Always Watching Read Free

Ross’s throat. He backed away from Tom.
    “Yes,” Mick said into the phone. “I need to report a homicide. Hang on a minute.” He shoved the phone into Ross’s hand. “You talk to them. I need to get Bruce and Wendell. We’ll round up the band members, make sure they’re safe.”
    Mom. Could whoever did this to Tom want to hurt
her?
    Mick ran past me, gun in hand. “Shaley, stay here.”
    I barely heard him. Panic pushed me onto weak knees. I had to find my
mother!
    Somehow I crawled out the door.
“Mom. Mommmm!”
    Every person in the hallway jerked around.
    Mick spun back to me. “Shaley, stay
there!”
He swung toward the others. “Everyone, against the wall and
don’t move!
Wendell, Bruce, where are you?”
    People melted back, calling questions, their voices buzzing like a thousand bees in my head.
    “Where’s my mom?”
    Bruce ran out of the men’s bathroom, hand automatically going for his weapon.
“What?”
At six foot six, he has powerful, long legs and arms. I could see his head above everyone else’s.
    Wendell burst from the stage area. “Here!”
    “Shaley?” Mom’s sharpened voice filtered from up the hallway. “What’s happening?” She came toward me, eyes wide.
    “Rayne, stay where you are!” Mick shouted.
    Mom picked up speed. Her head whipped back and forth, gawking at everyone pressed against the walls. She started to run. “Shaley, are you all right?
    I teetered to my feet. “Tom’s dead, Mom. He’s
dead!”
    Gasps rose from dozens of throats. Mom didn’t even slow. Mick grabbed her arm, but she yanked away. As if in a dream — a nightmare — I watched her tear-blurred form hurtle toward me. Mick, Bruce, and Wendell spread their feet, guns raised, eyes darting back and forth, searching the hall for danger.
    I flung myself forward, sobbing.
    After an eternity, Mom reached me. I collapsed into her arms, screaming Tom’s name.

4
    T ime blurred into commotion and people and noise.
    As the news spread, the arena’s own security guards rushed backstage. Ross shoved my purse into my hands, and Mick herded me and Mom through chaos up the hallway and into her dressing room. Inside we sagged against the wall, my Mom white-faced and clinging to me as I cried. In minutes, uniformed San Jose police officers swarmed down on us, checking everyone’s identities, clearing the hall, and securing the whole backstage area with yellow crime-scene tape. Plainclothes detectives arrived. The HP Pavilion’s security force manned the doors and our private area of the parking lot.
    All of us Rayne tour members were herded up to the Pavilion’s concourse level, where suite after private suite opened up off the curving hallway. The band members and I huddled in one of those rooms. Policemen stood guard in the hall, spaced about two suites apart, talking now and then into the radios fastened to their uniforms.
    Looking down over the arena, I could see the front rows of chairs already broken down and the wild scatter of containers for the instruments, lights, and sound equipment. Usually roadies would be hard at work, packing everything up. Local workers would be taking down the chairs. Now everything had just — stopped.
    The band members tried to console me even in their own shock. Kim, Rayne’s keyboard player and alto singer, could barely speak. Tom had been like a son to her. She hugged me hard, then stoodback, long fingers sinking into her tanned forearms. Her heart-shaped face looked drawn, her heavy eye makeup smeared. “I’m so s-sorry you … had to find him.”
    I could only nod.
    Morrey, Rayne’s drummer and Kim’s boyfriend, slipped a tattoo-covered arm around her. He shook his head, full lips working but no sound coming out. He merely reached out a hand and laid it on my shoulder for a moment, his gold earring flashing in the overhead light. Towering over Kim, he bent his head down to hers, his shoulder-length black hair stark against her white-blonde.
    Rich, the bass player,