Chapter 18 #2
“Yeah. So. I’m here to protect you.”
A beat. And she couldn’t help but step up to him, curl her arm around his neck. “Then you’d better protect me.” She lifted herself up, kissed him again.
He let her, then drew her arms down. “Hard to do that when you’re kissing me.”
“Maybe I should fire you.”
“I don’t work for you.”
She wrinkled her nose.
“Listen. Do everything I say, okay?”
“Bossy.”
He rolled his eyes. “The last thing I want is the woman I care about—or her pretty . . . friend—getting hurt on my watch. So, yeah, meet the bossy grump. If I have to, I’ll be onstage with you.”
“Fine. But I hope you can sing.”
“Not even a little. But neither can you, so . . .” He winked.
And she just laughed. “Watch me, baby.”
Maybe he’d been wrong.
Dawson stood at the edge of the stage, staring out into the darkness, past where Keely sat on a high stool, her guitar over her knee, leaning into the mic, singing her first original song of the night.
He liked it. And her voice, of course. A sort of sultry, deep tone, with vibrato and a smoky whisper in some places. Not even a little like the pop and glitz of Bliss, although she possessed a showmanship, a smile, a way of wooing the crowd, that evidenced years of practice.
He’d stood beside her during the meet and greet, as they let the crowd in one by one to her signing autographs, taking pictures, each person a bestie.
Flynn and Axel came in, and he’d commandeered them for duty to watch Zoey in the wings. He spotted them now, seated on director’s chairs, Flynn holding Zoey in her lap.
Caspian lay at their feet, head up, ears alert. Axel held his lead, and Dawson could imagine the poor guy felt imprisoned.
I’m fine, Casp. And strangely, he was. Sure, a live wire lit inside him, the ever-present buzz of danger, but it didn’t put a noose around him, close in on him.
For now.
Maybe it was the focus, the sense of responsibility.
Getting back into the game.
Even Griffin and River had shown up for the event, escaping the community on their repaired snow machines, thanks to a delivery of parts.
Still, because Keely now sat alone in the spotlight, darkness pressing out into the crowd, and occasionally glanced his direction, he couldn’t escape the sense that they might be the only two in the room.
Her song for him.
Snowbound secrets, buried deep and wide,
Your eyes pierce the blizzard where my fears reside.
Through the whiteout, through the chill, I yearn for the thrill,
To be known, to be found, against nature’s will.
Maybe it was. “You’d better protect me.” She’d been half kidding maybe, but challenge accepted. Forever and ever, amen.
So yeah, he tore his gaze and his attention off her song and onto the shadowy crowd.
Sorros, where are you?
He’d already alerted the security team to the threat, but they had a crowd to control too.
Please let him be wrong.
Still, he couldn’t see anything from here, and his gut kept pinging, so he moved into the backstage darkness and spotted the security guard standing by the exit sign.
He limped over, read the man’s name badge.
“Gil, I’m going to go around to the front, assess the crowd from the floor.
Don’t let anyone come through this door, except me. ”
The security guard, a man in his mid-forties, with a little cheese-and-chips paunch on him, nodded and held open the door for Dawson.
He headed outside into the chilly night and toward the front of the building. Stars shone from the crisp night, winking down at him, the air redolent with the scents of the city. For many years, he worked night shift. Learned to see in the dark, sense danger in the shadows.
His gut said they were here.
He greeted the security at the door, then slipped inside and worked his way into the crowd.
Standing room only, every ticket had sold out, and the audience stood shoulder to shoulder, men with women leaning against each other, some holding drinks.
He sidled up to the bar and glanced at the balcony, but darkness shrouded the crowd.
Hear my name, through the storm’s wild claim,
Feel my soul in the fresh snow’s tame.
As the world turns white, I escape the night,
Hear my voice, oh hear my voice, in the morning light.
He turned, his gaze on Keely. She sparkled under the spotlight, her boot hooked onto one rung of her stool, her blond hair down and curly as she bent over her guitar, singing with her eyes closed. She’d open them and catch on a fan and flash a smile that could grab a heart.
Focus, Daws.
Sitting in the darkness, he could make out more of the crowd, and now he simply began to move through it, watching faces, looking for anyone not mesmerized. He spotted River sitting on a stool, Griffin behind her, his hands clasped around her waist, legs braced.
Griffin glanced over at him, lifted a chin.
“You’re welcome back anytime, Daws. Consider yourself an honorary artist.”
He didn’t hate the idea of building a life in the quiet of the Alaskan forest.
Focus.
