’re turning it into a drinking song, I don’t think it would fit well with country. I mean, I don’t even have a pickup truck.”

  She sighed, as though feigning disappointment in me. “There’s more to country than that.”

  “So people keep saying,” I said, taking a sip of my Sprite. “And so I’m starting to maybe hear. A little.”

  “A little?”
She angled her head low, eyes bright and locked on mine. “I’d take that. It’s a start. How long are you in town?”

  I shrugged. “’Til the job gets done.”

  “Oh, oh!” She straightened. “You’re here because of the—” She pointed at the wall of the bar, and it took me a second to realize she was indicating Screamin’ Demons, because she was pointing the wrong way.

  I didn’t correct her. “Yeah,” I said. “Because of that. So when that’s solved, I’m out.”

  “Cool, cool,” she said breezily, picking up her drink. “Well...enjoy the show. You don’t have anywhere you need to be?”

  “Not unless something bad happens,” I said.

  Maesie favored me with a broad smile. “Let’s hope for that, then. But definitely stick around for a minute. My next song’s going out to you.”

  I felt my eyes widen without my intending them to. “Uh, okay. What is that supposed to mean...?”

  She gave me a wink as she made her way back through the crowd. “You’ll see.”

  Maesie took to the stage again in a quick jump up, her drummer trailing along behind her. “Heyyyyy,” she announced once she was up there, waving to us all like it was a ten-thousand-person venue. “I’m back in like five minutes. I know that’s a disappointment for you people who were hoping I’d come back as, like, Kacey Musgraves, but here I am.” She glanced back at the bass player and he nodded, flipping his phone at her. “And wow, thanks for all your support. We’ve got a ton of requests coming up. But first!” She leaned over and whispered something to the bass player, then sat back on her stool, eyes all lit up with mischief that I found very uncomfortable. “I have a song for a very special someone in the audience...”

  I felt a pre-emptive cringe coming on. What song could she possibly sing to me that wouldn’t be absolutely terrible...?