Kayla shrugged. “She stayed in her room a lot too, though. I remember thinking she was acting like a hermit. Sometimes she came to dinner with us, but she was usually jumpy, never relaxed. We’d talk about it, the other dancers and me, because she’d changed so much…but we attributed it to the shows, you know-late nights, not always able to eat right, and then of course,” she glanced at Josh, “the breakup with Josh. She was miserable. All summer. Not mean, just sad and quiet.”
“She never talked to anyone? Became friends with anyone? Or dated anyone?” Maggie asked. She wasn’t the type to beat around the bush. And she was filled with sorrow that Jessie suffered alone all summer.
Kayla shook her head. “No. Not that I could see. She sat with Dee most of the time when we were travelling or at meals. If anyone knows anything, it’s likely Dee.”
“All right,” Charlie said. “We know this all started in early June anyway. Before Drifters wrapped. Let’s talk about those last few weeks.”
They discussed life on set and didn’t find anything unusual there. Every grip and electric was thoroughly talked about; everybody was a suspect. But no crew had changed, everyone was well liked…there wasn’t anyone on set they felt could possibly be someone Jessie was afraid of, who’d hurt her so badly. It wasn’t lost on Josh or anyone at the table that day that they’d all readily believed he was capable of doing what they thought others could not.
Stephen spoke up. “We spent a lot of time together on weekends, too.”
Charlie looked pained for a moment. So much time lost with Jessie…time that the others had shared with her. “Doing what?”
“Having coffee here…,” Sue-Lyn offered.
Carter added, “Going out to eat.”
“Cooking meals at someone’s place, going to shows, theatre, ballet…hanging out at your club,” Maggie reminded them. “Whatever was on the go. We went out a lot, all of us.”
Charlie looked at Josh. “What about the two of you? Doesn’t sound like you spent much time alone together.”
Josh shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Not nearly enough.”
Silence.
Then, from Stephen, “We did a lot of Motocross in the spring. Just taking the bikes out to Agassiz, taking some lessons, riding around, practicing. Most of the time the whole gang went. Depended on Jessie’s rehearsal schedules with the dance company and that, but she was often with us.”
Matt interjected again. “Did she ever talk to anyone unusual? Anyone who struck you as strange or who didn’t fit in wherever you were? Or maybe someone who did fit in but who seemed to always show up?”
They all stopped and thought for a moment. Nobody came to mind. They were just a happy-go-lucky group, an ensemble cast from a hit television drama who enjoyed each other’s company. They hadn’t really ever taken the time to study their surroundings, or the people in them, in any great detail.
“What about pictures? Photographs? Are any of you into taking snapshots?”
Everyone looked at Maggie. She was the one who always insisted on snapping pics. She held up her iPhone. “Just on this little thing,” she said. “Not like they’re professional shots or anything.”
“Go back to the time when you think all of this started, when this stalker may have first approached Jessie. She said it started before your show wrapped. Where might you have been and what kind of shots might you have taken?”
Maggie nodded and started thumbing through her pictures.
He looked at Josh. “Think about when her behavior changed. You said it was sudden. What clues did she give you? What might she have said that was unusual, that might have conveyed what was suddenly happening?”
Thoughtfully, Josh leaned forward, rested his elbows on his thighs and clasped his hands, and then looked at Steve. His friend’s eyes were on fire. He was hurt. But, thanks mostly to Jonathon’s recent birthday party, the boys both thought the same thing at the same time. Steve stared intently at Josh. “She spoke through songs.”
Nodding in affirmation, Josh sat back, still looking at his friend. So, Steve had gotten the message loud and clear too, on Sunday. He was glad that someone else understood, even if it resulted in an estranged friendship. He tensed at the way Steve was glowering at him. Josh was getting tired of being the recipient of angry stares.
“What the fuck, Steve?” he said quietly, one arm now on the back of his chair.
Steve shrugged, but his glare didn’t waver from Josh’s eyes. “You haven’t been with her in months.”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means whatever you want it to mean. To me it means that Jessie’s single and available.”
