On Tour Read Free Page A

agreement.
    I felt a niggling of concern. Andre always gave it to me straight. I turned my head painfully in his direction.
    He walked over with a handful of the scrapbook pages. He laid them out across my lap. The paper was thick and creamy and covered with a collage of colored bits of paper, ribbons, buttons, and other odds and ends. The layers and shapes gave the picture a 3D appearance like the pop-up books I loved as a child. I frowned as a picture started to appear beneath the pretty colored paper. I gasped at the image below the seemingly empty stage. A boot with a broken heel lay on the stairs and a twisted body in black faded into the bottom of the page.
    "Someone's trying to kill her."
     
    *  *  *
     
    There were three scrapbook pictures. Most alarming was that each picture seemed to depict an accident that had already taken place.
    There was a page depicting the fall off the stage, another showing a heavy speaker falling from the scaffolding and crushing me (a near miss that had happened a week prior), and a third that depicted a scene from one of the narrow streets of Key West. At an intersection a car was stopped in front of a prone figure in the middle of the road.
    The envelopes were all addressed with printer labels and had been sent to my PO Box. There was no return address, and they were postmarked approximately a week apart from different states.
    "Look," I pointed to the postmarks. "These were all sent from towns we played in. What if someone on tour with us sent these?"
    Ashley nodded. "Probably not a coincidence." Her voice was grim.
    "This is just a crazy fan," Roger said for the tenth time.
    I shook my head staring at the pictures again. "I can't believe you thought these were pretty Ashley."
    Ashley was upset. "All I saw was the pretty paper and ornaments. Until you look at it up close, you can't really tell what it is."
    I nodded. I could see that.
    "Maybe it's just a joke," Phil said. "You know, a prank or something."
    I raised my eyebrows. "The one of the intersection has 'Death to Diana' spelled out among the pretty pink flowers."
    Andre had been on the phone for nearly an hour. I was drinking black coffee and starting to feel a little better. I sat up and scooted over to the edge of the couch. My head was ringing, but the nausea had passed.
    Andre put down the phone and came over. "I have a nurse coming to draw blood. I'm pretty sure someone slipped a roofie in your drink. I'd have rather done all this at the hospital, but those two were worried about starting a riot." Andre nodded at Roger and Phil.
    "I also want you to be somewhere that's secured with our people. It would be tough at the hospital. The local police are sending over a detective to take our statements and look over the threats."
    I nodded. "Did Mark call while I was asleep?"
    "No. I tried to call him, but wasn't able to get through. I left him a voice mail. He was still a day's sail away when you spoke to him last night. There's nothing he can do for us except worry at this point."
    "I can't believe someone's threatening to kill me." I stared glumly off at the clear blue sky and sparkling ocean. "And in such a weird way!"
    "Yeah, I've seen threatening letters made from magazine clippings and newspapers, but I've never seen this scrapbook technique. Leave it to you to have Martha Stewart for a stalker." He gave me a grin and patted my hand.
    I pointed to the picture of the stage. Andre had carefully placed each page in a large Ziploc bag. "That means someone sawed my boot heel off, and the spilled drink could've been my iced tea. Maybe it was drugged too. It's someone close to us!" I gasped.
    "There were a hundred roadies and assistants running around that stage. Our scrapbooker could have snuck in during the chaos and tampered with your shoe and drink. They were both in your dressing room, right?"
    I nodded, my mind racing. "So someone has been watching this place, just waiting for me to leave? With a roofie in his