Over the Line (6 page)

"What's up?" She glanced up from her notes, trying to mask her impatience. It was almost time for sound check, and she still hadn't worked this number through in her mind. One look at Wilson's face, however, had her forgetting all about the concert.

"Problem?"

"Sorry to interrupt, but the police are here. They need to talk to you."

She stood abruptly, tossed her notes aside. "Police?"

Before she could ask him another question, Wilson opened the door wide, and two uniformed officers entered the room. She was barely aware of Wilson making introductions. All that registered were the dour and grim expressions on both men's faces.

"What? What's happened?" Her heartbeat ricocheted around in her ears as she looked from one to the other. "Oh God. Is it Max? Did something happen to Max?"

"Max?" The taller of the two shot a glance at Wilson.

"Max Cogan. Her manager," Wilson supplied.

At some point, Wilson had ended up right beside her. Janey wasn't sure how that had happened, but she was suddenly glad for his steady presence. Max had had a meeting across town this afternoon. All she could think was that he'd had an accident. Or that the recurrent indigestion he'd been fighting had actually been his heart, and he'd had an attack.

"No. This has nothing to do with your manager."

The relief was almost as crushing as her concern. So much so that she must have wobbled. Wilson's fingers wrapped around her arm and steadied her.

"Thank God." She smiled, feeling foolish. "Sorry about that. I'm a little wired. Big show tonight." She lifted a shoulder. "So, what can I do for you? Oh—hey, this isn't about the damage the band did to the hotel in Denver a couple of weeks ago, is it? We covered that. At least, we were supposed to."

"Ma'am," the officer who she thought introduced himself as Richards interrupted. "It's not about Denver. I'm afraid we have some bad news for you."

Again, she was aware on a peripheral level of Wilson's strong, steady support beside her. And once again, she searched for a plausible reason for their concern.

Then it came to her. "Grimm? Is this about Edwin Grimm?"

Officer Richards shook his head. "Your mother," he said, his eyes kind and sad. "I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but she's dead."

Her mother.

Dead.

Janey stared in numb silence. Numb but for the sharp, tight knot twisting in her chest. Numb but for the rush of blood pulsing at her temples, blurring her vision.

She shook her head. Wilson's hands on her shoulders now felt strong and warm and real in a moment that had otherwise lost all semblance of reality. "Dead? My mother is ... dead? Are you ... sure?"

"I'm sorry, Ms. Perkins, but yes. The Tupelo police identified her body. They didn't want to deliver the news by phone so they contacted us and asked that we inform you."

"How?" she finally managed to ask, still caught somewhere between disbelief, denial, and bewilderment.

"According to the report, she was killed by a hit and run driver. There's an ongoing investigation, of course, but that's what appears to have happened, ma'am."

"Ms. Perkins." It was Wilson's voice that penetrated the fog again. "Come on. Let's sit you down."

She let him lead her to the sofa.

"I'll leave a number for the Tupelo police. When you're up to it, you can call them. They can fill you in on the details." She heard Officer Richards's voice as her mind spun back to the phone call she'd just had with her mother.

"I just talked to her," she said aloud.

She was vaguely aware of the shifting of feet. Someone cleared his throat. "We're very sorry for your loss, Ms. Perkins."

She nodded as they left the room, closing the door behind them.

"I just talked to her," she repeated, lifting her head and meeting the concern in Jason Wilson's baby blue eyes.

"Do you want me to call Max?" he asked gently.

Already, he knew her so well. Knew that she needed Max. Max who was always there for her. Who she wanted to be here for her now.

And yet, she shook her head. "No. I don't... um... I don't want Max to know about this. Not yet. He'll insist we cancel tonight's concert."

Wilson was quiet for a while. "It's not my place to say so, but if he did cancel, he'd be making the right call."

Wilson meant well. But suddenly she couldn't handle the compassion in his voice, the tenderness in his eyes.

"Max is not to know about this," she insisted and dug deep to stiffen her backbone. "Got it?"

He looked at her long and hard. "You're the boss."

She made herself smile. "Yeah. There is that."

"Is there anything I can do for you?" he asked after several moments passed.

"Yeah. You can give me a little time alone, okay? I... I need to ..." What did she need to do? She didn't know. She didn't have a clue. "I just need to be alone for a while."

She figured it went against his better judgment and his macho gene to leave her, but in the end, he nodded. "I'll be right outside the door. You need something... a shoulder maybe... just let me know."

"Sure." She compressed her lips. "I will. Thanks."

Then she closed her eyes and waited for what seemed like an eternity for the sound of the door to close behind him.

Only then did she let the tears that had been building fall. Only then, did she give herself permission to mourn for a mother she had never really known.

Smoke from Max's cigarette curled up behind Janeys dressing-table mirror. It made her think of fog rising from a boggy river bottom on a cool October morning. And it made her shiver. She'd seen a lot of foggy mornings from a lot of shabby little Mississippi backwater river towns. As Brenda Jane Perkins she'd known a lot of cold mornings. Scared and hungry mornings. And the news the West Palm PD officers had brought her earlier today made her remember them far too clearly.

