Chapter 1 #2
Half her songs were covers, for which she recorded the definitive version, no other singer need apply.
The other half, he’d been astonished to read on the minimal blurb, were composed by her.
And though it wasn’t stated anywhere, he also had the feeling that she played keyboard for some of the simple ballads.
It was all very mysterious. Maybe even a marketing ploy.
If it was, it was brilliant because the net was alive with a thousand iterations of who is she?
while fans flocked to buy her music. She got tens of millions of hits on Youtube, though the only images were sunsets, the sea, trees swaying in the wind.
Because no one knew who she was.
There were no photographs, she’d never been interviewed, had never given a concert. Identity top secret.
The online tabloids went wild.
They said she was black, white, beautiful, ugly beyond words, old, young…Harry didn’t give a fuck. She could have been a 300 pound hippopotamus with seven chins for all he cared. All he knew was that when he put on one of her songs and his headset, the world—and him with it—simply went away.
Who is Eve? was a tabloid staple. Entire sections of People and US Weekly were devoted to smoking out her identity.
According to the National Enquirer she was the president’s secret love child.
Or George Clooney’s. Or the Pope’s. Depending on the week.
Harry was just waiting for Eve to be a space alien.
What the hell did he care?
Harry lay back, closed his eyes and let her carry him away until the sky outside his living room windows went from black to pewter to pearl.
At seven, he reluctantly slipped his headphones off and headed for the shower.
Time to face another day.
Seattle, Washington
April 3
Roddy Fisher was thrown into the storage room by two of his men, McKenzie and Trey.
Gerald Montez was sitting in a comfortable chair, because he thought it might take a long time to beat some information out of the guy. But looking at the worm, he thought maybe not. Maybe they could get this done fast.
Roddy Fisher, talent agent, was small and round and was already whimpering, though he hadn’t even been roughed up yet. All that was still to come.
Montez was used to soldiers, men who’d been trained and trained hard to be tough, to resist. This guy was a soft target, the softest. Trendy clothes, manicured hands, no muscle definition at all.
Gerald didn’t know what Fisher looked like yet because his men had brought him in with a hood over his head.
Interrogation 101—keep them disoriented. And scared.
The guy was scared all right. He’d even pissed his pants.
Fucking wuss.
Montez signalled with his hand and a bright spotlight was switched on, leaving the rest of the warehouse in darkness. One of his men whipped the hood off and Fisher screwed his eyes up against the thousand-watt light.
Montez knew Fisher couldn’t see him, couldn’t see anything actually, but still he kept his face blank, though he felt disgust. Fisher’s eyes were swollen shut from tears and snot ran down his face, making the duct tape over his mouth glisten.
Nobody’d touched him, beyond bundling him into a car and putting a hood over his head, and just look at him. Already in meltdown.
He hadn’t even seen Montez’s men behind him, standing ready beside a tray full of instruments that looked designed for carpentry work. Carpentry work on humans, to cut and pull and carve. And Fisher hadn’t noticed the tarpaulin under his chair to catch sweat, blood, DNA.
Trey reached around and ripped the duct tape off Fisher’s mouth. Jesus, Fisher winced as the tape was torn away. What a freaking girl.
“Oh God,” Fisher snivelled. His voice was high and whiny, warbling with bodily fluids.
“Where am I? What do you want?” His eyebrows furrowed.
“Money! That’s what you want! Take it, in my pants pocket.
” In his excitement he forgot his hands were in restraints.
He scrabbled for his pockets. Finally, he lifted one hip.
“In here. I’ve got three credit cards, you’re welcome to all of them.
I won’t report them as stolen. And I’ve got two thousand dollars in cash .
Take it. Take everything.” His hopeful face lifted up into the light.
Montez waited until it became clear even to the idiot on the chair that he didn’t want money. Fisher slumped, defeated.
After another long silence, Montez finally spoke.
“Where’s Ellen Palmer?” he asked quietly. Be great if they could do this the easy way. Get the intel, ice the guy and go. Montez had a lot to do before this mess was over and time spent away from business was money lost.
“Who?” Fisher’s forehead scrunched up in confusion, utterly, completely clueless. He couldn’t possibly be that good an actor. Not with the stress he was under. Not a soft civilian.
“Eve.”
