Taryn knew it was Parker Brown. She’d listened to the three albums he’d made with the band and would have known his voice anywhere. This was not a recording, however. This was the real Parker, just him and his guitar. He was there in the room with her, singing to her, and reaching down into her heart–pulling something up from her by the strings.
For a moment Taryn closed her eyes and let herself fall. She imagined being Ruby Jane, young and falling in love with the man who created such beautiful music.
She envisioned her sitting outside with the others, or alone in a cheap motel room on the road, being serenaded by him in the middle of the night while everyone else in the world was asleep. Sitting cross-legged on the a sagging bed, motel-room refrigerator humming beside her, a bedsheet pulled up to her neck to cover her otherwise exposed chest, watching his fingers (the same fingers that had just played over her skin) strum the strings with tenderness. Knowing that while the rest of the world thought he was theirs, at that one moment he was hers, and nobody else’s. What kind of power that much have been, what kind of heat.
Taryn’s heart ached for the sorrow of the melody and heartbreak in the voice. She thought of her own losses, of the hole in her heart that had mended several times but continued to grow even under the scar tissue.
She began to weaken, thinking of Parker and the terrible loss Ruby must have felt, of the undeniable tragedy and senselessness his death had been.
Taryn shook her head and muttered, “Damn it, Parker, just a little bit more. Just a little bit longer. If you just could have made it…”
“Why did he die?” she’d asked her grandmother when she was nine, after learning a family friend had committed suicide. “Why did he use that gun?”
“Because,” her grandmother had answered unhappily, running a brush with care through Taryn’s still silky little-girl hair. They were on their way to the funeral.
“Because why?”
“Because he was just too sad and wanted to feel better.”
Just too sad…
The singing continued and Taryn felt the charcoal tenderly removed from her fingers and descend to the floor, where the long, thin stick broke in two. She reached down and picked half of it up just as the canvas in front of her was gently lifted and released to the ground at her feet. The wooden easel fell over in one fluid movement, the crash softened by the muddy shag carpet.
He was close to her now, whispering into her ear. She could feel him as much as she could hear him. His lips were practically on her skin, seductive and inviting. If she reached back with her hands just a little, she thought she might be able to touch him, but she didn’t try. To make something solid of it would be to spoil it. She wasn’t ready for that; curiosity beset her.
And then she was paralyzed with fear, a prisoner within her own body. To have the desire to walk, run, and cry out but yet feel as though the body couldn’t remember how to do those things…that was almost the most terrifying thing of all.
For Taryn, the seduction, the gentleness, was just as horrific as the anger and temper–perhaps even more so. The anger was madness; it was hostility. The fury and rage were, together, a volcano of heat and uninhabited pressure–the eruption of bottled-up emotions, pent-up frustration, which could not be contained.
The anger was not human, it was something wild and animalistic that could only be found in untamed, uncontrollable nature.
This, though…this was controlled. This was deliberate.
It knew what it was doing and more disturbingly, did it for a reason. It had a purpose and a method.
Even more painful, Taryn thought as the icy fear that chilled her feet and froze her hands fought with the burning heat that flooded through her chest and sent her head spinning, even worse was that it knew what would get to her. He’d watched her, gotten inside her mind (and worse, her heart) and knew what she was all about.
“No,” she whispered, her voice hoarse and raspy with dread.
He had her number.
When the fury and irrepressible violence had worked only to frighten her but not sway her, when the manic obsession and mental anguish of working without stopping and sleeping had not deterred her from her path, it turned to the one thing she couldn’t fight–desolation. Throw sadness at her and she weakened. Taryn’s kryptonite was grief, both her own and that of those around her. It pulled her in and drowned her every time.
The singing stopped and Taryn could breathe easier. She was shaking, but she could breathe. She wanted to call Matt. Hell, she wanted to call David, but she couldn’t.
This would follow her. Whatever Parker wanted from her, he wouldn’t give up until he had it. She’d already seen that.
