"I don't want you to kill anyone else, Marta." Mick's arm was sweating through Parker's shirt. "Enough people have died. If you shoot her, you'll shoot me."
"Then move away from her."
"Why do you want to kill me?" Parker managed to ask. "What did I do to you?"
Marta's teeth ground together. "He has a strange attachment to you, and I don't like it."
Parker heard his unsteady breath. "That's not true," he said. "She has nothing to do with you or me." He spoke as if trying to calm a wild animal.
"Yes, she does," Marta said. "I had to kill Brenna because of her."
Parker sucked in a hard breath.
"Nobody had to kill Brenna," Mick said. "I had it under control. I could have talked them out of using the songs. I told you about it in confidence. I didn't mean for you to kill anybody."
"Spoiled little brat had it coming. Treating you like you were nobody. Treated me like that, too." She lowered the gun, and her face twisted. "I'm the only one who's ever stood up for you, Mick."
"I know you are. I ... appreciate that." Fear rippled in his voice. "Put the gun down and let Parker go, and we'll run away together. Isn't that what you want?"
Marta clenched her teeth and fixed her aim. She wasn't buying it. She glanced at the door of a room nearby. "In that room. Move, now."
Mick and Parker hesitated.
"Now, I said!"
Parker moved with Mick to the door. He turned the knob and they pushed inside. It was lit up and smelled of popcorn. A stainless-steel box filled most of the room, with an industrial-sized popcorn maker over it. It held crumbs and kernels, but no popcorn. Flattened popcorn boxes were stacked floor to ceiling against the walls.
Parker saw another closed door across the room. It probably opened into the hallway. Mick stayed close to Parker as Marta came in and bolted the door. Under the light, Parker saw the wildness in her eyes.
"This room won't do," Marta said. "They'll hear us. Let's go back."
Confusion. That was good, Parker thought. They could use that. On the other hand, confusion could cause Marta to act without thinking.
Mick didn't budge. "Marta, you're making this so much worse for yourself. Every killing is tangling this tighter. I know you think you're doing the right thing--the noble thing. Even when you killed Tiffany ..."
Parker squeezed her eyes shut. So Marta had killed both of them. Marta's confidential meeting with Parker and Gibson was just part of the cover-up. She must have hidden the gun in Chase's apartment herself.
"Tiffany. Threw. You. Out." Marta bit off each word. "You should have killed her yourself. Who did she think she was? She was going to pin the stolen song on you and let you take the fall. She was going to tell them you killed Brenna. You would have gone to prison."
"I'm wanted for murder now," Mick said. "How much worse could it have been?"
Parker glanced around the room, looking for something--anything--they could use as a weapon. There were metal scoops in the popcorn box, but she wasn't close enough to them. On the floor was a fire extinguisher. She could use it if she could inch towardit.
Marta pouted like a scorned child. "I bring good things into your life, Mick. Not bad things, like you say."
"I know you do," he said, his voice wobbling. "I want to let Parker go and hold you. But I can't let you kill her. Come on, we'll open the door and let her go. Then you and I will leave through the chiller room. Before she gets help, we'll be long gone."
Parker held her breath. Please, God. Marta seemed to be considering it, but then her gaze grew feral again.
"No. You have this stupid infatuation with her. You were following her like you had some crush. He fought his father for you," Marta told Parker.
"Not because I had a crush on her," Mick countered. "I didn't even know her. I fought my father because he was going to send Brenna to steal. It was wrong."
The gun was aimed at Parker's face, dead center. Death would come the moment it went off. No chance of survival.
"He followed you, Parker," Marta spat out. "He obsessed over you. I can't let that go on."
Parker wanted to speak, but she knew the slightest thing could set Marta off. The slightest word from the person Marta loathed.
Mick spoke instead. "I followed her because I was afraid of what you were going to do next, Marta. You were stalking her, watching her every move. You broke into her house and left those song sheets. That wasn't rational. One minute you think you're helping her, the next you're trying to kill her."
