Tommy looked up, and Jenna felt him tense, though his expression didn’t alter.
‘Richie,’ he said, by way of greeting.
‘Already leaving?’ Richie asked, with an edge to his voice. He looked at Jenna much like she was a worm. Then back at Tommy. ‘You’re back with Loony Tunes?’
So when Richie decided to start talking in her vicinity it was all about name-calling. Nice. Jenna fixed a polite expression on her face, and tried to rise above the Loony Tunes comment.
‘The party’s pretty boring,’ Tommy said calmly. ‘No surprise. You okay? You look tense.’
‘I’m terrific,’ Richie muttered. But he looked tweaked, and twitchy, and Jenna didn’t think that was her imagination working overtime.
The valet roared up in Tommy’s sleek, ferocious car. Jenna happily climbed inside. Tommy gave Richie a slap on the shoulder, then walked around to the driver’s side.
‘Drive safe,’ Richie said in a snide kind of tone – and it gave Jenna chills. But then she remembered that she was the only one who knew what had happened – would happen – tonight. Wasn’t she?
Was Richie threatening Tommy? Or was he just saying something for the sake of saying something, and sounding dark and strange because – hell – he was dark and strange?
Tommy put the car in gear, and Jenna tried to convince herself that it was a coincidence.
Which was hard to do when she turned around, and saw Richie standing there with an angry look on his face, staring after them as they drove away.
‘Tell me more about the crash,’ Tommy said as he manoeuvred the car through the rain-slick Manhattan streets. His mind was racing. He’d had the most amazing thought. ‘The car – this car – goes over the bridge, but how?’
‘No one knows exactly,’ Jenna said. She frowned, as if she was picturing it, which Tommy found creepy. Maybe it would be strange not to find a discussion of the particulars of your own death creepy.
‘And my body was never found. Only the empty car.’
‘The empty, crushed car,’ Jenna said. She shifted in her seat, and he could feel her eyes on him. ‘It wasn’t pretty, let me assure you.’
‘Of course it wasn’t pretty,’ Tommy said absently. ‘This car is a work of art. It’s not just a vehicle. Crashing it is a sin.’
‘I was more concerned with the part where you died,’ Jenna said drily. ‘But we can mourn the car, too, if you want.’
He heard her, and wanted to laugh or throw the appropriate comeback her way, but the idea in his head was picking up speed and consuming everything else in its path.
‘What’s the matter?’ she asked. ‘You have the weirdest look on your face.’
‘Jenna,’ Tommy said slowly, jerking the car to the side of the road and stamping on the brake so he could turn to face her. She threw out a hand to brace herself. ‘What if this isn’t about my death? What if this is about escaping?’
‘What are you talking about?’ She was still bracing herself against the door.
‘Think about it. No body was ever found. Maybe that’s because there wasn’t one to find.’
‘I liked Eddie and the Cruisers too,’ Jenna said slowly, shaking her head. ‘But it was a movie, Tommy.’
‘I’m not talking about a movie,’ Tommy said impatiently. ‘I’m talking about my life. I could just … walk away.’
Jenna was quiet for a long moment. Tommy was already envisioning it. A small cabin somewhere, up on a mountain. Just the two of them, and his guitar. It sounded like perfection.
‘I think you’re too famous to disappear,’ Jenna said, shattering the image of a mountainside. ‘Where can you go where people won’t recognize you?’ She put a hand on his leg when he turned to her. ‘I understand the fantasy, Tommy, but I don’t think you understand how—’
‘Look at the facts,’ Tommy said, interrupting her. He knew he sounded desperate. Hell, he was desperate. ‘You only think I died. You have no proof. Not everything happens the way you think it will – look at the fight with Eugenia.’
‘That’s true.’ Jenna rubbed a hand over her face, and for a moment she looked so tired that he wanted to cradle her in his arms, and take her away the way she wanted him to. But he didn’t think that would be enough. As long as people knew to look for him, how could he ever escape?
