by Brooklyn Ann
Cliff and Rod were just finishing up some toaster strudels and rising from the table, looking ready to face the day, though Cliff looked a little pale and red-eyed. Kat’s stomach sank a little as she realized Klement was nowhere in sight. Then her lips curved in a rueful smile. At least she’d mastered sleeping in like a rock star.
Roderick approached as she was pouring coffee. “We’re going to go pick up Cliff’s car and check out the shops downtown. Want to come along?”
Kat shook her head. After hanging out at the club last night, she had no desire to go out in public again so soon. Something about her anxiety issues made too much socializing difficult. And: “Thanks, but I gotta help Klement with my car. We still have to wrestle the tank back in and hook up the hoses.”
Cliff laughed. “Don’t count on doing that anytime soon. He’ll be tapping away on his keyboard for at least another two hours—if you’re lucky.”
“That’s fine,” Kat said. “I have my own computer work to do today anyway.”
Taking her coffee back to her room, she paused in the hall and smiled at the rapid clackety-clack of Klement’s keyboard and the soft mutters coming from his office. He talked to himself when he was working? That was so cute. But she couldn’t discern a word because he rattled off whatever he was saying as fast as an auctioneer.
Kat took a sip of coffee and set it on the desk in her room, fired up her laptop and logged on to the admin section of her website. She still needed to call IT Guy and run the update. It was odd that he hadn’t answered the phone when she’d tried to call him last night, even more strange that he hadn’t called her back or shot her a quick message; he’d always responded quickly to any question or concern before this. A tinge of worry gnawed at her gut. Hopefully he was okay.
Grabbing her phone, she began to dial his number…and cursed when the screen remained black. Between working on the car and then the new song, and then going out to the bar, she’d forgotten to charge the damn thing.
Kat plugged her phone in and seethed with impatience. Rod and Cliff would only be gone for about another hour, and she wanted all the alone time with Klement that she could get. She smiled as she listened to the clattering of his keyboard and his muttering down the hall. It would probably be best if she closed her door, but one of the cats had nudged it open and was weaving through her ankles with a heavy purr. Geddy. It was new for him to approach her. He’d been too shy before. Now he was letting her scratch him between the ears.
Sitting back down at her laptop, she started composing an email to IT Guy to see if he wanted to schedule a call. She hoped he didn’t do that text-chat thing again. She preferred to hear his voice, especially since she was nervous as hell over Thrashfest and Kinley wasn’t available to comfort her. Kat would die before she told IT Guy about her feelings for the bass player, but he could be a good sounding board for her anxieties about her first time on stage with Bleeding Vengeance.
Leaning back in her chair, she sighed. How pathetic was she to rely on a tech support dude for comfort? Well, pathetic or not, he was all she had to turn to. She drummed her fingers on the arm of the comfy office chair Klement had put in her guest room. Besides, they’d known each other for years. Surely it was natural for a friendship to have developed.
Oh, and they did need to get that software update done.
Before she clicked send on the email, her gaze alit on an icon at the corner of her screen—an icon that had always been there but she’d never paid any attention to. Google Dialer. She could just freakin’ call him from her laptop! Why the hell hadn’t she thought of it before? She was just about to get up from her chair to close the door to the bedroom when Geddy jumped up on her lap. Kat smiled and scratched his ears. Oh well, she’d just have to talk quietly.
She dialed IT Guy’s number from memory. The screen telephone icon turned from red to green.
She waited. Some techno tune played faintly down the hall. Kat recognized it as an old video game theme. On her screen, just like on a cell phone, a little time-ticker counted the seconds. This software was working, but she didn’t hear any ringing. Maybe Google Dialer didn’t make a ringing sound.
“Alpha Tech Services, how can I help you?”
IT Guy’s voice hadn’t come from her laptop. It came from Klement’s office.