Shaky, and still clutching the stick of charcoal, Taryn let herself out of the lobby, using the back door that led to the courtyard. Following breadcrumbs dropped by an unseen hand, she strode down the overgrown sidewalk, her sneakers flattening the thorny weeds that grabbed at her legs and tried to attach themselves to her legs.
Room #5 was soon before her, a gingerbread house made entirely of candy, the icing and gumdrops the faint guitar chords that resounded through the rickety door.
She extended the broken piece of charcoal to the door knob, Gretel with the chicken bone fooling the blind old witch.
Sparks threatened to fly from the metal but, without the contact of her skin, fizzled out.
It was all a façade, a trick to get her in the oven. There was no melancholy singer with a beautiful soul waiting for her to rescue him. There couldn’t be a deeper connection that drew her to him, something beyond either one of them.
There was only heat and fire, intent on burning her until it got what it needed.
Taryn entered the room.
Twenty-Two
Taryn was roasting in the sweltering heat. She was so hot she’d removed her sweater, kicked off her shoes, and tied her Rodney Crowell T-shirt in a knot by her bellybutton–something she hadn’t done since high school.
She might have had a fever. They were having a weird hot spell, with temperatures soaring into the mid-eighties, but it still didn’t explain the sauna that Room #5 had become. It usually ran at least ten degrees colder inside than it did out there where Aker was waiting for her.
Her phone beeped and Taryn glanced down at it. It was Matt. “P.B. became paranoid in the last few weeks of his life. Friends said he thought the FBI was after him.”
Taryn sent a quick reply then returned to the canvas. It wasn’t unusual for famous people to start feeling paranoia. The paparazzi, as it was now, wouldn’t have been the same for Parker but that didn’t mean people weren’t still watching him, observing him. Not only had he been famous himself, but he’d run in circles with even bigger celebrities and the press had tailed them.
Taryn reached down and took a big swig of water from a water bottle she’d started carrying around. She’d been locking herself in the room for a week now, working on the painting. In that time she’d found herself craving liquids, a thirst so deep she could never really get enough. At first the thirst had only hit her while she was in the room. After the first two days, however, it had followed her home. She was spending too much money on Coke and Mountain Dew, sometimes going through an entire twelve pack by supper. She’d turned to juice, but upon discovering that she could tilt it up and down the whole half gallon in less than an hour she’d moved on to water.
She wasn’t hungry, she was barely eating at all, but she couldn’t get enough to drink. Her insides felt like a desert.
“Ahhhh,” she sighed with relief, before taking another swig. The water was still ice cold. She wondered how it was able to keep its coolness surrounded by such heat.
The mirror on the wall flickered, catching her eye. Taryn turned and studied it. Things like that had been happening all day. At first she thought it was the bulbs in her spotlights going out but she never saw them waver. It was definitely something in the mirror.
Taryn slowly walked towards the glass and placed her
hand on the surface. Her pale reflection gazed back at her. She thought she’d lost weight. Her eyes looked big and sunken into her face, her lips dry and thin. She was tired because she hadn’t been sleeping well.
The glass under her hand burned from the heat. It occurred to her that, once again, she was looking into an object that had acted as guard and reflection for that room for decades. How much had it seen? How much did it know? Were the actions of the past still trapped in it somehow, forever replaying their sequence over and over again?
“How much do you know?” she asked it.
Something in the glass shimmered, as if in reply.
When Taryn returned to her painting she bent over again and grabbed the water bottle. Sweat rolled down her face and dripped from her hair.
She’d have to wear something more lightweight tomorrow.
“Did Ruby say anything about Parker being a hoarder?” Matt asked.
Taryn paused and looked up from Miss Dixie. She was busy cleaning her lens while she had her nightly chat. “A hoarder? No, nothing like that.”
