The car Steve had hi
red to take him and Zach from MacArthur Airport to New York’s East Side pulled to a stop in front of a rather dilapidated building in the East Village near dark. Steve cringed at the dingy brick structure, wondering why the entire block hadn’t been condemned.
“Are you sure this is this place?” Steve asked the driver.
“That’s the address you gave me.”
Steve was rather proud of the sleuthing that had secured Roux’s address, but if they hadn’t known Lily was married to Jack Tanner, they might never have found a link to the place. Zach found the only public mention of Lily’s full legal name in her marriage license. Apparently an insanely secretive bunch, the women of Baroquen didn’t used their full names in any public venues.
Steve climbed from the cab, wondering if Lily had used a fake address and if he was wasting his time. Only one way to find out.
He didn’t want to leave Zach standing around on the street by himself in this neighborhood. Didn’t want Roux to live in this neighborhood. “Stay here,” he said to Zach. “Wait for me,” he told the driver. “I’ll be back soon.” Maybe with a woman he planned to whisk away on his band’s private jet. He wasn’t sure she’d be impressed, but it was worth a go. He hoped she liked surprises, because he had yet to call her.
He climbed from the cab, distinctly aware of the very expensive watch he wore and his gold mugger-bait necklace, and counted the floors of the building. Roux’s apartment was on the eleventh floor if her apartment number could be trusted, and the building only had ten floors. Maybe she lived in the attic. There were no lights on in those windows.
He approached a set of buzzers and saw the names Clark, Moore, Tanner, Williams, et al. next to the topmost buzzer. So they did live there. Maybe they were out. Or maybe they couldn’t afford to pay their electric bill. He pressed the button and waited for a response. When none came, he glanced back at the car and shrugged at Zach, who was peering out the car window. Guess he’d better try calling her. Perhaps arriving on her doorstep hadn’t been his best idea.
He called the number from the call he’d missed earlier that day when he’d been in Seattle failing to get any real answers from Bianca. After a few rings, a breathless voice answered.
“Hello?”
It was Roux. Her voice haunted his wet dreams; he’d recognize it anywhere. And he couldn’t stop a smile from spreading across his face.
“Sorry I missed your call earlier. I was on a plane.” A little fib to make his surprise easier to spring.
“Oh,” she said. “I thought you were off tour for a couple of weeks.”
“I am. That’s why I’m standing on your doorstep. I couldn’t wait another second to see you. Can you let me in?”
“You’re outside?” He heard hasty footsteps and the creak of a heavy-sounding door opening. “I don’t see anyone. Wait. Do you mean you’re in New York?”
“That’s where you live, right?”
“I’m not going to ask you how you got my address,” she said.
He chuckled. “That’s good.”
“But I’m in Boston, visiting my family.”
“Oh,” he said, turning toward the car and taking long strides in that direction. The Boston address had been much easier to dig up. Mama Ramona didn’t guard her identity as diligently as her girls did. “Pretend I didn’t call.”
“What ar—”
He cut her off by disconnecting the call, opened the car door, and slid into the still-warm seat next to Zach.
“Well?”
“She’s in Boston.”
“Shit,” Zach said.
“How far is it to Boston?” Steve asked the driver.
“Over two hundred miles.”
Nope. Not taking the scenic route. “Take us back to the airstrip,” he said. He’d asked the pilot to stay on call. He’d hoped they’d be heading to Los Angeles next, but it would have to be Boston.
His phone rang, and he grinned when he saw it was Roux. “I said, pretend I didn’t call.”
“But—”
He hung up again and could imagine he heard a frustrated growl coming from the general direction of Massachusetts.
“I’m not sure you’re going about this the right way,” Zach said.
“She’s hooked,” Steve replied, gripping his thighs as their driver attempted an Indy 500 maneuver around a slow truck. “Besides, when she recognizes how much trouble I went through just to see her, she’ll—”
“Get a restraining order?”
“Naw. She won’t be able to say no.”
“I would get a restraining order.”
“Not if you like me, and trust me, she likes me.”
Zach chuckled. “You never were short on self-confidence. It borders on cockiness.”
“When you’ve got the goods to back it up, it’s not hard to be cocksure.” Steve grabbed his crotch to drive his point home. Yep, still had it.
