Need You Tonight, page 6
Lights continued to turn on as they followed her inside.
‘The studio is fully equipped,’ Lexi said as she walked them through to the stairs on the far-right wall. ‘As well as the lounge and kitchen, there’s rehearsal rooms and a smaller studio for specialised vocal and acoustic work on this level. The main studio is upstairs.’
More lights flickered on as they entered the landing at the head of the stairs, glinting off the glass walls behind which lay her pride and joy. The main studio was large enough to fit an orchestra, but she’d had partitions put in to turn it into a smaller, more comfortable space as required. She let them look around then ushered them into the mixing studio on the far side. As expected, they ooed and aahed over her state-of-the-art equipment, specialised computer software for editing and remixing as well as the large, complicated sound desks.
‘This is amazing, Lexi.’
‘Yes.’ The whole place was a musician’s wet dream.
After they’d looked around, she led them back downstairs and into the small studio. It was intimate and set up for the comfort of performers, sound recordists and producer.
Daemon was drawn to the old Yamaha sound desk. It was well used and loved, despite the dents and scratches that could be seen on its surface. ‘This is almost vintage.’
Lexi smiled softly as she came to stand beside him, fingers nimbly working along the surface of the desk, stopping to press a couple of the pots and set the foldback knobs to neutral. The gestures were affectionate, almost intimate. She and this old desk had been through a lot. ‘This was the first desk I ever bought. It doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of the desks upstairs, but the mids and highs I can get out of this baby are sweet and clear and perfect for more intimate acoustic work. Besides that, I just love working with it.’
Daemon nodded slowly, the look on his face curious as he stared first at the desk then her. ‘I know exactly what you mean. I bought my very first electric guitar at a backyard sale—an old banged up Stratocaster. The old codger who sold it to me had no idea what he was selling or what it meant to me to buy it. I still prefer to play it when I’m jamming at home over every other guitar I’ve bought since.’
She edged back, uncomfortably aware of how close he stood, the intimacy of his shared memory something more than she was prepared for, but when his eyes tracked her movement, she stopped fidgeting, crossed her arms, leaned against the desk and looked over at Craig. ‘What do you think? Are you happy to live in the middle of nowhere for a few months to work on your next album?’
‘I am,’ Craig said. ‘Dae?’
Daemon continued to look around. After a long silence, he smiled. ‘Absolutely. When can we start?’
She’d start tomorrow if she could, but they needed some time to get packed and a plan to get them and all their gear up here. Also, the contracts needed to be finalised. So she said, ‘A couple of weeks?’
He looked momentarily disappointed, but then stuck out his hand. ‘Done.’
She slid her hand into Daemon’s, meaning to let go as soon as the handshake was done, but his thumb ran across her knuckles. Melting warmth curled inside and her fingers clenched around his as she heard a small breath escape him.
She pulled her hand away, forcing herself not to rub at the tingling this time, and trying not to look at him to see if he’d felt it too as she showed them out.
Billy was out of the pool and dressed by the time they finished the tour and was ready to take them back to their rental.
As she waved them off, she gnawed at her lip, worried for a moment whether she’d done the right thing in agreeing to work with them now. But she pushed the worry aside almost as quickly as it had come. She might have made two big snap decisions today, but she wasn’t going to regret either of them.
It was going to be amazing working with The Sidhe. And having Cat home … well, maybe it would be hard, but she had two weeks now to get into a routine and be all good by the time the band arrived.
And hopefully, the police would catch her stalker now that he’d left more solid clues for them to follow after what he’d done at the clinic.
Despite the way the day had started, things were looking up.
Everything was going to be fine. Finally.
She smiled.
Chapter 7
He placed the finishing touch on the desk and stood back to admire his handiwork.
The mad rush to ensure he completed this part of his plan was worth it. He wished his brother were here to see how clever he’d been. Using Jackie Miller had been an inspiration. The police had already begun to call in the clinic’s staff to interview them over the incident with Catriona Deningham. Jackie had already missed two calls from her supervisor. When she didn’t show up for work they’d come looking for her as their prime suspect.
He looked at her now as she lay on the couch, lifeless and stretched out artistically, a spill of pills on the floor beneath her hand, the bottle of almost finished vodka hanging half off the coffee table. It was beautiful. He wished she could see it, but that wasn’t to be. He couldn’t have Jackie telling the police that her boyfriend had been the one to encourage her to send the letters. That he’d dictated what she should write and how to send them without being caught. That he’d dressed up as her and put on her cleaning uniform so he could get inside the clinic multiple times before figuring out how to leave his message.
He chuckled. What a desperate soul Jackie had been. She’d even happily written two more letters for him before succumbing to the poison he’d slipped in her drink that had stopped her heart only moments ago. He’d leave one on her desk as proof that she was the stalker who’d been sending Lexi all those lovely little letters.
That would be it. Case closed. And he would be free to move on with the plan that had finally borne fruit.
Everything was coming together. It had taken a lot of very careful planning of multiple efforts to get where he was, but now the next part of his plan could go ahead.