“I found a kind of obscure interview from a few years ago,” he told her, “done with one of the other guys. It was about his new album and in the middle he threw in something about Parker’s house in California being ‘unhealthy’ and a ‘mess.’ There’s a picture of a bathroom here, with the sink and tub kind of covered with shampoo bottles, bath gel, all kinds of stuff. You can’t see any surface.”
“That’s kind of weird,” Taryn replied. “I always thought of Parker as kind of nomadic. I wouldn’t have thought he was someone who didn’t get rid of things.”
“Well, maybe there at the end that’s just what started happening,” Matt mused. “He could’ve been sick in a lot of ways.”
Back in her own apartment, she was finally able to cool off. In fact, she was even a little chilly. Going from hot to cool was going to make her sick, she just knew it. She seriously needed to stock up on some vitamins and fresh fruit and vegetables. Stuff like bananas and apples and kale. Spinach. Fruit rollups and spinach and artichoke flavored chips weren’t going to count. Unfortunately.
“Hey, I’m not feeling too well,” Taryn began.
“EDS stuff?”
“Nah, I think I’m coming down with a cold or something like that. It’s this weather. But I was wondering if you knew some foods or supplements I could add to my diet to boost my immune system. Maybe some recipes? Something that’s going to go easy on my tummy,” Taryn added, “since it’s a little fragile at the moment.”
“You still throwing up?” Matt asked in concern.
“Yeah, but not as often,” Taryn lied. Truthfully, she was still vomiting at least once a day. Sometimes more.
“I’ve got some recipes I can send you,” Matt said. “Some easy things I think you can make.”
“Are you making fun of me?” Taryn demanded, only half joking. While it was true that Matt loved cooking, and considered himself an experienced and talented chef, she could actually cook as well–and cook well. Matt forgot that. A lot.
“No, no, no,” he sang. “I just thought that if you were feeling poorly you’d probably rather have something that didn’t take a lot of time and effort to prepare.”
“Yeah, well…” She couldn’t exactly argue with logic like that.
“Are you chilled?”
“No, actually feeling hot,” Taryn replied.
“Fever?”
“I thought I did but I checked it as I’ve been talking to you and it’s fine. A little on the low side at 96, but that’s my normal.”
“Cough? Stuffy nose? Aches and pains?” he pressed.
“Yes and no, Dr. Matt,” she laughed. “Some drainage, a bit of a cough, and I have no idea if there are any new aches and pains or not.”
“Good point. It’s probably just a cold; your system could be going haywire from the weather changing like it is.”
“At least the room I’m working in is warm. It was so cold in the beginning. I guess maybe the heat finally kicked in or something because now I can hardly stand it. It’s like being in a sauna. And it makes me so thirsty.”
“At least it’s a dry heat,” Matt said.
Taryn snorted. “’Dry heat?’ Have you ever stuck your head in an oven? That’s dry heat too. Lack of humidity of not, it’s still hot.”
Matt chuckled and began telling her about his day and his students. Before he hung up he returned the conversation to Parker. “The hoarding reference is the only thing I’ve come across so far that’s new–something that hasn’t been written about over and over again already. All most people want to write about is his death in that hotel room.”
Matt said this last part in distaste. He wasn’t big on public displays of attention or notoriety. Although he knew that what went on with Taryn wasn’t her fault, and that she didn’t invite media attention in when they picked up her stories, he had trouble sometimes receiving the attention by proxy. The idea of someone continuously writing about his sudden, tragic death for decades to come probably filled him with trepidation–and not the kind Taryn got from her adventures with the undead.
“I appreciate your help, dude,” Taryn said as a reply. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…you kind of missed your calling as a private investigator.”
“There’s one more thing, though,” Matt began with a hint of hesitancy.
“What’s up, buttercup?”
“Aker. This guy who’s acting as your security detail?”
“Yeah, I know who Aker is…”
“How much do you know about him?”
“Little to nothing,” Taryn admitted. “He’s apparently been around for a long time, though. He worked for Ruby and Parker back in the day. I think he might feel guilty that he wasn’t there when Parker overdosed.”
