Ethan stepped away from the railing and breathed slowly again, trying to calm himself. But it seemed he could feel AnnieLee’s desperate panic, and the feeling caused him nearly physical pain.
Someone had come into her room, and this someone was a person she feared so much that she chose to throw herself off a balcony rather than face him. The realization of what this meant felt like a punch to Ethan’s gut. The person couldn’t be a crazed fan, or an anonymous petty Vegas criminal, or a random psychopath. He was someone AnnieLee knew.
Was he one of the men from the black truck? The driver of the Impala? Or someone so frightening that he was only now making himself known?
Ethan knew that he should call the police. But he also knew that doing so would most likely backfire. AnnieLee would be furious, and she would push against everyone, dodge any questions, refuse to cooperate. And how could the police investigate a crime that its victim said never even happened?
He stepped back into the hotel room. He’d played enough amateur detective for the day. Anyway, the answers weren’t to be found at the Aquitaine Hotel. They lay with AnnieLee.
He found her bag and began to gather up what little clothing there was. And as he did, he asked himself, What sort of person packed a tiny duffel bag for a three-week road trip?
A person used to privation and lack—that’s who. Ruthanna joked that there was no such thing as having too much, but suddenly Ethan understood that AnnieLee didn’t even believe in having enough. He’d always thought that she wore the same too-small boots and the same two pairs of jeans because she was superstitious: she thought they were lucky. But now it seemed to him that there were darker, sadder reasons.
Either she didn’t think she deserved more or she knew she needed to travel light, so that at any moment she could grab everything and run.
Chapter
77
So she really seemed okay? Body, mind, all of it?” Jack asked, pouring himself a Scotch from Ruthanna’s minibar, though five o’clock was still a ways off.
Ruthanna nodded, her mouth full of fancy French chocolate. Low-carb diet be damned—stress like this called for truffles, or whatever the hell those delicious little cocoa-covered balls were. “AnnieLee was as impatient and headstrong as ever,” she said. “But then she was sleeping when I left. I think they still want to do some kind of psychiatric evaluation.” She picked up another truffle and then set it back down again. Maybe Scotch was the thing for stress. Or both. “I somehow still can’t believe it,” she said. “I keep thinking someone’s going to pinch my arm and tell me to wake up.”
“If only,” Jack said, grimacing and rubbing his forehead.
Ruthanna hadn’t seen him so rattled in years, and she patted a spot on the couch next to her. “Take a load off for a minute, hon,” she said.
He sat down heavily and put his feet up on the coffee table. “I should be on the phone with ACD, and the Aquitaine Event Center people, and about a thousand other lawyers and bean counters. But right now I just need to drink a little of this Scotch and be grateful that our sweet girl is okay.”
Ruthanna turned to look at his familiar, rugged profile. Our sweet girl. It was as if AnnieLee belonged to them the way a child would, and the phrase sent a sudden rush of emotion through her. She was so grateful for Jack, she cared about AnnieLee so much, and seeing her lying tiny and alone in that hospital bed had just about broken Ruthanna’s heart.
Had she done wrong by dreaming up this concert? She knew how much pressure AnnieLee was under, and how it was all new to her—she hadn’t been performing since she was knee-high to a grasshopper the way Ruthanna had. AnnieLee hadn’t had time to grow the thick skin that was necessary to survive.
Ruthanna let out a long sigh. Sophia hadn’t grown that thick skin, either, and though she’d never truly wanted to be a performer, she had always been in the public eye. She’d resented it, too, which was one of the things that had made her relationship with Trace Jones so ironic. She’d finally gotten out of her mother’s shadow, only to turn around and walk right into his.
And what if that was the thing that had killed her?
On the morning of Sophia’s funeral, Ruthanna had stepped outside her house to find a helicopter over her lawn, hovering so close she could feel the wind on her face. Her phone had been ringing day and night with reporters who wanted to hear about her grief, as if her pain was something she owed them.
She didn’t owe them anything but her music, but after that day she couldn’t give it to them anymore. Sophia’s death—and the world’s fanatical fascination with it—had broken Ruthanna. She’d quit the business.