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“It’s cool,” she replied gently. “It’s a new song, and we’re all trying to figure out how to make it sound right. That’s the whole point of rehearsing, okay? Why don’t you go get a Diet Coke or something.” He stared morosely at his keyboard, then nodded and stood.
Trey set his instrument aside. “I’ll take care of him, Lida. You go talk to the cops.”
It was apparently the wrong thing to say. Michael jerked his head up, seeing us for the first time. “Roger didn’t do anything wrong!” he announced loudly, features twisted in distress.
“Michael, they know that,” Lida said with a tired patience. “Roger isn’t in trouble, okay?” She gave us an apologetic look. “Give me a couple of minutes? I need to go take a walk with him and get him settled down.”
“Take all the time you need,” I replied.
The big man’s shoulder’s slumped and he allowed himself to be led outside, but not before shooting us another wary look.
Trey blew out his breath as they left. “Wow, the tension around here sucks ass.”
“How long has it been like this?” I asked, walking up to him. “Tense, I mean.”
He let out a dry bark of laughter. “Since we signed with the label?” Then he winced and shook his head. “That’s not really fair though. I was talking mostly about how things have been since Saturday night.”
“Can you tell me again what you saw?” I asked. I’d taken his statement after the incident, but I knew how useful it was to do follow-up interviews to see what was remembered, forgotten, or outright changed.
Trey tugged at the collar of his shirt before dropping down to sit cross-legged on the floor. Of all the band members, he was the one who looked the most different in “regular” clothes. He’d been fairly gothed out at the concert, in a getup similar to what Ryan had been wearing. I was amused to see that Trey was now wearing khaki pants and an oxford-style shirt—again, similar to what Ryan had on.
“I hardly saw anything,” Trey said. “The lights went out and something big shoved past me. Then I heard a bunch of screaming and yelling.” He toyed with the end of his shoelace. “I stood still since it was so dark, and I didn’t want to trip over anything and risk messing up my bass. About a minute later the lights came back on and Roger and Michael were all freaked out, yelling about someone grabbing Lida. Michael took off, so I ran after him. I didn’t know what was going on, but right then I figured the best way I could help would be to make sure that Michael didn’t get hurt or lost.” He grimaced. “I love Michael, but I wanted to throttle him for taking off like that. I’m not supposed to do any running.” Then he sighed. “But I can understand why he did. I’ve never seen anyone closer than those two.”
“You’re wearing running shoes,” Ryan pointed out.
“Yeah, that’s because I gotta wear them all the time,” Trey replied. “I have plantar fasciitis. The doc told me to lay off the running for a while.” He gave a morose sigh that at first made me think he was joking, then I realized he was truly upset about not being able to run. Then again, he had that lean lanky build of someone who probably ran a hundred miles a week without breaking a sweat. And enjoyed it.
Sick.
“And I don’t wanna end up like Roger,” Trey added, shaking his head.
I frowned. “What do you mean? What happened to Roger?”
“He used to do a lot of running too, coupla years ago.” Trey looked at me, tragedy written all over his face. “Then he messed up his feet. He stopped running. Stopped! Never went back to it. Went with the weight training instead.” He shuddered. “Man, I can’t even imagine.”
I stared at him, unable to come up with any sort of response that didn’t include the words Are you fucking kidding me?
“How have things changed since you signed with the label?” Ryan asked, saving me.
A pained expression flashed across his face. “I don’t know. I guess it’s not what any of us expected, y’know? I mean, it used to be tons of fun, and now there’s a bunch of pressure to earn back the money the label invested in us. And ... well, it’s not that great of a label, to be honest. We should have had a lot more distribution. So now we gotta think about making it big and getting noticed so that when our contract is up we can get signed with someone bigger. Plus, our concert schedule for the coming year is insane. But concerts are where we make money, not CD sales.”
Ryan and I exchanged a quick glance at the getting noticed. “Has anyone in the band been talking about ways to get noticed?” I asked.
“Well, yeah,” he said, lifting a shoulder in a shrug. “I mean we’re always trying out new ways to do promo and stuff. Lida busts her hump writing new songs, and doing appearances and interviews. And I put together the website. But Adam’s the one who’s doing most of the regular promo. He works his ass off, but I think he has a lot riding on us really breaking out.”
“Why is that?”
“Times have been tough, y’know? He owns the studio, but his business has been shit lately.” Trey’s gaze swept the room. “He’s been trying to sell it, but no one’s interested.”
Well, that confirmed what Roger had said.
The side door opened and we all looked over to see Lida coming back in without Michael.
“Is he okay?” Trey asked her with what sounded like genuine concern.
Lida nodded, frustration and fatigue flashing briefly over her face. “I figured it was better to let him sit outside for a bit instead of bringing him back and risk him getting all upset again.” She shot us a look of apology and I gave her a slight nod of understanding in response.
Trey stood. “You want me to go sit with him?” She gave him a grateful smile, but then he glanced back at us. “I mean, unless y’all need to talk to me some more.”