“Well, apparently some people thought he was there,” Matt said slowly. “Years later his wife, or ex-wife now I guess, came forward and said that he wasn’t home with her that night. She’d lied to give him an alibi.”
Taryn felt unease settle in around her collar as she thought of Aker in his dark sunglasses and tight muscles, bald head reflecting the sunlight, book in hand. They were starting to feel a little more comfortable around each other but had not developed a friendship of any kind. He tolerated her, more or less.
“Do you think he was there at the hotel with Parker when he overdosed?” she asked.
“I hope not,” Matt replied. “If he was, then why didn’t he call the police?”
Why, indeed?
Twenty-Three
Lenny Parsons opened Ruby’s door, barefoot and disheveled. It was 6:00 pm and the sky was graying with the impending darkness, but he looked like he’d just woken up.
“Hey, Karen right?” he asked, stepping aside to let Taryn walk through the door.
“It’s Taryn, actually,” she replied as she walked into the dimly lit foyer. She was torn between feeling prideful enough to correct him and flattered that he was at least close.
“Sorry, Taryn,” he said absently.
Taryn followed him through the house to the back, where sliding doors welcomed them to a beautifully landscaped patio. Ruby sat on the flagstones, two rambunctious puppies rolling around in her lap and licking her face. Her black yoga pants were covered in dog hair, her red cotton T-shirt stained, and her hands damp from dog slobber. She looked positively happy, though, as she fussed the two yapping Pomeranians and occasionally reached up to brush her tangled hair from her face.
“Sorry Taryn,” she apologized. “I’m fostering these little guys and they’re pretty excited to be here.”
“I can see that,” Taryn smiled. “They’re pretty cute.”
Taryn sat down on the ground with her, a few feet away. With a new audience, the puppies bounded with glee towards her, falling over each other as they raced to see who would reach her first. She soon found herself under a blanket of dogs, coarse little tongues leaving a trail of kisses over her neck and cheeks.
“They’re, uh, excited,” Taryn laughed as she grabbed one under one arm and one under the other and attempted to quiet them. They looked from Taryn to Ruby in adoration, as though they couldn’t believe their good fortune.
“I foster them when I can, when I know I’m not going to be on the road for awhile,” Ruby explained. “I like having them around. Lenny’s not much of a fan though, are you?”
Lenny plopped down in an outdoor chair and cracked open a bottle of Belgium beer. He knocked back half the bottle in one swill then belched under his breath. “Nope.”
Ruby rolled her eyes. “He’s not into puppies or babies,” she confided to Taryn.
“Don’t tell the fans,” he grinned. “It will hurt my image.”
Taryn remembered a popular poster, sold in the electronic sections of some big-box stores, of Lenny sitting under a tree with a litter of puppies frolicking at his feet. She could only imagine the number of women that pestered him into posing with their toddlers and infants at autograph sessions.
She wondered what other uncomfortable positions entertainers put themselves in for the sake of marketing.
“So how’s that old dump treating you?” Lenny asked. “It’s been years since I was inside that old thing.”
“Well, it’s old,” Taryn replied. “And not in very good shape.”
She didn’t want to complain about its condition too much, at least not in front of Ruby who was both her employer and had a sentimental attachment to it. It felt rude.
Lenny snorted. “Should tear it down. Don’t know what the hell Stretch here is doing with it. She obviously needs a hobby.”
Taryn glanced over at Ruby, who listened but wasn’t reacting. Ruby was now propped back on her hands, her long legs stretched out in front of her. Taryn was mildly surprised that Ruby had not shared her true intentions with Lenny but had with her. Then again, she was learning that some people had trouble talking about the paranormal with others, even those they’d known most of their lives. It wasn’t easy admitting that you believe in ghosts, much less that you were looking for them, when you weren’t sure if the person you were talking to was going to ridicule or support you.
Black Raven Inn: A Paranormal Mystery (Taryn's Camera Book 6) Page 16