‘I would know if there had been any sightings over the years, and there haven’t been,’ Jenna said slowly, as if she was thinking it through. ‘I assumed that meant you were dead. But I guess I don’t really know for sure.’
‘All we know is that the car goes over the bridge,’ Tommy said triumphantly. ‘So all we have to do is send the car over the bridge. And then we’re free, Jenna. Free.’
He saw the way she looked at him, and he knew that if he suggested they climb up the side of the Twin Towers, she would do it.
Even if she thought he was as crazy as he’d accused her of being.
Was that love? Or were they both nuts?
Tommy didn’t much care.
‘Okay,’ Jenna said. She looked resigned. But she was smiling. ‘I’ll do it. But how do we crash this car without you in it?’
30
Jenna had seen the Tappan Zee Bridge so many times before, exactly as it was tonight. She’d seen tonight over and over again, as a matter of fact – or at any rate, the cold pre-dawn hours after tonight, when the news reports had begun to trickle in. She’d pored over the footage, looking for clues in the wet pavement, the skid marks, the gaping hole in the guard rail. She’d cursed the rain that fell from the low clouds above, and she cursed it again as she followed Tommy back out to the scene of what she’d always assumed was his death.
She was driving one of his other cars – yes, he’d used the plural – and she did not have enough car knowledge (or, to be honest, interest) to know what kind of car she was driving. She suspected it was a very nice one indeed, the kind of car that her father would occasionally sigh over when watching Bond movies. Should she be reverent? Alarmed? Terrified of chipping the paint or something? She didn’t know – which was just as well, given the limited visibility in the rain. The storm had moved in over the New York area, and was pounding the hell out of it. Jenna’s wipers flew back and forth across the windshield, doing what almost looked like a dance.
They had packed up a few of Tommy’s things – very, very few of Tommy’s things. After all, they’d reasoned, Tommy couldn’t very well pack up his home and all of his belongings and take them with him. He had to walk away. When he was finished, he had only a messenger bag’s worth of his life, and that bright, excited look in his eyes that made Jenna’s heart swell for him.
She would do anything to keep that hopeful look on his face, she’d promised herself then and there, and she repeated it to herself now.
Anything.
‘There isn’t much I want to take,’ he’d said, standing at the bottom of his spiral staircase, and looking around, though Jenna had doubted he was seeing his apartment. He’d let his hands fall against his sides. ‘If that doesn’t say all there is to say about this life of mine, I don’t know what can.’
‘Come on,’ she’d said, on her feet and at his side, wanting to soothe him any way she could. ‘Let’s go get you a new one.’
And soon enough, they were pulled over on the side of the Tappan Zee Bridge, which was remarkably empty for ten o’clock at night. The two of them were the only ones foolish enough to be out in this weather. Jenna tried to block the rain and wind with the hood of her sweatshirt, but it only soaked in the wetness, and clung to her frozen skin. She walked up from where she’d parked a short distance behind Tommy’s car.
‘Are you ready?’ she asked, pitching her voice to be louder than the pounding rain.
‘I have to make sure there’s enough speed to break through the rail,’ Tommy called back. ‘I’ll rev her up, let her go, and then jump, okay?’
This was what they’d discussed. This was the plan. Jenna didn’t know why her stomach clenched in reaction
, as if she was hearing it for the first time.
‘You’ll have to jump out the window,’ she said nervously. ‘They’ll be able to tell if the door was open. You can’t use the door.’
She’d spent the drive over thinking through all that footage, all the police reports, the Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone investigations that came out later and sifted through every last detail. The door had to be closed, definitely. She wasn’t sure about the state of CSI departments or forensic evidence in 1987, but why risk it?
‘I might get banged up a little bit,’ he said, but his green eyes were bright with amusement. ‘Can you handle that?’
He thinks this is fun, Jenna realized. Of course he did. How … male.
‘Why don’t you try to land on your face?’ She suggested. ‘That way you can blend in later on, no problem.’
‘You’re funny,’ he said, as if he didn’t think she was, though she could see that he did. She was acutely aware of all that rain and wet between them. He didn’t say goodbye, or touch her. She didn’t either. Her nerves couldn’t take it.
