“I’ll check,” said Lark, and went a few doors down the hall to the bathroom. “It’s empty,” she called, and came back down the hall.
“You think she went to a different bathroom?” asked Shane.
“She could be wandering around the house,” said Lark.
“We took a tour of the house last night,” said Tim. “Why would she do that?”
Lark shrugged. “I don’t know. Should we split up and look for her?”
“What’s the rush?” asked Shane. “I’m sure she’ll show up sooner or later.”
“I’m a little worried,” said Tim.
“Fine,” said Shane, sighing. “I’m going to take the rat upstairs to my bedroom. I check out the upstairs while I’m there. You guys check the rest of this wing.” He turned and headed back up the hall.
When he was out of sight, Tim turned on Lark. “I know what you did,” he said.
Lark turned white. “W-what do you mean?”
“To Jimmy. I know what you did to Jimmy.” She’d turned his brother into a shell of himself. Sent him on a one-way track to insanity.
“You don’t understand,” said Lark. “You don’t know what he did to me. I had to do it.”
What he did to her? “What could Jimmy have possibly done to you?”
“He went crazy at the end. He went totally crazy. He hurt me. He beat me and kicked me and once he used a baseball bat, and I couldn’t leave the house for days and—”
“You’re lying!” Tim interrupted. And she was. He knew his brother. Jimmy wasn’t capable of anything like that. He would never have done anything so vile. “You’re a liar, Lark Thomas. And you’re a filthy awful person who destroyed my brother. You talk about him being crazy, but you made him that way. Something about you, Lark, it makes my skin crawl.”
“I want you to leave,” said Lark. “I want you to leave this house, and I don’t want you to ever come back.”
“Not until I keep you and your evil away from Shane Adams,” said Tim. He had her now. She looked frightened. She was backing away from him. Because she knew that he was onto her and that he was the only one who could stop her.
Shane reappeared in the hallway. “Whitney’s not upstairs,” he said as he approached. He looked worried now too. “Where did you say you found that rat again, Tim?”
“Oh, Shane,” said Lark. “Please don’t tell me that you think that—”
“Where’d you find it?” Shane demanded.
“In my room,” said Tim.
“And where was the last place you saw Whitney?”
Tim debated. Should he lie? Was it anyone’s business that he and Whitney had slept together? On the other hand, did it matter if anyone knew? He decided to tell the truth. “Uh, she was in my room.”
“Fuck,” said Shane. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
“Shane, please don’t—” started Lark.
“She’s gone, isn’t she?” Shane demanded. “What other proof do we need?”
“Call Whitney’s phone,” Lark said to Tim. “Maybe she decided to go for a walk or something.”
It actually wasn’t a half-bad idea. Tim had his phone in his pocket. He took it out and selected Whitney from his address book. But the minute the phone started ringing on his end, it also started ringing in the bedroom.
“Okay,” said Lark. “So she left her phone here. It doesn’t prove anything.”
Tim followed the sound of Whitney’s ring tone until he found her phone. He picked it up and hung up his own phone. He looked at Shane and Lark. “What’s going on? What’s the rat got to do with anything?”
“It’s crazy,” said Lark. “It’s just Shane’s crazy theory. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Whitney’s dead,” said Shane. “The ash man took her.”
The who? Tim clutched Whitney’s phone. “You need to start explaining,” he said. “Now.”
* * *
Shane stopped talking, watching the expression on Tim’s face, which was very, very blank. So Shane sounded crazy. He didn’t care anymore. He was right. If these people couldn’t see that, then he had to make them see that, because they were all in danger now. Everything was falling apart now. He knew what was going on, and yet he’d been letting people convince him that he was nuts. He couldn’t let that happen anymore.
It was quiet. They were sitting in the living room. Lark was sitting next to him, her arm wrapped around his arm. Tim sat across from them, his arms folded across his chest. Shane didn’t say anything else. He watched Tim.