“Alpha Tech Services—”
The cat jumped off her lap as Katana jerked in her seat. Her eyes darted back to her laptop screen, and with shaking fingers she fiddled with the volume. “—can I help you?”
Her fingers froze before she could raise the volume all the way. The voice now came from her computer and down the hall. Her jaw dropped, she jerked the mouse arrow across the screen and clicked the END CALL icon.
Klement’s voice—IT Guy’s voice—still echoed faintly from his office. “Hmmm…”
The Google Dialer icon flashed an incoming call and listed IT Guy’s number. A faint ringing chimed from her laptop speakers, so Kat quickly turned the volume all the way down and closed the Dialer window. Heart pounding, she slowly got out of her chair and crept to the door, closing it as quietly as possible. She then tiptoed to her bed and sat down hard. All the strength had left her legs.
Klement and IT Guy were the same person? Her breath seized in her lungs as she tried to process the insanity of that. Her mind raced between the memories of years of tech calls and all the conversations she’d had with Klem since he’d first called her to offer her an audition with Bleeding Vengeance. A croaking laugh escaped her lips when she remembered she’d mistaken him for IT Guy at the time because “their voices sounded the same.” Their voices had sounded the same because they were the same guy!
Her head spun. Was she dreaming? Confusion and a tinge of outrage infused Kat’s shock. Why the hell hadn’t Klement told her who he was? He’d known her for years, but now it seemed she didn’t know him at all.
For a moment she wondered if he was the one who’d messed with her car. Was it a ploy to get her into his house?
Kat shook her head. That didn’t seem reasonable. First off, why make her late to the studio in such an attempt? Secondly, she’d already accepted his invitation to stay when her fuel system was trashed. Besides, why would he give himself such hard work? And why have her pop the trunk and check her tire if he’d been the one who slashed it? Why leave Cliff’s car at the bar for bait?
The muscles in her back relaxed slightly as she considered. There was no way she could see Klement doing anything harmful to her or Cliff. Kinley might think that he was crazy—amusingly, she said the same about IT Guy—but he wasn’t that type of crazy. So, there had to be some other motive.
Was he using his IT Guy persona to spy on her? To make sure she wasn’t saying anything detrimental to the band? He’d only asked generic questions like how she was doing and then gave her positive encouragement. Hell, he’d even advised her to stand up to the group about Cliff taking her solos. And her relationship with him as Klement was only a few months old, and only a week in person. She’d worked with him as IT Guy for three years, and their friendship had developed two years ago.
Around the same time he found out she was a guitar player.
She bolted up from the bed as the impact of that fact struck her full force. That was why Klement had been so quick to give her an audition when Quinn asked. It wasn’t just that he owed Quinn a favor. It was because he already knew she could play. As IT Guy, he had praised her talent with vehement sincerity. As Klement Burke, he had done the same. So he might have already been considering auditioning her.
A tendril of warmth coiled around Kat’s confusion. Whatever was going on with Klement’s dual identity, he didn’t appear to have bad intentions. But she still wondered why he was keeping the secret from her.
Part of her wanted to storm into his office and demand to know what the fuck he was doing. The rest of her, as always, was terrified of confrontation. What if he got angry when he found out that she knew? What if he fired her from the band?
; Her lungs constricted and her heart raced, so Kat dug in her purse for her Xanax. Just as she opened the bottle, a knock sounded on her door. She jumped at the sound, and the bottle flew from her hands. Little peach-colored pills scattered across the bedroom’s hardwood floor.
“Y-yeah?” she stammered.
“I’m going to make a sandwich. Just checking to see if you wanted one too before we get back to work on the car.”
Klement sounded so carefree that Kat’s chest tightened further.
“The chemical treatment’s been soaking long enough in your tank that I think we can safely call it coated and I’m ready to go back in.”
“Sure. I’ll be out in a minute,” Kat said. She bit her lip, marveling at the casual tone she’d managed. So why didn’t she have the balls to say anything?
