Page 101 of Carver’s Craving

“Yes. Carver?”

He nodded.

“I need you to tell me what you’re thinking.” I kept my voice as steady as I could. What I wanted to do was shake him.

“Okay. But this is going to sound nuts.”

“Whatever. You heard Seth. Everything.”

“Well, something’s never sat right with me about the day Frank…you know…”

“Died.”

“Yes.” He squinted. “You said you’re dyslexic.”

“Yeah. Not sure—”

He held up his hand. “What if…what if you wrote something wrong on a piece of paper? Might that have happened?”

I rubbed my forehead. “Sure. I mean, anything’s possible. That’s why I tried to avoid writing things down. What’s this about?”

“You handed me a piece of paper. Just before we did the sound check. You had all the band members standing in different positions.”

“Right.” None of this was coming back to me, but obviously the memory was vivid for him.

“Okay. So your note never made sense to me. You had Frank farther away from the drums than Baxter. Almost like you mixed up their places. I figured you had something planned—”

“Jesus.” I let out a sharp breath. I held his gaze. “I was about to tell you that you had it wrong. Then the light fell on Frank and—” I pressed a hand to my mouth. Because the possibility he was suggesting—however outrageous—just couldn’t be true. And yet it might be. “You’re saying that Frank was where Baxter was supposed to be?”

“Yes. We’ve always assumed the target was Frank. Because of the deranged fan. What if—” He squinted. “What if Baxter was the target?”

“And Arlene loosened the Cheeseborough?” I pressed a hand to my chest. “I feel like I can’t breathe.”

He pushed me into my chair. Then dropped to his knees before me. “You need to take deep, calming breaths. I’m sure you want to, I don’t know, panic or something. But you need to hear me, Styx. I need you here. With me. We need to figure out what happened that night, and then we need to convey that to Seth. He’s tracking down surveillance footage. We can put together a timeline. How would Arlene have gained access?”

I flailed my arm.

He grabbed it and pressed my hand over his heart. He always knows the right thing to do. I gazed into his eyes and searched my memory. “Okay, I remember the backstage passes were the same color as they’d been the year before. This weird purple color. I remembered because I thought the color was pretty—and that the organizers were cheap in not getting different ones.”

“Arlene was there the year before?”

“Yeah. And the year was in super-small print. Any security guard might’ve mistaken them. I’d asked Baxter to put her on an exclusion list…but some guards don’t check that carefully.” With the hand Carver wasn’t gripping, I wiped my brow. “You think…?”

“I don’t know what to think. But I know we need to get all this down and email it to Seth. Do you have his card?”

“In my wallet.”

“That’s in our bedroom?”

I nodded.

“Okay. You grab the laptop and the business card. I’ll put the leftovers in the fridge.”

Carver released me and helped me rise. I headed to the spare bedroom where I’d set up the laptop at the desk. I nabbed it, as well as the power cord, and made my way to our bedroom. My wallet was on my nightstand, so I grabbed it. I needed to be ready to go—if I could convince Carver to come with me. To go— I let out a breath as I took a moment to steady myself. He was right, of course. Mission City wasn’t large population-wise, but it covered a lot of ground. Hell, Arlene could be holding Baxter captive on this very street and we’d have no way of knowing.

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” I wanted to scream. I wanted to shout. I also didn’t want to disturb the dogs. That would be guilt I couldn’t deal with. As things stood, Poppin might sense my stress. So I took three deep breaths, thought about putting my hand on Carver’s heart, and headed into the great room.

Carver sat at the dining room with two bowls.