Finally, Lark spoke. “So,” she said. “It’s nuts. You know that now, and you can see that hanging out here around Shane who’s acting crazy, is a really stupid idea. So you should probably leave now, don’t you think?”
Shane shot Lark a look. Why did she want Tim to leave? Because he was Jimmy’s brother?
“I can’t leave,” said Tim. “Not without Whitney.”
“Right,” said Lark. “Of course. Well, we’ll have to find her.”
“She’s dead, Lark,” said Shane quietly. “We can’t find her. They’ve never found any of the people who disappeared. They never found your friend, did they?”
Lark pulled away from him, as if he’d stung her.
“And I wish you’d stop saying I was crazy,” said Shane. “I’m not crazy. I’m right. Deep down, you know that.”
Lark didn’t reply.
Shane turned his attention back to Tim. “So you don’t believe me, then?” he asked.
“I don’t want to believe you,” said Tim. “I don’t want Whitney to be dead. I want her to show up at the door and be fine.”
Shane understood that.
“But,” continued Tim. “To be safe, maybe you shouldn’t play anymore.”
“I’m not going to,” said Shane. “Don’t worry about that. And if I stop playing, and all of this stops, then you’ll know I was right.”
“What will you do if you don’t play?” Lark asked him. “Lie around sleeping the way you have been doing?”
Shane shrugged. His happiness wasn’t exactly important compared to people’s lives was it? Besides, he had to get the Entourage off his front lawn before he could figure anything like that out. “If I stop playing,” he asked Lark, “will you leave?”
If she said yes, it wouldn’t mean he’d start playing again. But he wondered.
“Of course not,” said Lark. “I’m not leaving.”
“Maybe,” said Tim, “if she left, things would be better. There’s something wrong with that girl.”
Shane glared at Tim. Not this guy too. “Stop right there,” he said. “Don’t say anything else like that about her. She’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“If you could have seen how much my brother changed after he met her, you’d understand,” said Tim. “And hasn’t your life gotten worse since she showed up? You stopped playing. You’re holed up in your house. You—”
“None of that has anything to do with Lark,” said Shane. “Now, if you don’t like her, you can get the fuck out of my house.”
“Not without Whitney,” Tim countered.
“Whitney’s gone,” said Shane. “You’re just going to have to accept that.”
“You seem awfully sure of that,” said Tim. “Why? Did you do something to her? Did Lark?”
“Stop,” said Lark. “Just stop. Both of you. This isn’t getting us anywhere. Tim, you have Whitney’s phone, right? Why don’t you check her messages? Maybe there’s a clue there.”
That wasn’t going to make any difference, but Shane kept his mouth shut. Let them try to find Whitney if they wanted. They were going to have to accept the truth soon, though. Whitney wasn’t ever coming back.
Tim got out Whitney’s phone and dialed her voicemail. He put it on speakerphone so that they all could hear. There was one message.
“Whitney, it’s Ryan,” it said. “You need to call me. I know you always thought what I did was a little crazy, and you never believed in it. But I did a reading
yesterday, and I see bad things coming. You’re in danger. Bad, bad danger. I told you to let that Shane Adams article go, didn’t I? Please call me before it’s too late. I can help.”
“Who’s Ryan?” said Lark.
“Her ex-boyfriend,” said Tim. “He’s a professional psychic or something.”
“Well,” said Shane. “I think that only proves my point, then, doesn’t it?”
“Shane, don’t be stupid,” said Lark.
“A psychic saw that she was in danger?!” Shane said. “And now she’s missing. Clearly, the guy was right.”
“I don’t believe in psychics,” said Lark.
“Just because you don’t believe in it, doesn’t mean it’s not real,” said Shane.
Chris ran into the room. “We’ve got a problem,” he said.
“What?” said Shane. As if dead Whitney wasn’t bad enough!
“The fans are trying to get into the house,” Chris said.