Her shoulders slumped as she knelt on the floor and picked up her pills. The problem was more than worry about her discovery causing detriment to her position with the band. It was…how would it affect her relationship with Klement? What if he never smiled at her again? Hugged her again? Kissed her? In spite of her revelation of Klement’s deception, she couldn’t stop reliving the heat of his embrace. Couldn’t stop wanting more.
Once her medicine was back in the bottle, Kat took a deep breath and popped a pill, coming to a decision. She would keep quiet about this for now and see what he did, see if anything in his behavior—as Klement or as IT Guy—indicated any reason for keeping such a strange secret. However—Kat glanced at her phone—she would get hold of Kinley ASAP and find out whether her friend or Quinn knew anything about Klement’s many vocations.
Straightening her shoulders, Kat went down to the kitchen, repeating a silent mantra. Must act normal, must act normal.
“Hey there.” Klement greeted her with a smile that made her belly flip over. Was it just her, or did he look even more sexy than usual? His hair tumbled down to his shoulders, curling slightly at the ends and glistening molten gold in the sunlight streaming through the window. Sometime last night or this morning he’d shaved, and the sight of his smooth cheeks and sharp jawline made her want to caress his face.
“Hey,” she said.
She grabbed a roast beef sandwich from the counter and bit into it before he caught her ogling him. But, as she ate, she couldn’t stop stealing glances at him. This was her IT Guy. In the flesh. For years she’d wondered if he was handsome. Where he lived. If he was single. Now she had her answer.
She just couldn’t believe it. Her friend of many years was sitting beside her. She was in his house, eating food that he’d made for her. She was in his band, a band that was her favorite of all bands she’d ever heard. And only the other night he’d held her in his arms and kissed her.
His voice halted the dangerous train of thought. “Should we get to work?”
Still in a daze, Kat nodded. Then she followed Klement outside. One of the patrol cars that Officer Shaw had sent to patrol the neighborhood drove by, and a cop waved. She tamped down an instinctive flinch and waved back.
In the garage she did her best to concentrate on working on the car, but it seemed the universe conspired against her. Putting the gas tank back in required them lying down beside each other while he held it in place and she threaded through the retaining bolts. Even with the strong shop odors of oil and gasoline, she could smell his enticingly clean masculine scent, and by the time they slid out from under the car, her panties were soaked with arousal.
“You okay?” Klement asked as he reattached fuel hoses to the throttle body. “You’ve been really quiet today.”
Her hands fumbled with the screwdriver. She needed to say something, anything.
“What’s really going on with Cliff?” she asked finally. “You said someone was messing with him, but you didn’t say exactly what they’re doing.”
Klement’s gaze lifted from the hose clamp and darkened. “Someone delivered a dead cat in a box. He thought it was a crazy ex until we found out that your car was being tampered with.”
Kat shuddered. Thank Christ her Xanax was kicking in, or the horrific mental images of poor dead kitties would have sent her into a full blown panic attack. “Oh my God, that is sick!”
Klement nodded, face somber. “I know. It’s why I didn’t want to tell you.”
Kat crossed her arms. “Why? To protect my womanly sensibilities?”
“Partly.” He sighed. “But mostly because it was so horrifying that I don’t even want to think about it, myself.” Concern filled his blue eyes. “You didn’t get any odd packages when you were at that hotel, did you?”
She shook her head. “No. I got a weird feeling, though. But besides my flat tire, nothing happened. Still, I can’t imagine it was one of Cliff’s exes.”
Klement raised a brow. “Why not?”
“It may sound sexist, but I can’t imagine a chick doing that. Handling a dead animal like that.” She stopped as her horror intensified. “Did it look like they killed the cat, too?”
“No.” Klement hugged his arms as if cold. “It was obviously roadkill. Still, I’m keeping a close eye on my cats.”