"And that's the reason I have to kill her. Because of your protection of her. You've never protected me that way."
"I'm trying to protect you now."
Her laugh had a razor edge. "We can stay here all night like this, Mick. I'll stand here with this gun until you move out of the way. Or maybe I'll just kill you both. I could walk out of here. Nobody's even looking for me."
Sweat dripped into Parker's eyes. "Marta ...," she said in a shaky voice, "my brother, the cop, is in the building. He'll realize I'm not around. He'll come looking for me. There might have been witnesses, people who heard me scream. Someone may have heard the gunshot. They'll call the police." She stopped, tried to swallow the knot in her throat. "If you go now, while no one is here, they'll never find you." Her mind searched for things she'd read about hostage situations. Talk to your captors. Help them to see you as a person. Draw sympathy. "Marta, I liked you when I met you. We hit it off, didn't we?"
Marta didn't answer. "I was acting. I'm good at it."
"You are," Mick said. "You ... we ... should go to Hollywood. You could get auditions. Be in a movie."
"After I kill her."
Parker tried again. "My mom is out there, in the audience. Don't make her find me here. Please. My little brother, too. He's backstage. I don't want him traumatized."
"Your little brother is twenty-four. I know all about your family, so don't try to make me feel sorry for some kid who doesn't even exist."
"If you know about my family, then you know how close we are. If I die, it will affect so many people who don't deserve it. And I haven't done anything except listen to you and care about you."
Her pleading wasn't working. Marta wanted blood. Her eyes had a vicious glint. "Mick told me your songs spoke to him. I tried to write songs that spoke to him, but they stank."
Parker searched her memory for what she knew about Marta. She'd been in her room, seen her things. The picture of Mick ... it must have been hers instead of Brenna's. "But you sing, right? You're a vocal performance major. You must be good, or you wouldn't have gotten into Belmont."
"I am good," she said. "I could be doing what Serene Stevens is doing, only better."
That gave Parker hope. "If you let me go, I'll write some songs for you to record."
Marta's eyes were dull, uninspired.
"Choosing the right songs is half the battle. If you have good songs and a good voice, you could go far."
Marta's grip on that gun was steady. "I can go far without you."
Parker tried again. Every word bought a little more time. "The Bible says, 'I have a plan for you ... plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'"
"Jeremiah 29:11," Marta said through compressed lips. "Don't quote the Bible to me."
"You don't think God has a plan for your life?"
"If he planned the family I came from, then I'll choose my own way."
So that was it. A damaged past. If Parker could get down to that, probe the inner workings of Marta's pain, maybe she could make her see that another murder wouldn't fill the void. Parker wiped her damp hair back from her forehead. Mick still stood behind her, holding her. "What kind of family did you come from?"
Marta's lips curled again. "The same kind he came from. Divorces and suicides and abandonment and steps and halves ..."
"It must have been hard."
"Yeah, you wouldn't know, would you? You have that close family, everyone intact."
"M
y parents are divorced." It was the first time she'd ever seen it as a positive. "My father's an alcoholic."
Marta gave a mirthless laugh. "Poor Parker." Her mocking tone turned to hatred, and her lips sneered. "Did you ever get molested by your mother's boyfriend? Did you ever get consigned to the basement because you're from a 'previous marriage,' and the real family had the run of the house?"
"No, I never had that happen."
Marta came closer with that gun, only a few feet away from her, just out of reach. Parker pulled her head back, as if putting more distance between her and the barrel would save her life.
Tears ran down Marta's face, her black eyeliner dripping like mud. "That's why I loved you, Mick. We were the same. I knew how you felt. I even knew why her songs spoke to you, because they spoke to me, too."
Parker thought through all of her lyrics, wondering which ones appealed to her. Maybe in some of the verses she'd written, Marta had found her story. Songs were sometimes like mirrors, speaking life or death into wounded minds.
"They spoke to you because God was using them," Parker whispered. "That's proof that he's been watching over you. Trying to comfort you."