He picked up the second letter. He’d hang onto it for a little while before sending it. He took the photo out of his wallet and whispered to it, ‘It’s almost time, my brother. Lexi is going to be ours.’
His flesh pushed against his jeans, swollen with the excitement of what he’d just done, what he was about to accomplish. But he couldn’t find his release. Not here. He didn’t want to leave any evidence after he’d been so careful.
He tucked the letter into his jacket, pulled his hoodie low and slipped out of the flat, careful not to be seen. He quickly made it to his car parked a few blocks away and was securely inside before he released himself from the confines of his jeans and grasped his swollen flesh. He stroked and stroked, holding himself at the peak of pleasure just like his brother had taught him, and then, visualising Lexi’s frightened face as she received the letter in his pocket, he let it all go, moaning in ecstasy as his seed pumped free.
‘You are mine,’ he panted. ‘You are mine. For so it is written.’
Chapter 8
The dream caught her the way they always did, in the deepest dark of the night. Apparitions appeared and vanished in a swirling noisy void. Cries of anguish and despair mixed with whispers in the dark, unintelligible garbled words.
In her sleep, Lexi trembled. A nameless face drifted close, mouth like a black maw swallowing her whole.
She awoke with a start, the empty echo of her scream ringing in her ears. Her eyes darted nervously around the darkened room looking for the intruder.
There was no-one.
A nightmare. Just a stupid nightmare. The worst one yet. She clutched her fists against her chest and tried to breathe. Why was she still having nightmares? She had Cat home, and while it wasn’t easy, it was going okay. Cat still hadn’t taken any notice of her, but she was responding on occasion to Billy, Bev, Jenny and even the new nurse, Gavin Summers. It was what they’d hoped for.
And her stalker was dead. Detective Fox had called a week ago to tell her their investigation had led them to a Jackie Miller, a night cleaner at the clinic. They’d found her dead in her apartment when they went to question her: a possible suicide. They’d found all the evidence they needed there to tell them it had been her. They’d also found diaries that helped explain why she’d fixated on Lexi: a wannabe musician with dreams of grandeur, she’d become angry after never hearing back from AJ Denholm about the demo she’d sent in.
‘But … it wasn’t even me who listened to it,’ she’d said to Detective Fox when he’d filled her in. ‘The submission area on my—on AJ Denholm’s—website clearly states that I don’t have time to listen to demo tapes. I use trusted people I’ve worked with to go through what’s sent. They only send on what they think I’ll be interested in.’
The detective had sighed. ‘When it comes to people’s dreams, especially people who are a little fragile already, a rejection, no matter how fair, can make them go off the deep end. When her demo didn’t make the cut, Ms Miller blamed AJ Denholm for her lost dreams and everything that was wrong with her life. So, instead of a star being born, a stalker was.’
‘How did she know AJ Denholm was me? How did she know Cat was my sister?’ She had to figure out where her system had fallen down.
‘From what we’ve read so far, it was because she recognised you.’
‘How?’
‘Despite your caution, it looks like you’d been snapped a few times years ago with Destiny’s Fool leaving a studio just after their first number one. You were listed as ‘unknown woman’. They were on Ms Miller’s wall with a bunch of other photos of all the bands you’ve worked with. Two years ago, she happened to be on when you went to visit your sister and she recognised you. It didn’t take much to find out your real name once she figured out who you were visiting. Your sister only really had two main visitors: you and Billy Morse.’
‘Damn it.’ She thought she’d been so careful.
‘I don’t think you need to worry about your security measures. It was just an unfortunate combination of obsession and coincidence.’
Yeah, but she’d never liked coincidences. She didn’t trust them and couldn’t protect against them. Maybe that’s why she still felt so edgy.
She raked her still shaking hand through her hair. The woman had obviously been suffering from some sort of mental illness and thankfully, despite scaring Lexi and reminding her of the most horrible time of her life, she hadn’t hurt either sister. She and Cat were safe. She just wished her nightmares would get onboard with knowing that was true.
Hand shaking, she turned the light on. Perspiration beaded her forehead. Her pyjama top was damp. Shivering, she climbed out of bed and staggered to the bathroom. Tossing her damp pyjamas into the hamper, she turned on the shower. The hot spray rinsed away the perspiration but not the images still playing in her mind.
She rubbed hard at her skin with the loofah, wishing she could scrub her mind clear of the images from her nightmare. Wishing she could scrub away the sensation of being violated. But no amount of washing herself was going to do that.
Work. Only work would help.
Rinsing off the soap, she hopped out, dried herself and quickly got dressed in her favourite velour tracksuit and oversized woollen cardigan and shoved her feet into her old Ugg boots. She tiptoed downstairs, let herself outside, and started down the path to the studio, but soon found herself stopping to stare up at the millions of stars above. The night air, cold and crisp, clung to her skin. Frost crunched under her boots. An owl hooted in the distance, the lonely sound echoing in the dark. A horse snorted gently in a nearby meadow bringing her attention back to earth.
She started to walk again then stopped when she noticed a light shining from a single window in the Barn House. The band had moved in that day. The two weeks since they’d struck their agreement had seemed to pass by at a snail’s pace while Emma and Nigel had banged out the final details of the contract, including how to get the entire band here without the media or anyone else becoming aware of it.
