Strings

by Emma Lea

  “Sister mine,” he said as he crossed the room and sat opposite her.

  “Oh no you don’t,” she said giving him a narrow-eyed gaze. “You can’t try and charm me with your cute nicknames. I’m pissed Gabe. Well and truly pissed.”

  “I know,” he said with a sigh, “and I’m sorry for what it’s worth.”

  She crossed her arms and harrumphed, turning her head so she didn’t have to look at him. Amaya did pissed off like nobody’s business.

  “Not that I’m making excuses, but there were extenuating circumstances.”

  She raised an eyebrow but didn’t turn to look at him.

  “I’m in love with her,” he said. There was no pleading or persuasion in his tone. He stated the fact just as it was without embellishment.

  “Oh Gabe,” she said, turning back to him, her face draw down. “You’re in love with her?”

  He shrugged. “I am and she loves me too.”

  Amaya shook her head slowly. “No,” she said, “I won’t have it. Anyone, Gabe. Anyone but her.”

  He felt the protectiveness and possessiveness rise up in him. Unfamiliar, foreign feelings but nonetheless strong. “What is it exactly that you have against her? You haven’t even met her.”

  “I don’t need to meet her to know that she is bad for you. She has you wrapped around her finger. She is manipulating you just like Jeanie did. You have a soft heart Gabe and you gravitate to women who need rescuing. That’s not love, Gabe.”

  “How would you know?” he spat at her. “You won’t let your guard down long enough to even experience the feeling of connecting with someone. How would you know what love is and what it isn’t?”

  A flash of hurt crossed her face, but she controlled it quickly. “I know what love is,” she said softly.

  Gabe blew out a breath and reined his temper in. “That’s not what I came in here to discuss,” he said. “I need to go down to the police station to talk to Detective Ramirez about Jeanie.”

  “They’ve found her?”

  “Not exactly. They know she is in town but they don’t know where.”

  Amaya deflated, slumping back against her chair. “She’s here.”

  Gabe nodded.

  “She wants you.”

  Gabe nodded again.

  Amaya turned panic stricken eyes on him. “You need to leave,” she said. “You need to get out, now, before she does something.”

  “No, Amaya—”

  “Gabe! Jeanie almost killed you last time. I refuse to let her get anywhere near you again. You need to get out of town. Go to California or better yet, go to Canada.”

  Gabe took a deep breath and tried to project calm towards his sister. “It’s too late for that and you know it. She has probably been here for months. She would already have found me and is probably spying on me. Whatever her plan is, it is probably already in motion. Leaving now won’t stop it. She will just follow me and then I won’t have the protection of the police or the support of my network.”

  “But she doesn’t have you yet,” Amaya said. “Until she actually catches you, you can still run.”

  “I am sick and tired of having this hang over my head waiting for the day that it drops. I want to deal with this head on once and for all. I can’t keep living my life this way. I refuse to run.”

  “But she could hurt you,” Amaya said quietly. “I can’t let that happen.”

  Gabe leant across the desk that separated them and grasped Amaya’s hand. “It’ll be okay, sister mine,” he said. “It will be okay.”

  It was late by the time Gabe left the police station. As he thought, he wasn’t able to add anything to what Detective Ramirez already knew and speaking to the detective had pretty much been a waste of time. He had told them all the same things when they arrested Jeanie the first time and then he told them again when she was facing her parole hearing. The problem was that she didn’t look like someone capable of violence. She looked like the girl-next-door, someone you could trust.

  Gabe had trusted her. He had believed all her lies. It was the one thing he couldn’t let himself off the hook over. He was supposed to be a master of reading other people, that’s what his job was all about. He was supposed to know when someone was lying to him or concealing the truth. But she had fooled him completely and it had taken him months to trust himself and his gut instincts again. It was a shitty day when he couldn’t even trust himself and that was how he felt after everything had gone down with Jeanie.

  She had come to him because she was spiraling in cycle of anxiety and depression - or that’s what she told him. Her story had been convincing. A close friend of hers had died, cancer. She had helped nurse her friend, taking over her palliative care when she wanted to leave hospital so she could die at home. She had been there when her friend had died. Had held her in her arms as she breathed her last breath. Her grief had been palpable, which made it even more devastating to find out that none of it was true. She had made the whole thing up just so she could have an excuse to get close to him.

  That had come out in her trial and yet still people had a hard time believing what she was capable of. It pissed him off, but what pissed him off more was that he couldn’t blame them. When Jeanie assumed a role, she assumed it so completely that even she believed her own bullshit. It was what made her so fucking dangerous. She was delusional. There was no reasoning with someone if they believed what they were doing/saying/behaving was the truth.

  She had called him in the middle of the night. She had been crying and was threatening to kill herself. He had believed her. He had swallowed every word out of her mouth hook, line, and sinker. He had rushed to her to try and save her, to talk her out of taking her own life. He had found her in her apartment holding a syringe of something that he couldn’t identify. She was a wreck. She had been crying and her mascara had run down her face, giving her the look of someone at the very end of their tether. He had tried to talk to her and at first she hadn’t been responsive. He remembered the feeling of hopelessness and helplessness he felt when he thought he had failed her. Then she had shifted and he thought she wanted his comfort, that maybe his words had gotten through to her. Only it had been an elaborate trap and as he opened his arms to hug her, she injected him with what he found out later was a date rape drug.