Dawson worked his way to the front, near the side, stood at the edge of the crowd, looking back. Maybe he’d overreacted.
Her voice changed beat, took on a breathlessness as she reached the bridge.
Could it be that you see the truths I hide?
In the snow’s pure blanket, where my deepest dreams reside?
A look, a touch in the frosty air,
Reveals the me I’ve hidden, now laid bare.
He turned and looked at her. That was it, wasn’t it? She saw him, despite the darkness that surrounded him, she saw through him to the person he wanted to be.
And he saw her.
Movement from the wings, and he stilled. Not Axel and Flynn—they sat on the opposite side.
Could be Gil, the security guard. He kept his eyes on the wings, even as she finished her song.
Let the snowflakes fall, let them cover all,
In the quiet, your voice is my thaw.
Forever here, where the cold winds call,
Hear my name, it’s yours, through the stormy snowfall.
She let the last of her song thrum out in the chords of her guitar, then smiled at her listeners.
The crowd erupted.
The man in the wings showed himself.
Dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt, hair cut short, a beard, and the form and outline of the man Dawson had chased down by the river.
Maybe.
Or Dawson’s brain could be playing games with him. Lying to him.
The man didn’t move as Keely leaned into the mic. “I want to thank you again for coming out tonight. Your support of my friend Wren and her family is huge, and for every dollar we raised tonight, I’ll be matching it with my own donation.”
More cheering.
“I’m going to be taking a hiatus after this. I know, I know,” she said against the noise of the crowd’s raucous response. “But I wanted to give you a couple new songs first. These were inspired by the wild blizzard we just survived—and yes, we, because I was here too.”
More clapping, some cheers.
“I think you’ll like this next one. It’s more of a ballad. It’s called ‘The Whisper.’”
She leaned over the guitar and started to pick out an intro.
Dawson couldn’t just stand here, not with everything inside him pinging.
But he couldn’t exactly run up onstage, right?
He glanced at the wing. The man had vanished. And that was just it—
Dawson pushed through the crowd, to the edge of the stage. Security stood at the stairs. “Let me up.”
He recognized the man from their briefing, and he now frowned but moved aside.
Keely glanced over as she started into her song, but he flashed her a smile—nothing to worry about—and ducked into the wing, toward the shadowy backstage.
Flynn still sat with Zoey on her lap, the little girl now playing with Flynn’s phone. Axel stood behind her, Keely’s manager seated on the other chair, now glaring at him.
“What are you doing?”
“Something’s not right. You need to take Zoey and lock yourselves in the greenroom.”
Flynn got up, handed Zoey over to Axel. “I’m going with you.”
Axel leaned down and kissed her. “Stay safe.”
Goldie got up, clearly torn.
“I got this,” Axel said and headed toward the greenroom, holding Zoey. Caspian, good boy, followed him.
Dawson turned to Flynn. “You stay and watch Keely—”
“We have a room of people watching Keely. What did you see?”
He motioned toward the opposite wing. “Movement. A man.”
Flynn pushed past him, and he limped-hopped behind her.
The back door hung open, just a crack.
Where was Gil?
“Outside,” he hissed over Keely’s song and headed toward the door.
Gil sat on the snowy ground, bleeding from the head but still conscious. “He’s getting away!” Gil pointed, and Dawson spotted a man moving through the parking lot, under the splotch of lights.
He took off, limping hard, but Flynn shot out past him.
“Go around—block his exit!” He pointed toward the other row of cars.
She ran to cut him off, her gun already unholstered.
The man stopped at an old model truck with a topper just like the one Mars Sorros had used in his escape. Dawson cut through cars. “Stop!”
His voice jerked the man. He rounded on him, and it was just long enough for Flynn to surprise him. She stopped, her gun on him. “Get down! Get down!”
He sank to his knees, arms up.
The surrender hiccupped through Dawson. Something—
“On the ground!”
Dawson caught up to Flynn. She took the man’s hand, put him in a submission hold, her knee on his back. “Get backup.”
He turned and spotted Gil heading their way, holding a handkerchief to his head. “Gil! Get on the radio. We need police backup.”
Conan wasn’t moving, and Dawson’s instincts gave a jolt. After everything Conan had done to escape, this felt too easy. He turned, saw Gil on the radio, still heading their way.
“What?” Flynn said, clearly reading him.
“Something doesn’t feel right,” he said, glancing at Conan.
“I got this,” Flynn said.
Gil huffed over. He held zip ties and now stepped over to Flynn to secure the man.
“Don’t let him get away,” Dawson said to Flynn, and took off, limping hard toward the theater.