Memory's Door (A Well Spring Novel) (22 page)

But Brandon wasn’t good. His voice betrayed him. Interesting that although Reece could no longer see body language, his sense of hearing had been so heightened he could gauge people’s emotional state by the slightest nuance in their tone of voice.

“You’re sure?”

“Yup. I’m sure.”

It had to be something going on with Dana. Or the lack of something going on. Even though Brandon rarely discussed Dana with him, it was clear to anyone with a modicum of perception that the musician still loved her. It was also clear she either didn’t feel the same or was refusing to let her feelings surface.

Reece shook his head. No time to think about that now. They needed to move on to the Wolf. “Who wants to start?”

The tap of a pen on a notebook came from Reece’s left. Marcus getting ready to speak.

“The impression I received was we were to take our first step by going right to the source.”

Reece smiled. He’d gotten the same feeling. “You mean engage Carson directly?”

“Precisely.” Marcus’s tapping increased. “But I don’t mean confront him. I mean watch him in action, get a sense for what surrounds him spiritually. Do a reconnaissance mission.”

“I agree, but how do you suggest we do that? I doubt Carson has any idea who we are, and he’s not going to invite someone he doesn’t know to drop by for coffee and donuts.”

Reece heard someone shift position on the couch. “Easy,” Dana said.

“How so?” Reece cocked his head in her direction.

“Have Brandon go on his show.”

Reece laughed. “Of course.” Given Brandon’s level of fame, Carson had to know who the musician was. “Does he interview musicians?”

“Often,” Dana said.

“I don’t do interviews.” From the sound of Brandon’s voice and the scrape of his clothes against his chair, it was apparent the Song had stood and turned his back to the group.

“Why is that?” Reece said.

“I haven’t done one in over four years.”

Dana scoffed, “Is that part of your branding? You want to stay mysterious to your fans?”

Reece heard Brandon’s feet shuffling back and forth over the cabin floor. Finally his feet stopped and it sounded like he turned. “But if the rest of you think this is what the Spirit is saying, I’m in.”

TWENTY-SEVEN

S
OOZ STOOD IN
C
ARSON
T
ANNER
’
S DOORWAY LATE
M
ONDAY
afternoon, grinning like the Cheshire cat and bouncing on her toes double time.

“That’s a good news smile.” He rose and sauntered over to her. “No, that’s a great news smile.”

“You’re not going to believe this.” She pointed toward the heavens.

“I believe, help my unbelief.”

“Guess who just called me?”

“The only person I can’t believe would ever call you is Brandon Scott.”

“He asked if he could come on your show.”

“Unreal. God comes through.”

“I’ve booked him for June fourteenth. And get this. We’re not talking a phone interview. We’re talking he’s going to be in town to see his label so he wants to come to the studio.”

Carson shook his head and sniffed out a laugh. “Just making sure I heard you correctly here. He called you. Not his manager. Him. Asking to be on my show. Plus he wants to come into the studio? Here? In person?” He bent down and pounded the floor with his fist.

“Yes.”

“Why?” Carson rose up. “Please tell me what changed.”

“No idea.”

“I have an idea.” He grinned at Sooz. “God is most definitely on the move.”

She nodded and laughed.

Carson lurched back around his desk and sat, his hands moving like a windmill. “We’re going to promote the garbanzo beans out of this. I want a new audio stinger, thirty-second promos running four times an hour every day till the interview, notices on all our social media sites, the blog, and at least three e-mail blasts to our subscribers. We’re going to have the biggest audience we’ve had in eons. And Brandon and what the enemy is doing through him and his buddies will be hit like a fleet of Mack trucks.”

TWENTY-EIGHT

L
ATE
AFTERNOON ON
S
ATURDAY
K
EVIN
K
AISON STOOD
backstage at Marymoor Park, trying to keep his legs from bouncing. Why did he tell Brandon yes? This was too much. Sure, he wanted to do the concert. But unless his nerves quieted, he’d be so amped up and nervous his voice would make a soprano sound like a bass.

He rubbed his hands together. Both were damp with perspiration. His hands would slide all over his guitar—and he didn’t play slide guitar. His mouth ached. He didn’t realize he was clenching his teeth till the pain worked its way up into his jaw. He was a basket case.

Kevin slumped onto a stool, closed his eyes, and laid two fingers across his wrist. Wow. Relax. How could his heart race with Indianapolis 500 speed when all he was doing was sitting?

By seven the crowd started ambling in over the expansive grass of the venue and picked spots to lay their blankets or set up their red and blue and green folding chairs. And it was a crowd. He’d hoped for three hundred people to show up; he’d expected a hundred. He glanced at his watch. Still an hour till showtime and there had to be at least seven hundred people already through the gates.

They knew Brandon wasn’t playing, right? Then again, reducing
the ticket price by half might have something to do with people still turning out. But still, who would want to see Brandon Scott’s manager? Yeah, Kevin had a hit song, but that was hit song, singular. Did they really want to plunk down hard cash to see some guy they’d barely heard of?

