Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 78227 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78227 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
Even when I felt everything had gone great, I only found out later that I had blown it.
Every time I’ve auditioned for something that counts, I’ve blown it.
I take a quick trip to the bathroom. My makeup still looks pretty good, and I pat some powder on to reduce the shine. I sweat onstage under the harsh lights and because we work so hard when we rock. But stage makeup doesn’t melt for anything. Clothes look good.
Breathe in, I tell myself. Hold it. Breathe out.
I repeat the exercise two or three more times.
Then I gaze in the mirror.
And I look at myself.
I try to look at myself through Brock’s eyes.
He thinks I’m beautiful, but he sees more than just my beauty. He sees my depth. Funny that a womanizer like Brock Steel sees me for who I truly am.
People change.
Brock is no longer a womanizer.
And I? I am no longer an opera singer.
I’m a rocker.
Man, I never thought this day would come. I’ve always loved singing with my brother in the band, and it gave me a chance to perform that I wouldn’t otherwise have had. But in the end? I always thought I was an opera singer at heart. A classical singer. Perhaps a musical theater singer on a different day, but at heart, classical.
No longer.
The opera world didn’t want me.
Perhaps the rock and roll world will.
I stick my chest out, breathe in again. Stand tall, my spine straight.
I will show them tonight.
Whoever those men are, I will show them that Rory Pike can rock.
Back onstage, I take my position. I’m the only one in the band who doesn’t also play an instrument, so I can concentrate fully on my vocals. Jesse plays second guitar and also sings. But I wonder…
We still have a few minutes.
The crowd is cheering because we’ve gone back onstage.
I turn to my brother. “Can Jake take over for you? Do we need two guitars?”
“I’ve always played, sis.”
“What if the two of us concentrated fully on the vocals? What if we really sang our hearts out for these people?”
“I can walk and chew gum at the same time,” Jesse says.
“I know that. But if we really should be impressing these dudes… Did Cage ever tell you who they are?”
“Nope. He wouldn’t budge on that. Says he’s not sure.”
“And agents don’t normally come here.”
“No, not normally.”
“Then tonight doesn’t really matter,” I tell him. “Let’s experiment. You and I sing. That’s what we do.”
“Why is this so important to you?”
“I don’t know,” I say in all seriousness. “Except that we are singers. Sure, I play a little piano and you play a little guitar. But our voices are our instruments. Let’s show them off.”
“I don’t get what you’re saying,” he says.
“It’s just a feeling, Jess.” I grab his forearm. “Trust me. Put your guitar down and tell Jake he’s pulling double duty. And you and I… We can just sing, Jesse. We can do what we were created to do. We sing.”
He shakes his head at me. “You’re serious.”
“I am. Call it a feeling. Call it women’s intuition. Call it whatever the hell you want to call it. But let’s try it. Let’s just sing. The two of us. Focus on the words and the music and the melody and the harmony. Let’s just freaking sing.”
Jesse draws in a breath. “Okay. Let’s do it.” He walks over to Jake, talks to him for a few seconds, and then removes his guitar strap and sets his guitar to the side of the stage.
He returns.
The owner of the place, Journey Blake, takes the mic. “Back again for their final set, please put your hands together for Dragonlock!”
CHAPTER FORTY
BROCK
After a lengthy phone call with my father, I’m able to breathe a sigh of relief.
All evidence of the GPS coordinates has been destroyed, and our guys did a flyover of all our property, and there aren’t any other barns that we didn’t know about.
To be sure, we’re going to have every square inch of our property traced by foot as well, but that will take some time. For now, we can be nearly one hundred percent certain that there is nothing linking us to the trafficking organization.
And if Pat Lamone is to be believed, there are no more copies of those pictures of Rory and Callie out there.
This is good news.
Two of our problems are solved.
But bigger problems still remain.
We don’t know who these criminals are, but we can assume they are somehow related to the original human traffickers who Dad and his brothers took down twenty-five years ago.
Why else would they be using our property? Why else would they be trying to implicate us?
Then, of course, there’s all the documentation we found under the floorboards at Brendan Murphy’s place.
The research Callie found, proving that we do—in a way—own this town.
The pumpkin diamond ring, traced to my grandmother, but the initials engraved inside it are LW. Who is LW?