Josh’s eyebrows rose quizzically but at the risk of keeping some semblance of peace he didn’t say what immediately came to mind, which was and you were single and available? He thought of the sweet Sophie, and his heart cracked a little further.
“Lonely, you mean,” he finally said, dismissing the urge to crack a knuckle on Steve’s forehead.
“Hell, yeah! Someone’s been terrorizing her. She almost died. I guess lonely could enter into it.” A loud screech echoed across the patio stones as Steve stood and towered above the rest, his hands fisted at his sides. Slowly, Josh rose as well, as did Carter and Matt. Charlie sat back, amused.
“Look, Steve, I don’t know what the hell happened between you and Jessie, and to tell you the truth I don’t think I want to know. But if you were there for her, then I’m grateful. If you fell for her, then that sucks because she’s got some kind of wall built up between her and the rest of the world these days. She’s not letting anybody in. Least of all me, so you can stop looking at me like you want to tear my eyes out.”
Steve’s voice got deathly quiet. “For all I know she’s still running from you, you bastard.”
Josh put his hands up in front of him, palms facing Steve, and shook his head. “Look, just chill, man. Let’s just sit down and sort this thing out. Jessie could be in a lot of trouble, and us fighting over her isn’t going to help her. And I don’t want to fight you, Steve. Not today.”
Maggie reached up and took Steve’s hand. She was witness to how close he and Jessie became during the singer’s hospitalization. She was pissed at Jessie for pulling him in, in fact. They all liked Sophie and were sorry to see that relationship end for someone whose behavior was as erratic and tenuous as Jessie’s, lately. Maggie gestured for Steve to sit but he had one last thing to say.
He pointed a finger at Josh. “I get that you loved her, man. That you still do.”
Josh felt tears prick the corners of his eyes. Well, that wasn’t news. He held his ground.
“But just so you know, when she comes back to us you’re going to have a fight on your hands. Because you don’t have the only all access pass to Jessie Wheeler, Sawyer. Yeah, so she sang you a fucking song. What the hell is that? She’s a singer, a poet. She sings about love. She’s sorry that you got messed up in this thing. I get that. But just so you know, you’re not the only one who has loved her all this time. Maybe I loved her too.”
With a lightning quick movement, he shoved Josh backwards so hard that Jessie’s ex almost lost his balance and fell. Matt grabbed Josh and steadied him.
Josh was cool in his response. He knew Jessie’s power better than anyone. He waited a few moments while he composed his thoughts. Then he said evenly, “Name one man at this table who hasn’t loved her, Steve.”
Steve took this in, and then looked down at Charlie. He’d almost forgotten he was there. Subdued by that thought, Charlie stood and took Stephen’s hand, pumping it profusely. “Welcome to the club, mate.”
Carter raised his hand. “Okay, so she’s pretty hot, but she’s not everyone’s cup of tea, Sawyer. She’s too, y’know, artsy and flighty for me. Too fuckin’ deep, man. Artists are cursed.”
Christian and Paul looked at each other.
“She’s amazing, but not for me either, bro,” said Christian, grinning as he thought about
what Jessie would think of this weird conversation. “Just a music partner, that’s all.”
Kayla raised her eyebrows at Paul. He bowed to her and then squeezed her hand. “I’m happy with my girl.”
Matt didn’t respond, and instead gestured to Josh to sit. He adored Jessie, but not in the way Steve was referring to. But he would jump in front of a truck for her. He figured rightly that all of the men assembled there would do the same.
Soon after, the tension eased when Steve sat too. But for some unfathomable reason, Josh felt this wouldn’t be the end of the discussion.
Matt brought them back to the table. “So, we know she communicates through her songs. What has she written over the summer that’s new?”
Everyone looked at Josh. But it was Christian who spoke up.
“Saturday, after we worked out the new song, I asked her what it meant.”
He explained it as best he could, trying to remember what Jessie had said. “I can’t remember all of the lyrics,” he said. “But it sounded to me like a goodbye song.”
As they reflected on that, Maggie suddenly remembered the paper Jessie gave her just before she slipped away. It was lyrics from the song currently under discussion. Maggie had thrust it into her purse at the time, vaguely wondering why Jessie made the gesture. It was the first time she was aware of that Jessie ever gave the lyrics to a new song to anyone. She dug in her purse and triumphantly held it up.