  Everything she had told him had been a lie and an attempt to get close to him. How he had come across her radar he didn’t think he would ever know, but he had and she had been single-minded in her pursuit of him. He had been blind to it. He’d had no idea that every word out of her mouth had been false. She had so convinced him that when he woke up in hospital he still pleaded her case. That was until he found out the truth of what had been going on. Amaya had been the one to find him. They had a policy to let someone else know where they were going if they ever had a patient who was spiraling like he had thought Jeanie was. Before he had gone to her, he had called Amaya and told her what he was doing and where he would be. When he hadn’t come home or called in, she had alerted the police. The police had caught up with Jeanie as she was trying to drive his unconscious ass out of the state.

  If they hadn’t found them when they had, Gabe would have died. The drug she had given him was strong and she had given him too much, and he still had no idea what she had planned to do with him. The police had never found out just what her destination was. She told them she had no plan but he didn’t believe her. She had planned every detail of their every meeting. There was no way she didn’t have a place prepared and an airtight plan in place once she had taken him to wherever they had been headed. The police believed her and not him.

  She pleaded temporary insanity. She told the court, with tears streaming down her face, that she had been planning on killing herself that night but when Gabe had come to her rescue she decided to kidnap him instead. She told them it was the desperate actions of a desperate woman. She told them that Gabe had taken such good care of her in her therapy and then coming to her when he thought she was in d
anger that she had fallen in love with him. She spun a story about a desperate young woman who had never had anyone she could rely on until he had come into her life. She told them she hadn’t really understood what she was doing only that she was desperate enough to do anything she could to keep him in her life.

  It had all been a crock of shit.

  The jury had believed her. Every. Single. Fucking. Word.

  She had been charged and tried and sentenced to a low-security prison that was little more than a hospital. And there she had managed to hoodwink everyone again. They all thought she was just a misunderstood woman with a broken heart. She was a whole lot more than that and a whole lot more dangerous.

  Gabe came out of his musings and looked up to find himself outside Nadine’s coffee shop. He couldn’t remember walking there, but there he was and he really could do with seeing Nadine and holding her in his arms. She soothed something in him and with the way he was feeling right now, he could do with some soothing.

  He walked through the door and looked around. The place was practically empty and they looked to be closing up. The tables were empty and only two waitresses were left and they didn’t look happy to have a last minute customer. He approached the counter thinking that if Nadine wasn’t here then maybe he could talk to her friend Mandy.

  “We’re closing,” the waitress said as he stopped in front of her.

  “I can see that,” he said, trying a smile to see if she would lose the scowl. “I was just wondering if Mandy was working tonight.”

  “Who?”

  “Mandy,” he repeated.

  The girl looked to the other waitress who shrugged and then went back to her mopping.

  “I don’t know anyone called Mandy.”

  “There’s not a waitress here named Mandy?” he asked, puzzled.

  The girl shook her head.

  “Are you sure?” Gabe asked and was rewarded with an eye roll. “My mistake,” he said with another smile, “it must be another cafe.”

  He turned and walked out a little niggle of worry burrowing in his mind.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The silence in the room was deafening. Not a great thing considering they were musicians who should be making a lot of noise as they worked on the final song for their album. The problem was that every song they tried just didn’t seem to work with the rest of the songs. Not that all the songs they tried weren’t good, just that they were wrong for this album.

  Nadine had kept to herself and let Jace and Stevie work it out. No one had said anything to her about her meeting with Derek but it was pretty clear they all knew. They had barely said a word to her in the hours that they had been in the studio. She would have preferred it if they had yelled at her. She hated this fake peace they had going on. It made her want to do or say something to push everyone’s buttons. She refrained because she was trying to be more mature, but it was a close thing. The longer the silent treatment went on the more the urge grew. She was almost at the tipping point when Vanessa spoke.

  “Nadine has a song.”

  Nadine got really still. She felt like everything in her body froze as the others turned to look at her.

  “What?” Jace asked, disbelief plain in his voice. Typical. Of course Jace wouldn’t believe that she had anything worthwhile to contribute.

  “Nadine wrote a song and it’s amazing,” Vanessa said, completely ignoring Nadine’s attempts to communicate with her telepathically. Normally Vanessa knew what she was thinking, but it seemed that their estrangement had damaged their ability read each other’s minds. That, or Vanessa was ignoring her.

  “Really?” Stevie asked and Nadine expected to hear scorn or ridicule in her tone but instead heard excitement and eagerness. Huh.

  “Show them, Nadine,” Vanessa insisted and Nadine wondered what the hell had gotten into her sister. Vanessa never spoke up. She never challenged anyone. Why had she chosen now to assert some initiative?

  Nadine shook her head. “No, I don’t think so—”

  “Come on,” Stevie said, walking over to where she was slumped on the couch. “Let me see it.”