‘Be careful,’ she said, or maybe she only thought it. He nodded once, definitively, and then climbed inside the car.
Jenna could feel the rain, pounding against her. She was wet everywhere – her wet jeans were heavy and scraped against her thighs, her wet socks scrunched in her boots. Her hair dripped against her neck, a sodden mass. The Ferrari’s engine raced like the growl of some gigantic jungle cat. She heard the screech of rubber against pavement, the roar of the powerful engine. Then the car took off. It burst into life, and speed.
Jenna wasn’t breathing. She couldn’t breathe.
She didn’t want to look – but she couldn’t look away.
Tommy drove for a few yards, building up speed. Then he aimed the nose of the car for the side of the bridge. It was all so fast. Just as Jenna started to scream, because he had to be trapped, she saw the blur of his body as he hurled himself through the window. He hit the ground, and rolled. The Ferrari kept going – ploughing through the guard rail and disappearing over the side.
So smoothly.
So completely.
And then, improbably, everything was quiet, and once again Jenna could hear nothing but the rain.
But Tommy didn’t move.
She was running before she knew she was moving. She couldn’t think – she could only see Tommy’s motionless figure on the ground. What if they had played right into it? What if—
No no no no—
She reached his side, skidding on to her knees, her hands reaching for him and turning him over—
‘Ouch,’ he said, his voice a little bit shaky, and then he opened his eyes, and Jenna felt a rush of relief so powerful that she almost collapsed from it. ‘Your bedside manner sucks.’
Jenna touched his face, his throat, his torso. She felt for broken bones, and just to feel him, solid and real, beneath her hands. She took a breath that felt like a sob.
‘I think I’m okay,’ he muttered, climbing to his feet.
‘You better be,’ Jenna muttered right back.
It was as if they couldn’t speak in regular voices, as if they were hushed by the enormity of what they’d done. Jenna eased over to the gaping, torn hole in the bridge’s guard rail and felt a shimmer of cold wash through her. She had the faintest sense of vertigo as the wind buffeted her. She was afraid to get too close. Down below, the Hudson river was dark, with only a flat patch and ripples spreading outwards, soon to be swallowed up entirely.
As if nothing had happened.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ Tommy said, his hands strong on her shoulders.
They didn’t speak much on the way back into the city. Jenna stole looks at him, and wiped the water from her face. Tears, rain – it made no difference at this point.
He was alive.
Tommy was alive.
The car was in the river, and he was not.
She should feel jubilant. Triumphant. Safe.
But instead, adrenalin was still coursing through her body, and her lungs still felt tight. She was still on edge. Jittery.
Maybe when the night is over, she thought. Maybe when everyone thinks he’s dead. Maybe when we’re far away from here.
Once in the city, they parked Tommy’s car in his private garage, where there were no cameras and no one to report their movements. Then, because they were already soaking wet and they had nothing but time, they walked across the park to Jenna’s place.
It was a long, cold, improbably magical walk.
Central Park was dark and should have been scary. It was 1987 and not safe at night, but it was almost as if the two of them were sealed away in some bubble where nothing outside it could touch them. Jenna didn’t care about the various physical discomforts she felt – the faint tenderness between her legs from the night before, the spot even now being rubbed raw by her wet sock against her cold foot. All that mattered was Tommy’s arm slung across her shoulders, and the way they walked in tandem. As if their bodies recognized each other, and were effortlessly in tune. No words necessary.
By now the hole in the bridge would be noticed. The teams would be called to drag the river, and Tommy’s car would be discovered. It was already happening even as they walked along the streets of the Upper East Side, hoods pulled up against the rain, totally anonymous.
Tommy Seer was about to be declared dead. Meanwhile, Tommy was holding on to Jenna’s hand like it was a life-line, and no one else knew where he was. He was free. And she was with him.
The night spun around them, alive with all the possibilities.
‘I think we really did it,’ she whispered in wonder as they approached her stoop.
Tommy looked down at her, grinning.
‘I think we did,’ he agreed.