“Guess we’ll see who’s right on this one. I’d put money on you leaving Boston with a shiny new restraining order.”
His phone dinged with the arrival of a text message. From Roux. Will you tell me what’s going on?
He grinned and put his phone away without answering her question. “I’d put money on me leaving Boston with a shiny new woman.”
“Kidnapping is a felony,” Zach reminded him.
“I don’t think it will come to that, but I will make her mine.”
Zach settled back in the seat and watched the city pass. After several minutes, he said, “I wish some guy wanted me as much as you want her.”
“And let it show by jetting all over the country for a moment alone with you?”
Zach sighed. “Yeah.”
Steve was glad they were finally on the same page. “Want to change your bet now?”
“Maybe. What’s so special about this girl anyway? I haven’t seen you like this since you fell for Bianca.” Zach slapped his thigh. “Wait. She isn’t some megabitch cheating ball-buster, is she?”
“That’s why I brought you along. You knew what Bianca was long before I figured it out.”
“You’re using me as a bitch detector?”
“And you’re somewhat decent company, but don’t let it go to your head.”
“You know you’re going to miss me while you’re living it up on tour in Europe.”
Truth. But Steve was sure Roux would be a worthy distraction. “I told you I’d hook you up with a plane ticket. You can still tag along.”
“I wouldn’t give Sam the satisfaction of knowing how much I wanted to be a part of this tour.” It was dark inside the cab, but Steve could hear the hurt edge in Zach’s tone. “Fuck him.”
“Fuck him up the ass with a rusty-nail bat.”
Zach snorted and then laughed. “Ouch.”
“Anything for you, bro.”
They were sitting on the airstrip waiting for clearance for their unscheduled flight when Steve’s phone rang again. He bit his tongue and nodded, giving Zach a knowing look, but was surprised to find the caller wasn’t Roux. It was Max. Max so rarely contacted him when they weren’t touring or in the studio that a shiver of dread snaked through Steve’s belly before he answered.
“What’s up?”
“Did you get your fucking royalty check?” Max asked without pause.
“Not sure. I haven’t been home yet.”
“Where the hell are you?”
“New York, on my way to Boston.”
“On our jet?”
“Duh.”
“You can’t use the band’s jet for your private entertainment.”
“Why not? We all do.”
Max huffed out a breath. “I guess I’ll call Dare, then. See if he got his.”
“Did they not arrive or—”
“Oh, it was sitting in my mailbox as expected.” Max paused for a second. “The problem is its size.”
“That huge, huh?” Steve didn’t really need more money, but he didn’t turn it down.
“Small. Shockingly small. Lik
e they left off half a dozen zeros small.”
“We just put out a record. Our checks should be huge this quarter. Is the new release not on there, or—”
“It’s on there, but there are more reserves against returns than sales—so bad, it’s cut into our residuals.”
“That can’t be right.”
“It’s right here in black and white. We need to figure out what to do about this,” Max said.
“About our shitty sales, or—”
“Our sales cannot be this shitty, Steve. Someone must be cooking the books.”
“Sam?” Steve said slowly. Max usually blew up whenever Steve tried to lay any deserved blame at the feet of their manager, who they just found out also headed their record label and the tabloid that Bianca fucking worked for. The man was more crooked than a mountain stream.
“Of course Sam, or someone he pays. Who else could it be? When you get back to LA, the band needs to get together and have a meeting. Assuming we can get Logan away from Mexico or the Bahamas or wherever the hell he took off to with his woman.”
“It will be fine,” Steve said, finding it odd that he was saying those words to Max. “It’s in our contract that we can audit our sales at any time, and if Tradespar West is stiffing us, we’ll get it all back in a settlement.”
“I’m going to get that ball rolling, if it’s okay with you and the others.”
Steve pulled his phone from his ear and checked it over to make sure it was real. Did Max just agree to investigate his best buddy—and the ass he kissed—for fraudulent royalty reporting? No, he hadn’t agreed to it. He’d fucking suggested the idea.
“Steve?” Max said. “You still there?”
Steve brought the phone back to his ear. “Yeah, man. Uh, that sounds like a perfect plan to me. I’m sure Logan will go along with it and Dare too, but you should call them both and make sure.”
“Will do. I hope I’m wrong about this.”