“That’s very specific.”

“Yeah. I’d been clean. For nine weeks and two days before that, I’d been clean. We’d busted off again, me and Lox, a couple weeks before that, and I meant it to stay busted off. I started seeing Lauren.” He glanced in the direction of his booth.

“I met her at a frigging bookstore, do you believe it? I was trying to stay straight, and I was reading a lot. I just happened into this place—I didn’t have any actual books. She did, she worked there. We started talking, and … doesn’t matter. I started seeing her, started to see how it could be. Then I got restless one night. Nine weeks and two days clean, and I got restless, decided to drop into Styx—another club, not much different than this.”

Shifting, he stared at the stage. “Not much different,” he said again. “I just wanted to hear some music, maybe jam in on a set. That’s what I told myself. Maybe have one brew. What could one hurt? And there’s Loxie. We got trashed together, went back to my place, got more trashed.

“I woke up the next afternoon sick, strung out, hating myself. Hating Loxie. We busted up again. I didn’t tell Lauren. Didn’t have to, as word got out. She wouldn’t see me, talk to me. I begged. The next few weeks, I sent her a text every day. I’m clean, day one. Day two, like that.”

He spread his hands on the surface of the table. Two thick silver rings winked on his fingers.

“Finally, she met me for coffee. It wasn’t enough, she told me, and she was right. I needed help, she said, and right again. Nobody could make me, and God, didn’t I know it? I had to do it. So I did. I went to Zurich, and I got help. I wrote music. I got my shit together. I’ve got Lauren. No sex,” he added with a wry smile. “I get to a year clean, we’ll celebrate. We’re recording. That’s why we came in tonight. We had a string of really good days in the studio. I’ve been clean for five months, three weeks, and a day.”

He let out a long breath. “I wanted to test myself. To see if I could sit in a club, hear music, be around people drinking and popping. And I could. I could, and that was better than any high I’d ever pumped in. Can’t explain it.”

“You just did.”

He stared down at his hands. “I needed to test myself, and I passed. And when Loxie came in, and gave me all the signals, it didn’t push the buttons. Not because of Lauren—or not only. But because of me.

“I was feeling so damn good about it, about turning that corner, man. Then … I didn’t see her hit the floor. I heard—I think, maybe Janis—scream. A kind of wild, laughing scream. I just glanced over. Then I saw. Loxie on the floor, seizing. I yelled for Kick—my bass, my friend—to call nine-one-one, to get the MTs. I got over to her, finally. People in the way, crowding in, taking fucking vids. I couldn’t find a pulse. I tried CPR, like you do, for a couple minutes, but … She was staring up at me, just staring. There wasn’t anything there. I knew before the MTs got here, before they said there wasn’t anything there. Lauren brought my coat over, and we covered her up.”

He let out a breath. “She’s not the first person I’ve lost this way. It would’ve been me sooner or later. Me, lying on the floor of some club or bar or some alley after a score. I’d cut her out of my life, you know, to save my own. But I didn’t want to see hers end.

“She’s got a mother and a sister,” he said. “They don’t get along, but … If they can’t or won’t take care of, you know, the arrangements and all that, I can.”

“I’ll contact her family, and let you know. I’m going to describe someone, and I want you to get the picture in your head, think about if you’ve seen her. Tonight, in here, or at any other time.”

“Okay.”

“A woman, in her forties, but maybe trying to look younger. About five-six, slim build. White. Red hair, blue side dreads. Orange dragon tat on the inside of her right wrist.”

He waited a moment. “That’s it?”

“I’ll have more tomorrow, but for now.”

“I wasn’t really scoping the crowd tonight. A test, right? I was sort of closed into the booth, to friends. Some people dropped by … I don’t remember seeing a woman like that tonight.”

“Maybe around where you live, in a restaurant, around where you’re recording.”

“I don’t think I …” As he trailed off, his eyes narrowed. “Maybe, yeah, yeah. Outside the studio. Like last week. I went into the next room—this space where you can just sit and clear your head or have a meet. I wasn’t nailing the bridge, just wanted to chill it down. I looked out the window. That redhead in the bad coat—all that glitter trim—staring at the studio. Most likely for Jake—Jake Kincade, Avenue A? It’s his place, his studio. East Side Sound. But I caught her eye and waved. She ran like a rabbit.”

He laughed then, sighed out the rest. “And I caught sight of her just this afternoon out there. Waved again. This time she blew me a kiss. I let Jake know he maybe has a stalker. He plays it low-key. I don’t get how that plays into Loxie.”

“Loxie didn’t OD.”

“But I saw—”

“What you saw was death by poison. The woman you saw, twice, poisoned her.”

His slumped shoulders jerked back. “But, come on. Murder? A lot of people might have wanted to kick her ass. I did myself, plenty. But …” She saw it come into his head, saw it in his eyes. “Was she stalking me? Me, not Jake? Oh Jesus Christ, did she kill Lox because of me?”

“She killed Loxie because she’s a murderer, and Loxie provided her with the target and opportunity she wanted. I don’t think you’ll see her again, but if you do, don’t approach. Contact me.”

“Lauren.”

“She has no reason to wish any harm to Lauren. This person is delusional. She killed Loxie because Loxie fit certain characteristics. From what you’ve told me, Lauren doesn’t have

anything in common with Loxie.”

Tags: J.D. Robb In Death Mystery
Source: readsnovelonline.net