But Richie detached himself from shadows around Jenna’s front door, and stepped into the light.
It wasn’t the flat, angry look on his face that scared Jenna the most, or the sneer on his lips that she’d never seen before. It wasn’t even the incontrovertible evidence – right there on his face – that he really, really hated Tommy. That was surprising, but that wasn’t the terrifying part.
The terrifying part was the gun Richie held.
The one he aimed right at Tommy.
‘What the hell?’ Tommy demanded, but all he could think was Jenna – have to protect Jenna. He shoved her behind him. For once, she didn’t fight him. ‘What are you doing here?’
He didn’t mention the gun Richie was pointing at him, because really, as if anyone was likely to overlook it. Mentioning it was redundant, wasn’t it?
‘I knew you’d be back here with your stalker bitch,’ Richie said. He looked at Jenna, and his eyes were cold. Mean. He was a complete stranger to Tommy. ‘You’re not the only person who likes to follow people around, Jenna,’ he said with a disturbing little laugh. ‘Did you think I didn’t see you following me yesterday? Are you that stupid?’
Jenna muttered something that sounded like Monica Stars. Tommy ignored her, keeping all of his attention focused on Richie.
‘You’re pointing a gun at me,’ Tommy said conversationally. Or as conversationally as he could after faking his own death, running around in the pouring rain for hours, and discovering his band mate waving a gun in his face. ‘Is that really necessary?’
‘You have to die,’ Richie said. Somewhat more calmly than Tommy thought was appropriate. ‘I’ve thought about it, and it’s the only way.’
‘The only way for what?’ Tommy asked. He scanned the dark, quiet street, but there was no one around. So much for the city that never slept. There were only dark windows and distant sounds of traffic tonight. He could shout for help, but what would that do? People were likely to turn over, hide their heads beneath the pillows, and praise whatever they prayed to that it wasn’t them. That was life in the big bad city.
‘I’ve always been the expendable one,’ Richie said. ‘You and Sebastian and Nick can get other gigs, no proble
m, but what about me? There are a million keyboard players. The Wild Boys is my one shot, and you want to walk away from it, no thought for anyone else at all. Well, you can’t walk away from this, can you?’ He moved the muzzle of the gun, pointing it at Tommy’s head rather than his heart. Not a vast improvement.
‘The Wild Boys,’ Tommy said, derision flaring in his voice. ‘It’s just a band, Richie. You can play in another band.’
‘It’s not just a band,’ Richie gritted out. The gun in his hand wavered. ‘What the hell is wrong with you, man? Why can’t you see what a good thing you have going? We’re in the hottest band of the decade and you can’t even see it!’
‘I see it,’ Tommy said, trying to sound placating. ‘But the decade’s almost over. It’s time to do other things.’
‘That’s nice for you,’ Richie sneered. ‘But what about me? What am I supposed to do? I owe people money, Tommy. Lots of money.’
‘We make lots of money,’ Tommy snapped. He could feel Jenna behind him, her hands digging into his back. Was she holding on or holding herself back? He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
‘And we can make a lot more,’ Richie tossed back at him. He raised the gun again. ‘Keith Moon. Sid Vicious. Ronnie Van Zant. John Lennon.’
‘They’re all dead, yes,’ Tommy said. ‘That doesn’t mean you have to go crazy here—’
‘Don’t call me crazy!’ Richie snapped at him. ‘You’re the one throwing it all away. For what? Some bullshit solo career? What about me?’
‘Make your own solo career—’ Tommy began, but it was a mistake.
‘You’re worth more to me dead,’ Richie said angrily, and this time when he took aim, Tommy knew with perfect clarity that he was going to die. Jenna had been right all along.
‘What’s your plan here?’ Jenna demanded suddenly, startling both Tommy and Richie. Tommy wasn’t sure who was more surprised when she stepped out from behind him.
‘Please don’t do whatever you’re doing,’ Tommy hissed at her, but she ignored him.
‘Seriously,’ Jenna said, her gaze trained on Richie. ‘Did you think this through?’