She lifted her chin. Determined to get past it. And to remember that where she was now was a long way from Mississippi. Remember that at twenty-seven, with five platinum CDs and a portfolio that would make Martha Stewart blink, she was a long way from scared and skinny little Brenda Jane.

"Didn't I ask you to put that thing out?" She glared into the dressing-table mirror, meeting Max Cogan's passively curious expression.

The conversation of the other occupants of the dressing room stalled into shocked silence.

They didn't call her
Sweet
for nothing. She could talk trash with the best of them, belt out a song in what
Rolling Stone
magazine had labeled a velvet hammer of a voice, but she only played the role of diva for the paparazzi. Never with her inner circle.

And she'd just snapped at Max.

After a considering look, Max slowly roused his long, lanky frame from a deep slouch on the cushy red leather sofa.

"How about you-all give Janey a little room?" Max suggested to the entourage lounging and languishing and helping themselves to the open bar that Janey never touched.

Nobody questioned Max's quiet request. Not Neal Sanders, a carryover friend from her summers singing at amusement parks. Not Christine Ramsey, who was still busy videotaping her chronicle of Janey's Fire and Soul tour for her documentary. Not Derek, who had backed off—at least for tonight if the busty brunette he had in tow was any indication. No one, from the rest of the band members to the backup singers, said a thing for several long seconds.

Finally, looking uncomfortable, they all mumbled quiet versions of "break a leg" and shuffled out of the room.

Janey caught a glimpse of Baby Blue—as she'd started thinking of Jason Wilson—standing outside her dressing room as the door closed behind them.
Vigilant as hell,
she thought sourly.

Great. Now she was complaining about a man who was just doing his job. It wasn't his fault she needed a bodyguard. Or that since he'd come on the scene she sometimes found herself thinking about sex—or her lack of it.

She turned back to the dressing-table mirror—and saw that Max was pointedly meeting her gaze. With a grand flourish he dropped his half-smoked cigarette into a mug of stale, cold coffee.

"Okay, snooks. It's out. It's just you and me now. You wanna tell me what's got your tail in a knot?"

Janey went back to work on her stage face, painting on black eyeliner with a heavy hand covered in sheer silver diamond net that crawled up to her elbow. The same glittery mesh matched her thigh-high stockings. And the hand that applied the makeup was shaking.

The shaking ticked her off. It reminded her of that wretched little girl she used to be. The one who had gotten cross with Max, who didn't deserve her anger, and added guilt to the mix. The one who still had a need for her mother. A knot of pain twisted in her gut.

"It's a big gig," she hedged, and lined her lips with a fire-red lipstick pencil. "Last I knew, the headliner was allowed to be a little nervous."

Max grunted, folded his big, long-fingered hands together between splayed knees, and frowned at her through tired brown eyes. "Look—sweetie, if it's Grimm, relax. Wilson's got it covered."

"It's not Grimm." She'd be damned if she'd let that wacko control her life again.

Outside the paper-thin walls of the backstage dressing room, she could hear the rumble of the sold-out crowd. The opening band had done a good job warming them up for her. A few would already be stoned. Many were slowly working up a nice buzz on eight-dollar-a-cup beer. Most were here for a good time and a good hard rock concert beneath a blanket of Florida stars. All of them were here to see her—Sweet Baby Jane—Horizon recording label's top-grossing star for six years running.

"Janey?"

She met Max's concerned gaze in the mirror again, then looked away, pushing herself to her feet. She walked across the dressing room on four-inch silver platform boots that rose to just above her knees and elevated her to a whopping five five. Inspected her stage costume—what there was of it—in the full-length wall mirror.

Her mother had been right. She looked like a slut. Hell, there was more covering her arms than the rest of her. She was exposed from her shoulders to the top of her breasts, where a black leather band cinched tight, leaving her bare to the micromini leather and white lace skirt riding high on her thighs and low on her hips. So low, she could see the tail of the clef note she'd had tattooed low on the left side of her abdomen right after she'd signed her first recording contract eight years ago.

Since then, she'd added three more tattoos—all kanji, all with meanings and reasons known only to her. The one on her neck, just below her left ear, was the kanji equivalent of
Naughty Girl.
That one was for the paparazzi. The other two—
Mad Power,
two inches square, on her right biceps, and
Soul,
the size of a postage stamp, etched above her right breast—were for her.

Of course, no one would take notice of any of them tonight; they'd be more interested in the interlocking silver hearts hanging from her pierced navel on a thin diamond-studded chain.

Image,
she told herself with a slow blink of her eyes, and brushed a fall of the hair she'd straightened for tonight back into the spiky nest swept up on the left side of her head. It was all about image. The more outrageous, the more attention. The more attention, the more album and concert sales.

That's what the industry was about these days, she thought, no longer surprised by the bitterness she sometimes felt. It sure as hell wasn't about the music.