Admiration filled Katana that he cared so much about his kitties. Surely a man who was kind to animals couldn’t be a guy with bad intentions. She’d point that out to Kinley when she talked about his secret profession.
“Hey, have you talked to Kinley lately?” Klement asked suddenly, almost as if reading her mind again.
Kat jumped. “No, but I was going to try to call her in a bit.” She couldn’t help but add, “I also need to get hold of my IT Guy for that update we were supposed to do yesterday. He never answered the phone.” She gave Klem a sideways glance through lowered lashes and wondered if it was her imagination or had he reddened a bit?
“Um, well, could you ask Kinley if she or Quinn told anyone about you joining Bleeding Vengeance?”
“Sure thing,” Kat said. And a whole lot more.
Still, between the story of the dead cat and Klement actively pursuing information to find a connection with things that had happened to her and Cliff, she was convinced that he hadn’t been the one to tamper with her car in the first place.
Cliff and Roderick pulled up in the driveway and got out of their cars, chatting about the stuff they’d seen in town.
Klement turned to Kat. “Well, I’m up for a break. Later I’m going to finish putting your throttle body back together, and then hopefully she’ll fire right up.”
Kat looked up at the man whom she’d discovered had been her friend for years. Half of her wanted to smack him and demand answers; the other half wanted to throw herself into his arms and tell him about all the times she’d wanted to meet him in person.
Instead, she walked away.
Chapter Fourteen
As the guys headed up to the music room, Kat unplugged her phone from the charger and went out on the deck to call Kinley. She crossed her fingers for four rings before her best friend answered.
“Hey, Kat!”
Kinley’s voice was a welcome haven of stability after the morning’s unsettling discovery, and Kat didn’t waste any time. “Did you know that Klement is our IT Guy?”
Kinley’s shocked gasp was all the answer she needed. “What?”
“Yeah.” Relieved that at least her best friend hadn’t been keeping anything from her, Kat told Kin what had happened. “I tried to call IT Guy to run an update on our site and I heard Klement answer from his office.”
“Holy shit! What did you say to him?”
Kat’s shoulders slumped. “Nothing. I was too shocked, so I hung up.”
“But didn’t he see it was you from the Caller ID?” her friend demanded.
“Nope. My phone was dead, so I used Google Dialer on my laptop.” Kat’s eyes widened as a realization struck her. “Oh my God, that explains why he didn’t answer the last couple times I tried to call him. He was right beside me.”
“I can’t believe it.” Kinley’s awe was palpable over the phone. “Klement Burke, ba
ssist of Bleeding Vengeance, has been doing routine tech support for Metalness.com for the last four years. That is so fucking surreal.”
“Did Quinn know?” Kat had to ask.
Kinley’s tone darkened. “No idea, but you can bet I’m going to ask him as soon as he gets back from grabbing us dinner. Have you told Klement you know yet?”
Her friend’s footsteps echoed over the phone, like she was pacing, and Kat walked back and forth along the deck to match. “No. I have no idea what to say. I mean, what if he’s upset that I found out? And why did he keep this a secret?”
“You won’t find out unless you ask him,” Kinley said. “Though I might have a guess on why he didn’t say anything before you joined the band.”
Kat paused in her trek across the deck. “Oh?”
“Think about it.” Her friend’s tone turned conspiratorial. “Why would he want any of his tech clients to know he was a famous rock star? Especially clients who run a metal fan site.”
Relief filled Kat at the logical and non-sinister explanation. Of course he’d want to keep his celebrity status under wraps. “That makes sense.”
“Wait, did he ever say anything about Bleeding Vengeance when you two were doing work on the site?” Kinley’s voice turned dire. “Because if he was sneaking in extra promotion or endorsements…”
“No, he never brought up his band until I told him about the audition.” Kat’s eyes narrowed. “The audition that he set up in the first place.”
“And how did he respond to that?” Kinley asked.
“He congratulated me and pretended to be surprised.” Kat’s voice was subdued in embarrassment.