I could get mighty used to this, Ethan thought.
Chapter
62
Ethan rode high on their duet until they were heading back to their hotel at midnight. He was gliding down Cincinnati Avenue when he felt a sudden prickle of alarm along the base of his scalp. He glanced in the rearview mirror at the lights of the car that had been following him for several blocks. They didn’t belong to a black truck—he could see that much. But this didn’t necessarily reassure him. Camouflage was easy; anyone could rent a different car.
He looked over at AnnieLee. Her eyes were closed, her feet were on the dashboard, and she was softly singing the song she’d helped him to write.
Lost and found, I’m safe and sound
No more drifting aimlessly, I’ve settled down
She had no idea that he was worried, and he decided to keep it that way. He looked behind him again. Maybe I’m just being paranoid, he thought.
Without signaling, Ethan made a few leisurely turns so that he was now heading in the opposite direction. He passed a Dollar Tree and a gas station, and then a car lot, its empty vehicles gleaming under the streetlights. Whoever was driving the car behind him kept close, and AnnieLee remained oblivious. Soon she wasn’t singing anymore. But it wasn’t because she’d noticed anything. It was because she’d fallen asleep, her head against the window, cushioned by the jacket he’d given her.
Ethan was glad that she could relax, even as he felt the chill of certainty crawling over his skin. It wasn’t paranoia on his part. Someone was following AnnieLee, and this wasn’t even the first time he’d sensed it on tour.
He knew it wasn’t Mikey Shumer. Crooked as Mikey was, Ethan had believed him when he’d said he had nothing to do with it. Mikey Shumer wouldn’t waste his time or his money, not when he could nab the next hungry up-and-comer, especially one who’d be less stubborn than AnnieLee.
So who could it be? A fan with stalker tendencies? A crazy ex-boyfriend?
Who is it, AnnieLee? he thought. And why won’t you tell me?
Still he drove, turning here and there, as if he hadn’t already driven six hours today and then played part of a show he hadn’t been expecting to play. The yellow lines wavered in front of him. His eyeballs felt as dry as dust.
Finally he couldn’t take the slow-speed car chase any longer. He pulled into the parking lot of a Pizza Hut and waited to see what would happen next.
The car behind him—a Chevy Impala—slowed, and then it stopped in the middle of the road. Ethan tensed, waiting for it to follow him into the lot. He started to reach under AnnieLee’s legs for the knife he kept in the glove compartment. But then, with a squeal of tires, the car sped off, its brake lights disappearing into the darkness.
Ethan sat back with his hands gripping the steering wheel. Maybe, he told himself, it was just a pair of teenagers having their dumb idea of fun.
Maybe.
Beside him, AnnieLee stirred. “Are we at the hotel yet?” she asked.
Ethan put the van back into gear and pulled onto the road. What she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. And he was there to protect her.
“Almost, AnnieLee,” he said. “Almost.”
Chapter
63
Take a picture of me, will you?” AnnieLee asked, whipping her knitted cap off her head and holding out her phone to Ethan. She’d stopped on the sidewalk in front of the State Room in Salt Lake City, Utah, beneath a sign proclaiming in big black letters TONIGHT ANNIELEE KEYES. “It’s my first actual marquee,” she called. “Come on, cowboy! Cheese!”
Ethan dutifully took a few photos with her phone and then looked down at the screen. “You’re squinting in every single one of them,” he said.
“That’s okay,” AnnieLee said, cramming her hat back onto her head. “When Eileen told me to send her pictures for my so-called tour diary, she forgot to say they had to be good.”
“You might be the least vain person I’ve ever met,” Ethan said. “Dudes included.”
AnnieLee took this as a compliment and told him so. “I’m trying to sing the truth, aren’t I? So it’d be weird if I didn’t show it, too.”
“But you could keep your eyes open in a picture,” Ethan said, sounding ever so mildly exasperated. “No one would say that’s not telling the truth.”
AnnieLee laughed. He had a point, of course, but she didn’t have any interest in looking good in the photos. Her voice alone mattered to her. As far as she was concerned, beauty was little more than a liability.