Chapter Twenty – Priest
Once we got the call, we raced downstairs. Ironically, she was only two floors down. Right under our noses. She’d had to use an officer’s phone to call us and let us know where she was and that she was all right, because her phone had been left in her dressing room last night. It was sitting in her bedroom, waiting for her to come back.
The police had gotten involved when none of us could find her. It was a suspected kidnapping. Strangely enough, whoever had done it knew exactly where the stadium’s cameras were, because they avoided them all.
Our angel was kidnapped and held right under our noses. It definitely ticked me off.
We went down the stairwell so we wouldn’t have to wait for an elevator. The hall was crowded with officers talking to each other, and when they saw us, they stepped aside and let us through.
They’d know now, who we were. Hopefully none of them were on the music scene and gave a shit. If that was the case, none of them might even know we had secret identities.
An officer led us into the suite, past a busted-down door. “She says she’s uninjured. She refused EMT services. She wanted to wait to give her statement until she saw you three.” An older gentleman, he was clearly sizing us up as he spoke, one of his hands hooked through his utility belt.
The officer led us to where Angel was sitting, looking quite zoned out, on a couch. She was still wearing the same white dress she was supposed to wear on stage last night.
On stage, where we performed without her while telling the crowd she was sick, when in reality she’d been kidnapped. I still couldn’t believe it. This was some crazy shit.
“Angel,” Bishop breathed out her name as he sat beside her and swept her into a hug. She blinked, and then she must’ve realized we were there for her, because together, with Bishop’s help, she got to her feet and turned to hug me and then Deacon.
“What the hell happened?” Deacon asked.
Angel looked like she’d seen a ghost, paler than usual. She glanced at the cop who’d brought us in and asked quietly, “Can you give us a minute?”
The officer didn’t appear as if he wanted to, but in the end, he heaved a sigh and wandered away, giving us a semblance of privacy in the suite. All the others were in the hall, so, barring the busted-down door, we were as alone as we could be.
Bishop and Deacon took up the spots on her left and right as she sat down and ran her hands along the short length of her dress. I stood in front of her, my arms folded over my chest, a sinking feeling in my gut.
Whatever she was going to say, it couldn’t be good. It had to be bad. What else could weigh her down like this?
Besides a traumatizing kidnapping experience, that was.
A minute passed. None of us prodded her for information. She’d tell us on her own time. I had to imagine the whole ordeal had been stressful beyond belief. She had to have known she was in the Redborne, and knowing she was so close to us this whole time while we were looking everywhere for her, while we were waiting for her to miraculously come home…
Fuck. It was too much. I’d never known what being helpless felt like until last night. It wasn’t a feeling I ever wanted to have again.
“They arrested Pope,” Angel whispered.
“They… they what? Pope? What does he have to do with this?” It was Bishop who asked, but then he must’ve come to his own conclusions, because he added, “Shit. Don’t tell me he’s the one who did this.”
Deacon groaned and buried his face in his hands, probably marveling at his brother’s stupidity.
But Angel shook her head and said, “No.”
That got all of us to stare at her. No, it wasn’t Pope. But how…
“The door handle was broken from the inside, like someone messed with it. It still opened from the outside. Pope came earlier. He had a key. He said someone gave him that key, along with a note.”
“A note,” Deacon repeated. “Who the hell would do that? He’d only come if it was…” He stopped, and he shared a meaningful look with Angel. A look I did not understand.
“Can someone please tell me what the fuck is going on?” I asked. “Because it sounds like you’re saying this wasn’t Pope. If it wasn’t Pope, who was it?”
“Ramona,” Angel’s answer came swiftly, softly.
Bishop was quiet. Deacon was thoughtful and pensive, if a little broody, like always. I was the only one who could speak after that bomb, “Ramona? What does she have to do with any of this?”
“Pope said the note and key was from Ramona,” Angel explained, and then she went on to explain more, and together, she and the others put the pieces together while I stood there, slack-jawed, and listened.
Hey, I never won any awards for being the smartest around. My skills were elsewhere.
My dick. My skills lay with my dick. And my mouth, and my fingers… okay, anything of the bodily variety, just not the brain in my head.
Ramona got her alone before the show. Drugged her water when she wasn’t looking. Grabbed her once she was out in the hall, semi-out of it. Ramona knew the venue, so she knew where the cameras were. While she’d told us she was helping us search the grounds at the stadium, she’d brought Angel back here, to the Redborne, where she had this suite ready for a staged kidnapping.
She’d sent Pope the key and the note, and right after he got here, the police showed up. There was a public record of what Pope did and how upset and angry he was at being thrown out of the band, so no one would blink an eye or investigate more than they had to. It was the supposed definition of an open and shut case.
None of it could be a coincidence. I didn’t want to believe her, mostly because Ramona had been in our lives for years now, and she’d never so much as shown a hint of crazy. A need to control every aspect of our lives? Yes. Could she be over-the-top? Also yes. None of that meant she could plan something like this and actually pull it off.
I didn’t want to believe Angel, but at the same time, Angel would never lie to us.
It was Bishop who spoke first after Angel had finished, “So what do we do?”
“I have to tell the police the whole story,” Angel whispered, rubbing her arms absentmindedly as she stared off into space. “Pope can’t go down for this. This time, it wasn’t him.”
Deacon muttered, “She’ll deny it, and she knows just what to say to people to get them to believe her. Who’s to say they’ll believe you and not her version of events?”
“As much as I hate to agree with him—” My words earned me a hard glare from Deacon. “—I think we’ll need to do things a little differently… if you want to do this, I mean. We’ll need to get the police on-board, but I’m sure if I use my charm, it won’t be a problem. Were there any lady cops?”
I didn’t need a female officer to lay on my charm, it’d just be easier that way. Women tended to fall for my charms a lot quicker than men did. Men were more likely to dismiss everything I said—I think because I was so much better-looking than they were.
They were jealous, of course.
Bishop rolled his eyes at me, but Angel must’ve been on the same wavelength, because she was nodding and saying, “We need to do it now, try to catch her off-guard. Call her and tell her to meet us upstairs.” She got to her feet and glanced down at the white dress she wore. “I need to get out of this damned dress.”
And so our plan began. Would it work? Who could say? But we had to try, because I, for one, would hate to continue having a manager that thought staging a kidnapping and framing someone else for it was a good idea.
Ramona was going down.