Chapter Fifteen
Entourage members were at the doors, trying to pick locks. They were trying to open windows on the ground level. Lark ran off to lock all the windows and to double-check that all the doors were locked. The fans had surrounded the house. She thought this was a little strange. She couldn’t believe that the Entourage was acting so intense. Coming to the house was one thing. Trying to get in was something completely different. What did they hope to accomplish once they got inside anyway? Were they going to mob Shane and force him to play or something?
Lark was beginning to feel as though everyone in the world was starting to act completely insane, including herself. For instance, she was beginning to believe Shane was right about the ash man story. Whitney was gone. And there had been a rat in Tim’s room. How had it gotten in there? Unless Whitney really had been killed? Everything seemed to be falling apart and Lark was scared. She wanted to get out of this house. She and Shane could run away somewhere where no one could find them and all of this craziness would just go away.
She even suggested it when she got back to the foyer, where the three guys were waiting. “Shane,” she said, “you’ve got money. Why don’t you just get a helicopter and have it land on your roof and get us the fuck out of here.”
Shane looked at her as if she’d just suggested the silliest thing he’d ever heard of. “I’m not leaving my house,” he said. “Besides, a helicopter can’t land on the roof. It’s not flat. And on top of that, there’s no way for us to get on the roof.”
“We have to call the police,” said Chris. “I think that’s obvious. We do.”
Shane threw up his hands. “Fine,” he said. “Call the police.”
Lark still didn’t like the idea, but she had to admit that things were out of control. She sat down with Shane in the living room while Chris called the police. Tim stayed in the foyer, staring out the window at the fans. He called in to them, “I think they’re about to get violent. They might start breaking windows or something soon. I think some of them have rocks.”
“Fuck,” said Shane.
“How long till the police get here?” Lark asked Chris.
“Fifteen minutes,” said Chris. “Maybe twenty. The guy who took my call sounded pissed off. Not all of the locals are happy about the idea of Shane living here. It causes problems for the town with paparazzi and stuff like this.”
Tim came back into the living room. “I think you’ve got to do something about this, right now,” he said.
“Like what?” asked Lark. “What can we do?” She didn’t want the house broken into. She didn’t want Shane’s windows broken. What were those people thinking? Why were they acting like this?
“Talk to them, Shane,” said Tim.
“How?” asked Shane. “If I go out the door, they’ll mob me.”
“You could go up on the balcony,” said Lark. “Above them.”
Shane considered. “Okay. But you come out with me.”
“I don’t—”
“Please?”
Lark nodded. “Okay.”
Shane stood up. “What do I say?”
“I don’t know,” said Lark.
Chris shook his head.
They all looked at Tim.
“Tell them to calm down,” said Tim. “Tell them you called the police. They’ll listen to you. You’re their idol. Their hero.”
“But they’re trying to vandalize my house right now,” said Shane. “How does that make them like me?”
There was a crash. Shattering glass.
“Fuck,” said Lark.
“You don’t have time to think about it,” said Tim. “Just go.”
Shane grabbed Lark’s hand and dragged her with him up the stairs. There was a balcony off his bedroom, and the two of them made their way across the floor, careful not to step on the rats, to the door. Shane looked at Lark, terror in his eyes. She squeezed his hand in a way she hoped was comforting. And then they went outside.
From the balcony, they could see how many of them there were. Bodies spread out all over the lawn. Vans. Tents. They were crowded around the house. They were yelling. They were crazed. God. What had happened? Lark was horrified. She’d been one of these people. Now, from above, they just looked like a mob. They barely looked like people at all.
Shane led her to the front of the balcony. “Stop!” he yelled.
And, like magic, everyone did. Hundreds of faces turned upwards, their hands going limp at their sides.
“Listen,” said Shane, “I’ve stopped playing music for your own safety. I care about my fans. I’m sure all of you have noticed the number of people who have disappeared on tour.”
In the crowd, Lark saw people nodding.
“The only way I can stop that is to stop playing,” said Shane. “I need all of you to go home.”