  Nadine shot daggers at Vanessa who appeared to find something on her drum kit that needed her undivided attention.

  “Please?” Stevie asked again, sitting beside Nadine and looking at her with those sad puppy dog eyes that usually made everyone do anything for her.

  Nadine sighed and swore under her breath. Now that the cat was out of the bag there was no way that they would let it go without seeing it. She shot Vanessa another hostile glare, which she ignored, and dug into her bag. Nadine pulled out her notebook and handed it to Stevie, open at the page with the finished song.

  Stevie took a moment to read through it and then she got up and moved over to the piano. She sat and picked out a few chords before she began to sing. It was the first time Nadine had heard the song sung aloud. Up until now the music had only been in her head. It was kind of amazing to hear Stevie sing it. And Vanessa was right. It would fit with the rest of their album.

  Stevie finished the song and the room fell silent as they all looked at her. Nadine tried not to squirm under their scrutiny but she couldn’t help it. There was expectation in that gaze.

  “Play it again,” Jace said.

  Stevie started from the top again. Jace closed his eyes and picked out the bass line on his guitar. Nadine’s fingers itched to pick up her violin and fill the song out with the melody that played in her head. Vanessa watched her, silently willing her to do it. But she couldn’t. Not yet.

  The song finished and Jace spoke. “Again,” he said.

  Stevie started at the top again and this time Jace’s bass line was more pronounced and Vanessa added a snare and hi hat to the mix, filling the song out even more. Nadine couldn’t hold back and stood, lifting her violin to her chin and touching the bow to the strings. She closed her eyes and played. She lost herself in the song, in the words that she had written and the music that was coming alive before her eyes. It sounded even better than she had imagined. They played it again, this time with a guitar added to the mix. Nadine opened her eyes to see Nate with his Gibson on his lap. She had no idea where he came from, but she appreciated his willingness to play studio musician and help bring her song alive.

  A lump formed in her throat practically choking her and she swallowed painfully around it. She could hardly believe that the music they were making was music she had written. Music that had been only ever in her head before. Now here it was, outside her body. She wondered if this was how new mothers felt when they saw their baby for the first time. It was a surreal moment, almost like it was too good to be true.

  The song ended and no one spoke as the sound slowly faded. Nadine couldn’t look at anyone. She was too afraid that they didn’t like it, that they hadn’t heard it the same way she had.

  Stevie was the first one to speak. “Nadine,” she said and then stopped and waited for Nadine to look at her. Reluctantly, Nadine raised her eyes and met Stevie’s. They were wet and Nadine forced her own tears back in her head. The last thing she needed was to look weak in front of them. “Nadine,” Stevie said again, this time her voice was husky with emotion. “That song is amazing.”

  Nadine felt her cheeks flush and dropped her head, not wanting the others to see just how much she had needed to hear Stevie’s words.

  “I told you,” Vanessa said and Nadine couldn’t help the surprised chuckle that burst out of her mouth.

  They were in the control booth listening to the playback with Derek. Nadine couldn’t sit still. Not only was it her song that they were listening to but it was also her singing. Stevie had suggested it on their last take. Hearing her voice come through the speakers was weird and she kept shooting glances at Derek to see what he thought, but the man’s face was impassive, giving nothing away. She couldn’t even look at Jace and if she looked at Vanessa she just might burst into tears. What she really wanted was for Gabe to be here and to be able to burrow into his chest with
his arms around her, holding her tight as she waited for the judgment from Derek.

  The song ended and she held her breath. Derek turned to Stevie, giving her a grin. He pointed his finger at her.

  “Yes,” he said. “That’s the one.”

  Stevie smiled at him. “Yeah?”

  Derek nodded. “Yeah.”

  Nadine felt the air go out of her as she sagged against the wall.

  “This is good,” he said. “Great. You did good Stevie.”

  “Not me,” Stevie said and Derek looked at Jace and raised an eyebrow. Jace shook his head.

  It was only then that Derek raised his eyes to her. He hadn’t said much to her when he’d come in to listen to the playback. She figured he was still mad at her for trying to leave the band and break the contract. Now when he looked at her there was something in his eyes that she couldn’t read. Derek had always been a friend long before he had become her boss. He was always quick with a smile and his big booming laughter could usually be heard somewhere in the studio. But now there was a tension in him that Nadine had never noticed before and she couldn’t help but think that it was there because of her. She was the reason that he smiled less and that his laugh had not been heard for a long time…like six months.

  She squirmed under his unwavering gaze. She would have been happy for Stevie to take the credit…okay, not really, but she would have preferred it to this feeling of being examined under a microscope.

  “You wrote this?” he asked.

  Nadine nodded slowly, warily.

  “And that’s your voice taking lead?”

  She nodded again and tried to not to make any sudden moves. She didn’t know where this was headed. Was he going to retract his approval of the song because it was her work? Anything was possible and if she was truthful, she probably deserved it. Derek had gone out on a limb with Court’n Jacks. He had backed them when they were unknowns. He had signed them to his brand new baby record company before they had even proven their worth to him and then she had gone and ruined it all by fucking up their first tour.