Lexi had filled her days doing farm work with Karl, writing some new songs and spending time with Cat. Kind of. If you called following Billy and Bev and Gavin around while they worked with and looked after Cat as spending time with her. She’d had no alone time with her sister as yet. She was working up to it though. But first, she wanted to try to learn to deal with her twin in the same way the others did. They were so easy with her. And Cat seemed much easier with them too. Lexi envied them that. Wanted it for herself.
It made Lexi’s heart hurt that her sister still hadn’t responded to her. It was her fault, though. While she’d spent as much time with Cat as she could over the years, visiting her regularly when she made it back to Australia, those turning into bi-weekly visits after she bought Storm Haven to renovate and turn into their private safe-haven and her new studio, she’d never been able to be with Cat without the past paying her an unwelcome visit. Cat had to have felt the guilt, the pain, the grief. They had their twin connection after all. It all meant that, despite spending hours with her, she didn’t know what to do or say and often ended up sitting in silence for hours, lost in the music in her head, only really talking when the nurses or doctors came in.
Billy on the other hand had visited Cat at least three times a week, had been involved in her physical therapy and found some way of chatting to her non-stop. She knew this because the nurses and professor had commented on how easy he was with her. It was partly why she’d gotten over her aversion to asking him to give up his life and come help look after Cat. Besides, if she hadn’t, he probably would have done it anyway.
He’d been fantastic. Still was. And her efforts … not good enough. Not for the sister she loved more than anything else, even the music.
She was trying, really trying, to find some way of making that same connection Billy and the others had with Cat so naturally, but so far, she hadn’t made it past awkward and guilt-ridden. Perhaps she was too much in her own head. She was hoping, now the band was here and she’d have something else to concentrate on, that she would find the way to be normal—and truly helpful—with Cat. Because she had a horrible feeling that until she did, Cat would never come back to them in the way they hoped.
And she had to come back. She had to.
She shivered as the cool night air seeped through her clothes, swiped the tear from her cheek, then ran down the remainder of the path to the studio. The van that Phil had driven here with their gear and instruments inside and a sporty little Jaguar Melissa had arrived in with Nigel’s assistant, Lyall, were still parked out the front—she’d have to remember to ask them to park them in the garage. No need to signal to anyone flying overhead in the choppers that came up and down from Buller that there was anything of note to see here.
Craig and Daemon had flown in by chopper after making certain to lose any press or hangers on like last time and been picked up by Billy again. They said if they needed cars, they’d borrow one of the spare ones here.
Nigel would be arriving later in the week by chopper too, apparently. She’d been relieved to hear that. It would give her time to settle into the rhythm of working with a new band before having to deal with another new person.
She’d heard all this from Bev when she’d come in for dinner. She hadn’t been here when they’d arrived, had been out all afternoon with Karl riding the fences and checking on damage from the big storm that had swept through two days prior. She’d been too exhausted to play host when she got back after nightfall.
Didn’t matter. She’d catch up with them tomorrow before their first session to go over the rules and set a timetable. She put the studio door code in and pulled it open when it beeped its acceptance.
Prickling on the back of her neck. She spun around. Nothing was there. Yet, the awful prickling sensation was still there. She looked closer into the shadows around her, the only source of light—or movement—coming from the Barn House. Obviously someone was up in there. But even if they were looking out the window, they couldn’t see her where she stood at the studio door.
She blew out a breath. She was just being stupid. She really had to stop being so paranoid. She’d let Lyndon affect her life for way too long. But enough was enough.
Her neck was still prickling as she let herself inside.
The automatic lights winked on, banishing the lonely dark and the strange sensation of being watched. She flicked on the kettle to make herself a cup of tea, turned the desk on in the downstairs studio and then headed upstairs to check everything was right for their first session tomorrow. The band’s gear was all set up in the large space. They didn’t waste time. Good. That meant they could get stuck right in first thing.
She headed downstairs, made a large mug of tea, grabbed the jar with Bev’s lemon iced biscuits and walked back to the small studio, welcomed by the buzz of her old desk. She loaded up the file she wanted and in minutes was completely oblivious to everything but her music.
She was coming to the finale movement of a composition she’d been writing for years; something that had unintentionally turned into an orchestral piece telling the story of her life. She’d begun the opus the summer before her life had crashed around her. The opening movement, full of happiness and hope, made her smile at the ambitious use of strings and boasting drums; a perfect representation of that girl on the verge of womanhood, the part of her she’d lost not long after she’d written it. But she wouldn’t change a thing. Wouldn’t deny herself memories of a better time, memories of a better self.
The music changed. Dark and despairing, the second movement lacked the full orchestral power of the first. Piano, cello and bass cello with the occasional hint of some haunting refrain from the clarinet, harked back to the innocence now lost. The bass and piano dropped out, leaving the clarinet and cello, a duet for her parents, signifying the joy of their life, their love for each other and their daughters. A piano solo brought the movement to an end; Lexi’s mourning of their deaths with no comfort to be found.