"Where was he when they stuck me in a mental hospital?"
So there it was. She was mentally ill. It didn't matter which came first, the treatment or the disease. She wasn't rational today.
"What did they treat you for?" Parker asked.
"Depression, psychosis ... drugged me up, calmed me down, tucked me out of the way for six months or so ..."
Six months. Her family had her in a mental ward for six months?
"Just like Mick, only he got sent to boarding school. Shipped away where he wouldn't be a problem. Can't have anybody reminding the new spouse that there was a life before, can we? Even putting in all that church time--going three times a week, choir practice, teaching Sunday School, my mother couldn't bring herself to be a decent mother to her firstborn."
Parker's cell phone began to ring in its irritating riff, startling her. She went for it, but Marta cocked the gun. "Don't touch it."
Parker froze and felt Mick pulling her tighter against him, keeping Marta from shooting. As much as Marta wanted to kill Parker, she didn't want Mick to die.
"It's my family looking for me," Parker said carefully. "I told you. You won't get away with this if they find me dead."
"Give me the phone."
It was clipped to her belt. Parker pulled it off and glanced down. Gibson's picture smiled back at her.
"Give it to me!"
If she could drop it, Marta would have to stoop to get it, giving Parker the chance to kick the gun out of her hand. She tossed, and it hit the ground and skidded some distance away.
"Nice try." Marta's aim didn't waver. She backed over to the iPhone, then stomped on it, the heel of her shoe cracking the screen.
CHAPTER
FIFTY-FOUR
Back in the security room, Gibson stood with LesPaul and Vince Summers, the security director. "I rewound the tape, and here it is. Something right here."
Gibson saw someone pass across that screen. Parker, with a man holding her ...
His stomach flipped as they moved by again. He couldn't see where they'd gone. "They're out of the frame. Is there another camera that picked them up?"
"There's a short blind spot there." Vince pointed to another screen, backed the video up on that one. Nothing. "They must have gone into one of the rooms near there. There's no video of them leaving the building. They vanished right there in that area."
"What are the rooms?"
"There's a chiller room, a boiler room, a janitor's closet, a concession storage room, the popcorn room, a prop and stage set room--"
"Are there cameras in any of them?"
"No, no cameras."
Gibson addressed the cops who'd answered the call. "He's got my sister. He's killed two people, and he's probably armed and dangerous. We have to figure out where he's holding her." He turned back to the security director. "Lock the exits. Don't let anybody out. LesPaul, go get word to Serene to stretch out the concert to keep everybody here."
The cops were rallying, unsnapping their weapons, fanning out around the building. They'd been trained for terrorist activity, and this qualified. His heart pounded as he ran behind some of them toward the area where Mick and Parker had disappeared.
CHAPTER
FIFTY-FIVE
Lynn and Pete had no intentions of going to the van. The question LesPaul had asked on the phone was sure evidence that something had happened. If Mick Evans had come back, then Parker was in danger. Lynn got her All Access pass out of her purse and ran around the concourse, down to the backstage area. Pete was on her heels.
It was time for Serene's costume change--the part of the show when Parker would have done her three songs. Now they seemed to stretch out the time with the band playing a long instrumental, while Serene ran to change her clothes.
Lynn saw LesPaul, waiting beside the stage as Serene shot off. "Serene," he said, blocking her. "You have to extend the concert. Parker's in trouble. They're locking down the exits to keep anyone from leaving."
Serene's makeup artist stood waiting. "Come on, honey. There's not much time."
Serene didn't budge. "What do you mean, Parker's in trouble?"
Lynn pushed through the people beginning to gather around the star. "LesPaul, where is she?"
He gave her and Pete an irritated look. "Mom, we told you--"
Pete stepped between them. "We don't care what you told us. Where's Parker?"
He swallowed. "We can't find her. We think Mick Evans may be here."
Lynn's heart slammed to the pit of her stomach. "Does he ...does he have her?"