Fisher’s features cleared. “Oh, Eve. I’m sorry, that information is highly confident—"
All the breath went out of him at the punch Trey gave him. It wasn’t even a real punch, just a shut-up-and-pay-attention punch. Still, this Fisher asshole started wailing like a siren. Jesus. Montez waited until the noise died down and Fisher was reduced to snivelling.
“Eve,” Montez said again.
Fisher shook his head. “Can’t, man. My contract says—"
Another whack upside the head, not even hard enough to rattle teeth and the wailing began again.
“Okay okay! I’ll talk!”
Christ. If he hadn’t had a deep personal interest in the outcome, Montez would have left this to his men. What a waste of his time interrogating this moron.
Montez moved his chair forward so Fisher could see him, opened a file he held on his lap and pulled out a number of photos. He held up the first photo, the formal portrait that had been on the Bearclaw website, turning it so Fisher could see it clearly.
Montez tapped the photo. “Is that Ellen Palmer?”
Fisher’s eyes widened. “No,” he said then held up his restrained hands in defence when Trey’s hand moved back. “Don’t hit me! I know her as Irene Ball. She uses the name Eve for her singing. I’ve never heard the name Ellen Palmer.”
Trey looked at him and Montez nodded slightly. Trey’s hand went down and the dickhead’s breath whooshed out in relief.
“So.” Montez leaned forward a little. “How did you meet her and where?”
Fisher was moving into familiar territory, Montez could tell. He even relaxed a little, which just went to prove that civilians were terminally stupid.
“I’m a talent agent, working out of Seattle.
You ever hear of Broken Monkeys or Pursuit or Isabel?
” Fuckhead actually looked hopefully at Montez, trying to impress him.
Montez simply stared at him until his eyes dropped to his knees.
“Well…” he drew in a deep breath. “I make the rounds of clubs and bars, because the Seattle music scene is great and throws up a lot of talent. One night I was in this club, the Blue Moon. I was there to talk to a guy, not talent scout. Blue Moon’s had this pathetic singer for like, forever, got no voice and his keyboard playing sucks, but what the fuck?
Beer’s good and the chairs are comfortable.
I’m thinking, talk to my guy and get out.
Only turns out the singer was dead and this chick is singing.
And man…halfway into her cover of Every Move You Make and I knew she was gold, pure gold.
Asked the owner who she was and he shrugged.
Said she was one of the waitresses, girl just showed up one day.
Didn’t have papers or nothing, but the owner—he’s not particular.
Half his staff is off the books. Five minutes after she started singing, there wasn’t a sound in the club, and when she finished, she got a standing ovation.
Never seen anything like it. So I go over to her, thinking she’s unknown, she’s hungry—she’s a fucking waitress for Christ’s sake!
—I’ll sign her up and she’ll be grateful, know what I mean? ”
Fisher looked around, searching for a little male solidarity. Montez shook his head. It was going to be a pleasure ridding the world of this shithead.
“Go on,” he said quietly. “You signed her up, correct?”
“Yeah, but man did that bitch drive a hard bargain.” A grating whining note crept into his voice.
“Most musicians, they don’t know dick about the music business, they learn as they go along.
Some of them never learn. But Irene—Eve—shit, it was like she was born to it.
She negotiated the toughest contract I’ve ever seen, right down the line. Boy does that bitch know her numbers.”
Yes, indeed, Montez thought sourly. The bitch knows her numbers. And mine.
“And that was the easy part. Because when I started talking gigs and recordings, man she just went wild.
Laid down the law. No concerts, only recordings.
Recording studio had to be emptied out, musicians and sound engineer in another room with a separate entrance.
And no interviews, no photos, no website, no nothing.
That was her iron-cast bottom line and I tell you, I nearly walked away because who needs this shit.
But then, hell—" The idiot smiled reminiscently, forgetting where he was.
“That first album went gold, the second platinum. It was a smart marketing ploy.”
This was getting tedious. Montez wanted to wrap it up.
“So…where does this Irene, or Eve, live?”
Fisher shook his head. “No fucking idea.”
Trey’s blow drew blood this time. When the idiot stopped screaming, Montez tried again.
“Where does she live?”
“I don’t fucking know!” he shouted. “She wouldn’t tell me! The address in the contract is a PO Box in Seattle. No one knows where she lives.”
Fisher was too much of a coward to lie. Shit.
“What’s her cell phone number?”
Fisher’s eyes lit with hope. He rattled off a number with a Seattle prefix and Montez realized that was about all he was going to get out of this fuckhead.