“The song,” she said. “Lyrics, I mean.”
She spread it out on the table and read the words. She raised her eyebrows and looked up at Josh. “There’s more,” she said. “She’s added a quote that she says is something of John Lennon’s. “Love is a promise, love is a souvenir. Once given, never forgotten, never let it disappear.”
When she was done, they pondered the words. Steve tried to stay calm and force his mind on the task at hand, but it was hard. Clearly she loved Josh. Clearly. But he would fight for her. Josh just hung his head, disconsolate. Why couldn’t he have been there all along? To love her and to help her through the hell of the past few months? Would they ever be together again? Why send him these cryptic messages and then disappear? Her words, the message of a ghost, only served to drive the dagger in deeper.
It was Sue-Lyn who raised the question about the lost in dust part of the lyrics. “Lost in dust? Like…being dead? Ashes to ashes, that sort of thing? Like…the end of a relationship?” She flicked a sideways glance at Josh and mouthed sorry before adding, “Or is she talking about dust in the literal sense…?”
Carter fingered a phrase on the paper and then wrapped his arm around Sue-Lyn. “It says memories before that. Memories are in the past, not the future, you dolt.” She elbowed him.
“When would we have been lost in dust, then?” Maggie asked. “Or Josh and Jessie. Did you guys take weird spa treatments the rest of us weren’t aware of?”
Josh stared hard at her, and then looked suddenly over at Steve, his eyes widening. It only took Steve a second to catch on. He straightened.
At the same time, the boys said, “Agassiz.”
“That last time we were there, that’s definitely the night the shit started,” Josh said. “Remember? At the restaurant. She said she was sick and she went to the restroom, then she and I left early. I took her home because all of a sudden she wasn’t feeling well. I asked her about it more than once, about what the hell happened that day, did she get some weird text or something? But…nothing. She wouldn’t talk.” He didn’t add and after we made love that night she told me she would love me always and forever, no matter what happened. She held my face in her hands and told me to always remember that.
“But nothing happened at Agassiz,” Steve said, reflecting on the day. “She was fine the whole day, and on the ride back into the city.”
“She was fine at the restaurant until just before the food came,” Sue-Lyn chimed in.
Carter was staring at Maggie’s iPhone. She’d stopped looking at photos and had set it down next to her empty coffee mug. He looked up at Charlie, who was leaning thoughtfully on one elbow as he took in the discussion.
“We were looking at photos then, of Steve and Josh learning the freestyle stuff, mostly, and of Sue-Lyn and Maggie horsing around by the bear sign. Remember?”
Maggie’s hand shot out. She grabbed the iPhone and scrolled through the pictures from that dusty day at the motocross park. “There are lots of the boys on the bikes, a few of us girls messing around, in the stands and stuff…a couple of group shots we got one of the locals to take just before we left. A sweet one of Josh and Jessie holding hands…” She glanced at Steve and then Josh. “Sorry.”
As she handed the phone around, everyone shook his or her head. Nothing untoward jumped out at any of them.
“What about these background people?” Charlie asked.
Steve shrugged. “Just locals. They were friendly, for the most part. Jessie wasn’t scared of any of them, I don’t think.”
Matt had the phone now. He scrolled through the pictures slowly, pausing at each to carefully look deeply both inside and outside the frames. What might be on the perimeter of each shot? Who was in each shot? He was careful to look past the main subjects of each. At the group photo, his sharp intake of breath stopped all conversation.
He stared at the worried faces around the table, and then held up the phone with a look of utter consternation.
“Here’s one guy who is definitely not a local,” he said with dismay. He handed the phone to Charlie. “Behind Josh. The guy waving at the photographer.”
Maggie spoke up. “Locals were always trying to get in our pics. We thought it was cute.”
“This guy was trying to make a point, Maggie,” Matt said.
“You recognize him,” determined Charlie.
Steve and Josh eyed each other warily. Maybe once and for all Josh’s innocence would become accepted fact.
Matt sat back and pulled his own cell phone out of the breast pocket of his blazer. He had to call Charles right away.