He avoided the question and pointed in the direction where they'd found the shell. "Someone heard a gunshot in that part of the building on the main floor. Don't panic, Mom."
But panic spread like fuel-fed flames through Lynn's body. She turned and ran toward the dark hallway.
"Mom, don't! Dad, stop her."
Pete overtook her and passed her as they got to the stairs. "Let me go first."
LesPaul ran after them. "Mom, Dad, we found a shell at the top of those stairs. He's armed and dangerous."
"I don't care what he is!" she said. "My daughter may be with him!"
She got to the top of the stairs and opened the door, looking up and down the corridor. Police were already there, going from door to door, checking each room.
A cop stopped her. "Ma'am, we need you to go back downstairs!" "I'm not going anywhere until I find my daughter!"
One of the cops looked around her. "Miss Stevens, we'd really appreciate it if you would get back on stage and keep the concert going. If people start to leave ..."
Lynn turned and saw Serene standing behind her, tears on her face.
"The band will keep playing until I get back," she said. "Please ... you have to find her."
CHAPTER
FIFTY-SIX
Sweat trickled through Parker's hair, down her temples. Mick was sweating, too. His shirt was wet against her back.
"Marta, I know your life has been hard," Parker said. "People let you down. They betrayed you. But I didn't do it. If you love Mick, don't leave another body for police to find. They'll think he did it. They'll come after him."
That seemed to give Marta pause. "I never meant for them to blame him. They never would have if it hadn't been for him following you. They would have assumed it was Chase. I made sure of that."
Mick's voice was louder now. "Marta, they knew it wasn't Chase when you killed Tiffany. And you'd made threats against Parker. I followed her to protect her from you."
It was all becoming clear. Mick had been the one to call Parker that night, to tell her that it was about her, but that he would protect her. Somehow, the stolen songs had prompted a fight in that family. Marta had taken their treatment of Mick a little too personally.
Marta moved to the side, as if trying to get an angle
where Mick wouldn't be hit. Mick stayed glued to Parker. "You're not that good a shot, Marta. You shoot her, you kill me."
"Then let her go!"
"No. Just give me the gun. Come on, Marta. We have no future if you don't."
"I don't have a future anyway!" The noise from the nearby chiller room muffled her cry. "You don't love me. I had to hold you hostage to keep you with me. You tried to leave me, too! You said I was crazy!" Marta was crumbling. Her eyes shifted wildly back and forth across the room, as if puzzling whether it was worth it to kill them both.
Suddenly, someone jiggled the doorknob. Marta spun, and the gun went off.
Parker screamed and dropped to the floor, praying no one on the other side of that door had been shot.
CHAPTER
FIFTY-SEVEN
Lynn lifted her face from the floor where she'd dropped when the gun fired. God, she's in there! Help her!
Police backed away from the room, all of their weapons poised. Gibson was among them, right in the line of fire. She found LesPaul on the floor, getting to his knees. Pete was up and pulling her back to the staircase.
And then she saw Serene ... lying back against the wall in a growing pool of blood. "She's hit! Serene's hit!"
Chaos ensued around them as two cops fell to Serene's side. Others gathered around Lynn, Pete, and LesPaul, pushing them into the staircase, forcing them toward safety.
She heard one of the police officers radioing for paramedics. Someone radioed back that they were already in the building and on their way.
Lynn rushed to the bottom of the stairs and fell into Pete's arms. "Oh, Pete, we have to pray," she cried.
CHAPTER
FIFTY-EIGHT
Marta swung back around, revolver clamped in her hands. "Now look what you've done!"
Mick shoved Parker against the wall and dove for Marta, tackling her. She kicked and thrashed, and Parker saw Mick grab Marta's wrist. The girl's finger was on the trigger, ready to pull. Mick gritted his teeth as his full weight pinned Marta down. He slid his hand up beyond her wrist to her hand, to the gun--and with a quick movement, he twisted the gun from her grasp and scrambled to his feet. "Against the wall, Marta!" he yelled. "Now!"