“Your friend Vinnie asked Jeremy to sit in so he could concentrate on his vocals. Some new song he wants you to hear, I gather.”
Was that a hint of jealousy she heard in his voice? she wondered. No, it couldn’t be.
The band was chatting onstage, picking up their instruments. Vinnie seemed unfazed to be handing his precious Fender to Jeremy Flynn. He barely let her touch it. Then again, she wasn’t a guitarist.
“Vinnie is a very good friend,” she told him.
“I hear you’re quite a musician, too,” Mason told Zachary.
Zachary shrugged off the compliment. “I like to play. But Jeremy is the one with the real talent.”
Mason asked Zachary something about guitars, which unfortunately left Aidan free to lean even closer and converse with her. “I’d like to take you out to eat sometime,” he said. “You can tell me more about Amelia.”
“Really?” She was still sober enough to be skeptical, she realized. “I’ve told you what I know.” To her own surprise, she leaned closer. “And you should be careful. You’re ticking off the locals.”
“I’m sorry. But I have to do what I feel is right,” he said flatly, his eyes unwavering.
“You have to understand where you are. We have problems right now. No one has time to be looking into the past.”
“I know you can help me. When you just start talking, you help me a lot.”
“Help you what?” she asked in exasperation.
“Put it all together.”
She took another long swallow of her beer. He was like a dog with a bone.
Bone.
She almost laughed.
“You’re creating a mystery where there isn’t one,” she told him. “You found a bone. Two bones. And that’s sad, but seriously, it’s not a huge surprise.”
“The bones? Maybe not. But the blood may prove to mean something.”
She started, suddenly feeling very cold. But she didn’t get a chance to ask him what he was talking about, because just then the drummer pounded out a rhythm to get the crowd’s attention, and then Vinnie took the microphone.
“We want to do a brand-new number for you tonight, one I wrote myself. Well, not entirely by myself. I had a little help from a friend. We started it together about ten years ago, and my cowriter is sitting right in front of me. I think we’ve got to get her up here to do this with me, don’t you?”
There was a roar of approval from the crowd as Vinnie stared straight at Kendall, one hand stretched out to urge her to the stage.
She wanted to crawl under the table. No, she wanted to fall through the floor. She felt her face flush, the breath rush from her chest.
He couldn’t be doing this to her!
She glared at Mason, who merely offered her a knowing grin. Damn him. He’d known all about this, she realized.
Oh, God, she’d had a few drinks, but not nearly enough for this. She glared at Vinnie, who just smiled and gestured for her to get moving.
The drunks in the room had started pounding on the tables.
“It will only get worse the longer you delay,” Aidan offered in amusement.
She stood, silently cursing Vinnie. The room—especially the drunks—seemed to appreciate the fact that she had just stood up. It was going to be okay. No, it wasn’t. If only Aidan hadn’t been there…
Maybe she wouldn’t care so much about making a fool of herself then.
She closed her eyes for a minute. The room was spinning.
“Never let the world get you down,” Amelia had said.
Kendall walked to the front of the room. Maybe she was just drunk enough to see this through.
Vinnie clasped her hand to help her up on the stage. She turned to look out at the room, then realized she shouldn’t have. The lights seemed much too bright. She tried to imagine that the room was empty, that no one was there to see her fail as spectacularly as she was sure she was about to.
But then someone got up from a table and left the bar, ruining her self-delusion. She dimly thought that it might have been the man she’d thought she recognized.
“Ready?” Vinnie whispered excitedly. He was so proud of himself.
“I don’t know what you’ve done with this,” she whispered back, trying to maintain a smile. “I haven’t thought about it in years.”
“Just follow my lead.”
The years seemed to fall away. She remembered a time when her parents had still been alive, when she’d assured Vinnie that he was going to grow up to be a great musician. And she had promised she would be right there behind him. So they had sat down and worked out the lyrics, and then Vinnie had penned the chords to go with them.
The drummer counted off, the guitar kicked in and the keyboard carried the melody. To her amazement, she remembered both the lyrics and the tune. She’d always just been the backup, and the changes he had made were easy to follow. She reminded herself that she’d promised to stand behind him, and that this was something he had worked on to honor their friendship. Didn’t matter. She still could have killed him. If only he’d let her in on it, if he’d let her practice or…