AnnieLee spun around on the sidewalk with her arms out. It was so good to be out of the van that she felt like bursting into song. Salt Lake was a nice town. Hell, every town was a nice town. It was the highways in between them that were driving her crazy.
That, and the deep, unwelcome feeling that she should always be looking over her shoulder.
She worked hard to ignore that feeling. Most days, she was successful. She’d played ten good shows, and Jack said ACD was very happy with their decision to send her out. There’s nothing to worry about—that’s what she kept telling herself.
“So what’s in this tour diary?” Ethan asked, bringing her back to the present moment. “You written anything about me yet?”
She stopped spinning, and the world tilted around her. Was she crazy, or was Ethan looking at her as if he hoped the answer was yes?
“It’s just photos,” she said. If he’d asked her whether she’d written any lyrics about him—well, that was a different story. “Love or Lust” was straight up about that man, not that she’d cop to it. “But I’ve taken a lot of pictures of you. Take a look if you want.”
Ethan held out her phone. “I’m not going to just scroll through your photos.”
“Why not? I’ve got nothing to hide.” But this was an outrageous thing to say, and they both knew it. “At least not on my photostream,” she added.
“Right,” Ethan said. “You’re a regular open book.”
AnnieLee flinched a little at the hurt she heard in his voice, but she didn’t protest. She took the phone back and tucked it into her pocket. What I’m not telling you? she thought. Believe me, you don’t want to know.
She hunched her shoulders against the cold wind blowing up State Street. There was new snow in the Wasatch Mountains.
Ethan saw her shiver. “Well, we should probably go on in and make nice,” he said.
“I guess we should,” AnnieLee agreed.
She followed him through the door, politely shaking hands with everyone as Ethan introduced them both, but her thoughts had already turned toward the upcoming show: how big was the room, how were the acoustics, and how many of the seats would be filled?
But Ethan was naturally gracious, and he never seemed curt or hurried. He easily ingratiated himself with all the promoters and managers, and he’d dealt with their road troubles—a flat tire outside Wichita, a mild bout of food poisoning somewhere in rural Colorado—with good humor and patience. He was the steadiest man AnnieLee had ever known.
She glanced down at her phone, wondering what Ethan would do if she showed him all the threatening Instagram comments. There were new ones every day now. Would he call the police? Try to cancel the tour? Find the nearest Cabela’s and buy a gun? She’d brought her own Smith & Wesson, hidden inside the makeup kit she barely ever opened, but that was another secret she was keeping.
AnnieLee’s publicist had tried to reassure her that the messages didn’t really mean anything, and that lots of younger artists—women especially—attracted strange and sometimes menacing online attention. “I know it’s not fair,” Eileen had said. “It’s how the world is, unfortunately. But our team is on top of it. They’ll delete and report all inappropriate comments from creepy random strangers.”
And they were doing their best. But what Eileen didn’t know, of course, was that the comments weren’t random, and they weren’t from strangers. And that by posting tour dates and pictures to Instagram, Eileen was making it easy for AnnieLee to be found.
Or maybe the better word was stalked.
Even though she knew it was a bad idea, AnnieLee opened Instagram and checked her DMs. There was a link to the fiddle recording she’d asked the young musician to send her, an offer from an aspiring designer to send her some outfits, and a hundred sweet little fan messages full of hearts and praising hands emojis.
And then, as she’d known she would, she saw a new anonymous message, sent from the world she’d left behind. It was a picture of an unmade bed, and lying on the rumpled sheets was a curved and gleaming knife. Rose watch out, the note said.
Chapter
64
She didn’t think the message would rattle her—not really. It wasn’t like it had been a physical attack. But as AnnieLee was putting her hair into two long braids, she saw that her hands were shaking. How was she going to keep her old life from ruining her new one?
Too soon it was time for her to go onstage.
She stepped out in her uncomfortable boots, waving and smiling, as the audience clapped and some rose from their seats in welcome. Blue and violet shafts of light beamed down from the lighting rig as she put her hand on the microphone in its stand, her guitar dangling from its embroidered strap. She opened her mouth to greet the room, but no sound came out.