Chapter Eighteen
Sighing, Allen closed his eyes as another caller launched into a tirade about their bill.
He kept his voice calm and polite, gave the usual apology, then explained what had happened and what offers were available.
He’d done it so many times he could do it on autopilot, and today he was grateful for that.
Autopilot meant he didn’t have to think.
The only problem was that it allowed him to keep thinking.
The caller kept complaining. Allen held the phone away from his ear for a second, then brought it back, exhaling heavily.
When the man finally paused for breath, Allen murmured, “I understand,” and waited for the next wave.
His eyes drifted to his phone sitting on the desk beside his keyboard and, without meaning to, he saw the card in his mind again.
The thin border and the hotel’s name. Briar House.
His stomach rolled, and he shut his eyes like he could erase it, but it didn’t work.
When the caller finally wound down enough for Allen to speak properly, Allen walked him through the account again and got him off the line without promising anything he couldn’t deliver.
He ended the call, made a note, and forced his attention onto the next ticket in the queue.
For ten minutes it worked. Then another caller mentioned a hotel, and Allen’s mind went straight back to the card in Rick’s car.
He shook his head, annoyed with himself, and tried to push the image away again.
By the time work ended, Allen’s shoulders ached from how tense he’d been.
He got home, dropped his keys in the bowl by the door, and went through his routine the way he always did.
Shoes off. Shower hot enough to sting. Fresh clothes.
He made dinner and ate most of it standing at the counter, scrolling mindlessly through nothing. Anything to keep his brain busy.
His phone buzzed, and when he looked, he saw a message from Rick.
Meet up tonight? Allen stared at it longer than he needed to, teeth worrying his lower lip before he caught himself.
He swallowed and typed back a yes, thumb hovering for a second as if the word might change.
He told himself that he was being stupid.
Rick wanted to see him. That was a good thing.
He’d wanted this for a long time, and now that he had it, he wasn’t going to ruin it because he’d seen a hotel card in a car and watched too much news. He hit send, then sat there for another minute with the phone in his hand, tapping the edge, restless.
He tried to leave it alone, but he couldn’t.
Allen opened his laptop and told himself this was for peace of mind.
Five minutes, ten at most. He’d look at a couple of sites and prove to himself it was nothing, then close it and move on.
He started with Rick. Not in some weird way, not digging through fan accounts and old gossip.
He went straight for the obvious things he could find.
Old interviews, credits, projects, names he’d worked with.
The kind of information that was readily available.
When Allen found an older article about one of Rick’s singles, he read the credit list properly.
Producer. Manager. Backing singers. His eyes stopped on a name, and his stomach dipped.
Cassandra Lane. He clicked it without thinking, then froze with his hand hovering over the trackpad.
He glanced around the room, then shook his head, and he coughed out a laugh.
“Idiot.” Cass was a common name. People shared names all the time, and Allen had nothing to worry about.
The page loaded with a brief bio, and the photo was the same one the news had used.
Allen stared at it until his eyes started to sting, scrolled back up, reread the credits, and saw another name underneath.
Graham Barclay. The surname tugged at something in his head.
Frowning, Allen tried to recall what it was that he’d seen recently, but couldn’t quite recall it.
He highlighted the name, copied it, and searched. The first results came up fast. Graham Barclay, found dead. Investigation ongoing. Police appealing for information. Allen’s mouth went dry. He clicked the article and read it, then clicked another article about Graham and read that too.
The details didn’t match Cass’s death, but the fact of it did. Another person connected to Rick, gone. He sat back with the laptop warm under his hands and stared at the open tabs along the top of the browser. Two people. Two deaths. Two names that had been linked to Rick.
Biting his lip, Allen opened a new tab and typed Briar House Hotel.
He added the city name from the news report.
He hit search and scrolled, looking for the easiest answer.
Another Briar House somewhere else. A chain.
A different hotel with the same branding.
The results came back, and the logo appeared again — that same stylized branch.
Allen clicked through to the hotel’s page, then backed out like it burned.
He tried the other angle instead, searching for Cassandra Lane, backing singer, and scrolling through credits and short bios and lists he had to search for.
She’d worked with more than one act, moved between tours.
And there it was again, buried in a list he had to scroll through—Rick’s name.
Allen sat very still, eyes fixed on the line.
He wanted to stop. Instead, he clicked another link.
Just to be sure, and another page loaded with the same layout as the last one.
A photo, text, and a column of related stories down the side.
Allen barely registered the headline he’d come for.
His eyes jumped straight to the sidebar because one of the titles had a recent date and the name was too familiar.
Body found. Identified.
His stomach rolled before he even clicked it.
Elliot’s photo stared back at him, probably pulled from his social media accounts.
Allen skimmed the first paragraph, then went back and read it slower when he saw the job title.
Producer. He stared at the word for a few seconds, then forced himself to keep going.
Found late Friday night. Police investigating.
Wallet and phone missing. Possible robbery.
He didn’t know why he was reading all of it.
It didn’t make him feel better. It just made the situation more difficult to ignore.
Before he could talk himself out of it, he copied Elliot’s name into a new search bar.
Credits. Short bios. A couple of older interviews.
He clicked through, scanning lists of projects and names, and there it was again—Rick.
Allen’s hand went still on the trackpad.
He backspaced the search and typed Elliot’s name again.
The same results appeared. He pushed the laptop back and swallowed hard.
“No,” he muttered under his breath. “No. That’s not—”
Standing, Allen paced because sitting still wasn’t working anymore.
He moved from the couch to the kitchen and back again, one hand dragging through his hair, the other holding onto his T-shirt.
Coincidence. People in the same industry crossed paths all the time.
Shared credits didn’t mean a real connection.
Two names could still be explained away.
Three was harder to ignore. It was horrible, but it still wasn’t evidence. Not yet.
Slowing, Allen nodded to himself. If he was going to be this person, he was going to do it properly. He wasn’t going to half-glance at headlines and let his imagination run wild. He was going to check dates and facts, and then he was going to stop.
Allen sat and opened a notes app, then started writing down what he knew.
He pulled up Rick’s credits and worked backward, clicking through anything that listed locations or timelines.
Some of it was messy because the industry was messy.
People moved between jobs, titles, and projects.
A name on a list didn’t mean a friendship.
He told himself that as he added another date and then another.
Then he hit one overlap that made his blood run cold.
A tour stop. A studio session. A hotel in the same window.
He stared at it, reading it again, then again, trying to make it not what it looked like.
“That’s nothing,” he said, out loud this time, voice flat.
“That’s nothing.” He closed the laptop with a sharp snap and sat there for a second, staring at the lid, breathing too quickly, then opened it again because he couldn’t help himself.
The same tabs were there. The same names. The same dates.
His phone buzzed with a message from Rick. Can’t wait.
Allen stared at it until the words blurred. He swallowed and forced his fingers to move, then sent the reply he knew Rick would want. Me too.
Putting the phone down, Allen looked back at the laptop screen. He just stared at the overlap until it was burned into his mind.