Anthony, who wasn’t much thicker than a javelin, sauntered up to him as he sucked on a milk shake Kevin surmised was his usual concoction of ice cream, butterscotch, and a healthy dose of wheat germ.

“Looks like you’ve got a decent crowd shuffling in.”

“Yeah, a few anyway.”

“Nice guerilla marketing move, K2.” Anthony took a big gulp of his shake.

“What move?”

“Sending everyone who bought a ticket an MP3 of your soon-to-be-released next song.” He wiggled his forefinger at the crowd. “Looks like a few of them liked it.”

“I didn’t . . .”

Brandon. He must have sent the song out to the list. “They heard my next song.”

“Uh, yeah.”

Kevin grabbed his phone and called Brandon. He picked up on the second ring. “You sent out my second song?”

“Did it work?” A light chuckle floated through the phone.

“Yeah, I think it worked.” Kevin snaked through the stack of amps at the back of the stage and settled into a chair next to his guitar.

“How many people in seats so far?”

“Getting close to a thousand.”

“One thousand? Sweet. See you at the top, bro.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Say thanks.”

Kevin got up and went back to the front of the stage. He peered around the curtain hiding him from view of the crowd laying
blankets on the thick June grass and lying back and letting the late afternoon sun soak into them. “Why are you doing all this for me?”

“You’re kidding, right? After all the years you believed in what we were trying to do—even when it was lean? Talking me off the ledge millions of times? Telling me I had it when no one believed it but you? This is a very small payback for all those years.”

“Thanks.”

“Now go out there and go crazy. Sing like there’s no tomorrow because there isn’t. There is only this moment. Take it. It’s yours.”

“I needed those words and to say I appreciate it sounds so . . . stupid.”

“Rock it, bro.”

Kevin let the growing rumble of the crowd’s conversation seep into his heart. They weren’t here for Brandon Scott. They were here for him. Kevin Kaison. Not the manager. Not the agent. The musician. “I should go.”

“Something else,” Brandon said. “This is important. Ready? You might want to make a note of this. I’m serious.”

“I’m ready.”

“Try your best when the moment comes, and you walk onto that stage . . . not to puke.”

Kevin laughed. “I’ll try.”

“K2? One more thing. Serious this time.”

“Yeah?”

“God is in this and since he is, nothing about tonight is about you. It’s about him. And if it’s about him and he is in it, whatever happens is gold.”

“Love ya, bro.”

“Same. Kick it hard. I’ll be praying.”

As Kevin started the fifth song, something flickered in his peripheral vision. A thin line of something translucent with a light green
tinge to it slithered through the grass to his right and left and up toward the stage, but when he stared at the matted grass he saw nothing. A memory flashed through his mind. Of Brandon’s concert last year where Reece’s and Dana’s and Marcus’s spirits had shown up onstage to fight . . . he couldn’t remember. A vine? Some kind of evil but what? Brandon had never really talked about it, and Kevin shook his head. He couldn’t let himself get distracted. This was his shot.

The crowd had been appreciative up till now, but he felt a shift, saw it on their faces. They loved him. And he loved them. And if he could admit it, he loved that they loved him. For once in his life the praise wasn’t all about the god of Christian music: Brandon Scott. The roars of the crowd were for Kevin Kaison, stepping into his glory. No. Leaping into his glory—with arms stretched to their limit.

For the rest of the concert he did exactly what Brandon had told him to. He went crazy, forgot about playing every chord right and hitting every note perfect and just played with abandon.

By the time the last chord on the last song filled the dusky night air, he knew he’d hit a grand-slam home run. He raised his guitar to the audience and loped offstage, adrenaline and sweat and exhilaration all pouring over him.

The roar of the crowd ended in shouts of “Encore!” and Kevin strutted back onto the stage and again raised his guitar high in the air. The crowd erupted and his grin felt like it wrapped around his head. He was home for the first time in his life and if he had anything to say about it, would never leave.

An hour later Kevin sat alone in the center of the empty stage. The shouts of a late-evening soccer game under the Marymoor Park lights floated toward him from a half mile away. And the shouts of the crowd at the concert still echoed through his head. Cheering for him. Loving his music. His dream had come alive.

Holding the case his bass rested in with both hands, Anthony bounced over to Kevin. “Congratulations, K2. I knew you could do it. The band knew you could do it. Most of all Brandon knew you could. Well done.”

“Thanks.” Kevin gazed over the matted grass again, and an image of the crowd again filled his mind.

“How are you going to juggle being a rising star and being Brandon’s manager slash agent at the same time?”

A surge of adrenaline filled him, but he shoved the emotion down. “Easy. This was a one-time thing—my hobby getting a few moments in the sun. Managing Brandon is my true calling.”

“Do you practice that insipid line every day?”

Kevin turned to Anthony and stared at the bass player’s grin. As he did, an impression formed in Kevin’s mind. Anthony was right. He wouldn’t be going back. His days were on the verge of change. He’d just hopped on a sixty-foot wave and his surfboard was pointed straight down—he was about to go on the ride of his life.