Dread courses through her.
The phone pings. The text is three words:
bathroom second stall
She scoops up the phone, shuts the tiny door to the locker, and heads to the restroom. Class is starting, she can hear music and the instructor’s distorted voice coming from the studio. The restroom is empty. Lowering her head, she peers under the row of stalls. No feet.
She faces the second stall, opens the door slowly, the pulsing beat of the music still vibrating through the walls.
A jolt rips through her. Inside the stall is a woman. She’s sitting on the toilet tank, her feet resting on the seat.
Another lightning bolt to the chest. It’s the young woman from the bus stop. The woman steps gracefully onto the floor and shoves a duffel bag into Jenna’s hands.
“I said I was done with all this,” Jenna tells her. “They said I was free and they wouldn’t—”
“That’s above my pay grade.”
“Please, I can’t.”
The woman shakes her head. “You’d better. For Simon, Willow, and Tallulah’s sake.”
The woman steps past her calmly and disappears.
Jenna’s heart is banging in her chest, sweat forming on her forehead. She steadies herself, then unzips the duffel. Inside, there’s a pair of movie-starlet sunglasses, a wig of flowing black hair, a denim jacket, and a keycard that says, HAMILTON HOTEL. Handwritten on the sleeve, a room number: 1018.
Five minutes later, Jenna slips out of the SoulCycle studio and struts down the street in her disguise. The Hamilton’s only a block away. Her gut is full of butterflies, but her training is coming back to her. Like riding a bike.
She’s not this person anymore. She can’t, she won’t.
But her family.
Inside room 1018, she finds a rifle with a high-end scope on a tripod positioned at the window.
The phone pings again and Jenna reads the instructions.
The bald man at the Capital Grille’s outdoor table won’t be making it to dessert.
CHAPTER TWO
DONNIE
Donnie wakes to loud thuds on his cabin door. Each pound reverberates through his head like an explosion. He’s on the floor of the tiny room in the belly of the cruise ship. Twenty years ago, he and the band would have been in the concierge suites. He pushes himself away from the vomit puddled on the floor. The ocean is choppy today and it’s making him feel even worse.
The thumping continues and he manages to climb to his feet. Wearing only tighty-whities, he opens the door, and the light from the hallway sends another bullet through his skull.
“Donnie, what’s going on?” Pixie has a concerned look on her face. “Rehearsal started half an hour ago. Tom is pissed.”
Before he responds, Pixie pushes her small frame inside. She makes a face at the stench, looks around, and before Donnie can conceal the evidence sets her eyes on the empty bottle of J?germeister.
The razor blade and rolled dollar bill on the table.
“Oh, Donnie,” she says. She puts her delicate brown hand on his ghost-white bare shoulder.
“I can’t do this right now,” he says, with more edge than she deserves.
Pixie’s new. She joined the band last year—Tracer’s Bullet has only two original members from back in the day, including Donnie. But it’s enough for the Legends of Rock Cruise. Pixie’s the only bandmate Donnie considers a friend. The rest merely tolerate him.
Her downcast expression is the worst. One thousand percent pity. He’s been sober for three months, the longest stretch in a decade. But then he got word last night about Ben. The closest thing he had to a brother. Then he ran into that aging groupie—the one with the same bleached hair she probably had when she raised a lighter to their hit power ballad two decades ago.
“Wanna party?” she’d said, smelling of cigarettes and beer. She didn’t have to ask him twice. He doesn’t remember much else.
“Can you play? Are you okay?” Pixie’s questions return him to the present. “Seriously, I’m worried. Tom seems—”
“Of course I can play.” He climbs into his shirt and jeans flung on the floor. Grabbing the handle to his guitar case, he charges out of the cabin.
“Hurry,” Pixie says, outpacing him. She moves quickly for such a compact woman. “I told them I was going to the bathroom.”
Donnie rushes into the ship’s performance hall and is greeted by several exasperated expressions, the most prominent from their singer, Tom Kipling.
“Sorry, y’all, I overslept,” Donnie says, opening his guitar case and slinging the strap over his shoulder.
“Pfft.” Tom grips the microphone, leaning as if he’s being held up by the stand. Donnie has a brief image of a younger man in the same pose. Even then, Tom was always bossing everyone around.
The only thing that’s changed is Tom’s hair plugs, those white Chiclet teeth, and the tighter fit of his leather pants.
“Overslept…，” Tom says, with an audible sigh. “It’s four o’clock.”
“What do you want me to do? I said I’m sorry.”
Tom starts to speak but stops himself. Donnie notices Tom tap eyes with Animal, their drummer.
“Let’s just do the sound check,” Tom says, sighing again. He points to the set list taped on the stage floor.
Animal clicks his sticks— a one, a two, a one-two-three-four—and Donnie strikes the opening chord to a song he’s played so many times he can barely stand it. From his Marshall stack comes what sounds like an elephant being slaughtered. His Les Paul is wildly out of tune, thanks to neglect and a popped string.
Tom waves his arms to cut the music. His sagging jowls quiver. But he doesn’t yell at Donnie.
That’s a surprise. Donnie’s spent most of his adult life being yelled at by Tom Kipling, so he’s used to it. But this is worse. Tom composes himself, then looks over to their manager, Mickey, at stage right.
Mickey gives Tom a nod, and Tom addresses the band.
“Tonight, after the show, you all have a choice to make,” Tom says. He spins around and fixes his gaze on Donnie. “It’s him or me.”
And with that—his aging-rock-star flair for the dramatic on full display—Tom stomps offstage.
Donnie looks at his bandmates. When he sees that even Pixie isn’t willing to make eye contact, he knows it’s over.
Later, after the last encore—they do two every show—Donnie runs offstage drenched in sweat and feeling euphoric. That sensation never goes away. He’s performed well; Tom can’t deny that.
Donnie got his guitar freshly strung and went over the set list beforehand to be ready for tonight’s parade of oldies. He even hit all his marks for the ridiculous choreography.
Backstage, amid the high fives and rapture that follows every performance, he thinks things should be fine. Tom will have cooled off. Donnie can explain what happened—that his best friend, Benny, is dead. Not just dead. Murdered. He’ll explain that he’s committed to his sobriety—to the band—and they’ll give him another chance.
After the meet-and-greet—the selfies and poster signing and awkward conversations with drunk people—the VIP room clears out and Tom calls him over.
“You did well tonight,” Tom says.