A rustle of conversation went through the crowd.
“For your own safety, go home!” he repeated. “I’ve called the police, because this is my home, and you are all trespassing. Please calm down, pack up, and go!”
Lark stood beside Shane, watching the crowd below. Slowly, they began to disperse, talking amongst themselves. They gathered in small packs at vans and tents. There was no immediate danger to the house anymore. She and Shane watched to see if anyone was doing anything that looked like packing. They weren’t. Still. What Shane had done had helped. She thought. She hoped.
They stayed on the balcony until the police showed up. Three police cars. Four officers. They were pathetically outnumbered. But the members of the Entourage didn’t bother them or try to stop them. Instead, they made way for them as they came the door. Shane and Lark went downstairs to greet them.
She, Shane, and the others tried to fill the cops in on the situation as quickly as possible. The cops nodded. One of the policemen, the one who seemed to be in charge, named Officer Rayne, seemed to be thinking. No one, however, was doing anything.
Finally, Rayne started talking. “Listen, Shane,” he said as if the two of them were old friends. Lark realized that for all she knew, they might be. This was a small town and Shane knew a lot of people. “I’m going to level with you. There are way too many people here for us to be able to deal with it. I’ve got all the officers currently on duty with me right now. I could call everybody in, and we still wouldn’t have enough manpower to do much of anything. Now, we could call in the state cops, and we might be able to get as many as fifty cops in here. But there’s no way we could arrest all of them. Some of them would get away, and they might just come back. And I don’t know how we could hold all of them. The facilities around here are just not big enough. If we start arresting these kids, I’m afraid they might get violent. If you’re trying to avoid damage to your property or to your person, I don’t know if we’d be able to protect you.
“I don’t mean to say we can’t help. We’re willing. And I’ll do it if you want me to. What I’d advise is that you put some money behind this. I’m sure you could hire some group or something that could come in here and clean this up way faster
than we can.”
Shane didn’t say anything.
Rayne shrugged and kept talking. “If that’s not an option, here’s what I think we should do for now. Now, Chris said on the phone that they were trying to get inside the house, but they don’t seem to be doing that anymore.”
“I talked to them,” said Shane. “They seemed to calm down a little bit. I told them to leave.”
“Well,” said Rayne, “maybe they will. I can put a couple guys here at the front door. Maybe the police presence will scare them. I really think that these kids are just upset about the tour being cancelled, and they’ll get bored soon and start leaving. Maybe we just give it a couple days.”
Lark looked at Shane. She wanted to believe that Officer Rayne was right. She didn’t like the idea of her old friends being carted off handcuffed and thrown in jail. But as a solution, it wasn’t much of one, was it?
“I don’t know,” said Shane.
“Has there been any damage?” asked Rayne.
“No,” said Shane.
“I think a window broke,” said Chris. “On the upper level. I think someone threw a rock.”
“Well,” said Rayne, “that’s vandalism, and I can call in the staties right now if you want.”
“No,” said Shane. “They seem calm now. And maybe they’ll leave. Let’s give them a day or two, I guess. And, um, then maybe we should look into hiring people.”
“I don’t like them being here at all,” said Chris.
“These are our fans,” said Shane. “We piss them off and our record sales plummet, and I was planning on living off those royalties for some time.” He smiled as if he’d made a really funny joke.
“Whatever,” said Chris. “But I don’t like it.”
“Why don’t you just go home then?” asked Shane.
“Are you kidding?” said Chris. “I’m not going out there. God knows what they’d do to me.”
“I think your plan sounds like a good one,” said Shane to Rayne. “A couple cars here would be great. And I’ll be in touch.”
* * *
Late that night, Lark sat in the foyer, looking out the window at the campfires of the Entourage. The fans were staying back, away from the police, and it seemed like everything was going okay. At least for now. She was nervous, however. Shane’s house didn’t feel safe. And she definitely didn’t like Tim lurking around. He said that he knew—
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