“A year ago in June, the day Jessie left for the East Coast, Charles and I took a trip to Charleston to look into the man Jessie used to work for, a guy by the name of Deuce McCall.” He nodded at Josh. “She’d asked Josh to get Charles to check into a man in a blue trench coat. It seemed she suspected that this McCall might be that man. The one who dropped Terri off at the crack house the night she died.”
A cold chill swept across the patio. Everyone shivered. Paul drew Kayla closer, and Sue-Lyn snuggled into Carter.
He continued. “She told Charles one night when they were recording that nobody could stop McCall, that it was impossible. He told her we went there, to McCall’s restaurant and lounge in Charleston, the Renegade, the one Jessie made famous because she played there as a teen. I checked him out. He was clean, a respected businessman.”
Charlie passed the phone around.
Matt went on, “We checked him out again over the summer, and took another look at him after Jessie got hurt. It was like we couldn’t let him go. But there was nothing on him. He has alibis up the yin-yang. The guy is squeaky clean.”
He got up to go call Charles. “But there he is, in living color, a few feet behind Josh, at Agassiz. Showing Jessie how close he can get to him. Waving to the camera, cocky bastard. We’ve long thought he might have something to do with Jessie’s messed up summer. I think we have our stalker.”
He walked away, signaling to Dan a few tables away to be extra vigilant, to keep a good eye on the group sharing a table on the café’s patio.
“Maybe we’ll finally find out what happened in Charleston,” Josh said quietly. “Although, for the second time today, let me just add that I’m not sure I want to know.”
Kayla reached out and wrapped her big brother’s hand in hers. Charlie concentrated on putting the laptop away as the others gathered empty mugs and shoved back their chairs.
It was a subdued group that left Rebel on a Mountain Coffee that day. Yet, finally, fi
nally, they had a place to start looking.
***
Chapter Twenty-Four
Two weeks later, on a morning which broke as misty and grey as the muzzled feelings of the close circle of people Jessie left behind, Josh tensed at the muffled purring engine of a sports car as it drew to a halt nearby. He was working on his Harley in the garage as Dan patiently monitored the immediate environment from his own indigo blue Mercedes at the end of the driveway. Outside, Stephen slipped out of his Audi TT and waved casually to Dan before walking over to the security guy’s driver’s side window and offering him a take-out drip coffee.
Dan punched a finger on the window control button and fresh cool air breezed in as it opened, reigniting his senses and awakening him from an overwhelming desire to nod off.
“Geez, man, don’t you get bored?”
“If you mean do I want this to end, yes, I do,” Dan growled, the tedium leaking through his generally calm demeanor. “I’m sure Josh does, too. But it’s my job, Steve. It’s what I do. I keep people safe.”
He was also trying to express confidence. He knew that the Drifters cast had been badly shaken up when Jessie ended up in the hospital. After figuring out just who had been the source of Jessie’s fear all summer, they were doubly terrified. Was he working alone? Maybe not, if he had alibis. Was Jessie alive or dead? Would McCall strike at Josh? At them? No wonder they were scared. They were living on a thin wire stretched tautly across their lives like a guitar string that could snap with the wrong note. Deuce McCall was likely a psychopath. If indeed it was he that was terrorizing Jessie, then he was a man who could not be reasoned with, and that was the worst kind of aggressor.
Steve sauntered up the driveway, a second take-out cup in his hand. Inside the garage there was a warm slight orange glow that bled into the driveway. It lent a surreal luminosity to the mist surrounding the building, as if Josh were encased in more than just Dan’s protection that day, as if it were the radiance of spirits that entombed him within, daring any foe to step closer, to take to task the supernatural universe and its power to caress and to save. Perhaps Jessie was there, in spirit, among the legions of the immortal ones. They didn’t know if she was alive or dead, although there was no evidence of Deuce McCall or any other uninvited guest in the washroom from where she’d silently disappeared that strange Sunday. All they found was a tiny sliver of silk on a brick on the exterior wall of Jonathon’s house, a sea-blue reminder that she was once there, and that she drifted away without saying goodbye, except in song.
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