Susan Andersen - Coming Undone

He didn't move. "Sorry, P.J.," he said, but he didn't sound the least bit conciliatory to her. "But we signed a contract."

"Who's we, Bosco?I didn't sign any contract."

"No, but Wild Wind Records and Semper Fi Investigations did."

"Semper Fi?" Small world. Just Tuesday she'd had occasion to mention that very name-and not in conjunction with the U.S. Marines' motto. "The agency of that P.I. who found us in Denver?"

"Yeah. You remember him? He's my brother-in-law now."

"Of course I remember him." John Miglionni had been nice to her, had been, in fact, one of the first adults who'd ever treated her as if she had as much worth as anyone else on God's green earth. But the smile that tickled the corners of her lips at the memory of the tall, dark man slid into a scowl as she stared up into the face of another long and lanky man. "You're a private investigator, too?"

He nodded. "Yeah. We do that and personal security."

"Huh. I thought for sure you'd be the CEO of some whoop-de-do-dah corporation by now."

He snorted.

"Guess not. Well, how nice for you. Now go away."

"Not gonna happen, Peej."

She had to tip her head way back to meet his gaze and frustration sizzled along her nerve endings. He was big and steely and she had zero chance of physically ejecting him from her room.

But if there was one thing she knew, it was how to bluff. So she looked him in the eye and said calmly, "Fine. Then I guess I'll just have to call the police and letthem remove you."

He shrugged and sat in the room's only chair. Sliding down on his tailbone, he stretched his long legs out what appeared to be halfway across the room and crossed his arms over his chest. "Go ahead."

Crap. Like she could afford to add another indignity to the scandal that was already dogging her footsteps. But she crossed to the telephone and picked up the receiver. When Jared simply slouched deeper into his seat and watched her with cool eyes, she punched out a number she had only this week memorized.

The phone on the other end of the line picked up. "Benjamin McGrath Management Company," said a professionally dulcet female voice.

"This is Priscilla Jayne Morgan."

"One moment please-I'll connect you with Mr. McGrath," the woman said without further ado and the line went silent as P.J. was placed on hold.

Almost as quickly, her call went through to her new manager. "P.J.," Ben McGrath said in his brisk New England-accented voice. "What can I do for you?"

"I have a situation here. There's a man named Jared Hamilton who refuses to leave my room. He says he's here from-"

"Semper Fi Investigations."

Her stomach sank but she prayed that when she glanced at Jared her face didn't show the sudden distress jittering her nerves. He was watching her with a slight frown pulling his eyebrows together.

"Do you mind?" she said coldly. "I'd like a moment of privacy."

He climbed to his feet and walked out the door, closing it quietly behind him.

P.J. turned back to the phone. "Youknow? What the hell is going on, Ben?"

"You haven't seen any of the tabloids lately, I take it."

"No, onlyCountry Now magazine. That was bad enough, so I was afraid to see what twist the rags might have given the story."

"Smart girl. Wild Wind is nervous about all the publicity your mother is generating. She's got them convinced you have a history of running away when the going gets rough. She went public with your time in Denver when you were a kid."

"What?Why would she do that? I didn't run away back then-she threw me out!" But indignation couldn't hold a candle to the sickness churning in her stomach. Oh God, everyone knew. Her own mother had seen to it that everyone knew she'd lived on the streets at one time.

"I know. But Wild Wind is afraid you're going to renege on your obligations and-"

"I've never reneged on a contract in my life!"

"You're preaching to the choir, Priscilla. But you keep tying my hands by refusing to let me go on record with all the garbage your mother's pulled. So when Wild Wind insisted on hiring a babysitter to assure you get to your concerts, all I could do was suggest who they hire. Let me go public with what really happened with your mom and-"

"No. I told you before, I'm not going to talk about that." It was bad enough the world knew she'd been homeless for a while. The last thing she could bear was for everyone to discover that her mother had never loved her.

Ben's sigh filtered down the line. "If you ever come to your senses I'll put the proper spin on all the shit that's been flying around. Until then I thought if you had to have an escort, you might at least prefer someone who was once good to you."

"Right this minute, Ben, I regret telling you about him at all." She'd only done so because he'd insisted on hearing everything that might be used against her. Revealing that time in her life had led to mentioning the boy who'd kept a scared-to-death thirteen-year-old girl from losing all hope. That, in turn, had given her such a warm, fuzzy rush that she'd then confided how John Miglionni and Jared's sister, Tori, had rescued them.

"The truth is, I didn't expect your old friend to be assigned to the case. A business like mine doesn't generate the need to locate private eyes or security specialists as a rule. But when this came up I remembered you mentioning the Semper Fi agency, and I thought it might at least be a place to start."

Well, I guess that'll teach me to be so damn chatty,she thought bitterly.

"I actually had the owner in mind to handle this-figuring someone you once admired might make the situation more bearable. I didn't know Hamilton worked there until Miglionni called to let me know how the agency planned to handle the assignment," Ben said. "And I'm sorry for the necessity, Priscilla, but Wild Wind insists. This is your big break-"

"I thought that was when I won the Grammy."

"That was yourfirst break. This tour is the one that's going to put you on the map. So I'm afraid you're just going to have to suck it up and do what your label wants."

She managed to hang on to her temper long enough to get off the phone, but she was seething by the time she hung up.

She'd worked one job or another since she was fifteen years old. She had been the family breadwinner more often than not, and WildWind dared suggest she couldn't be trusted to show up for a series of contracted concerts?

Staring out the window, she scowled at Jared, who lounged against the wall on the shady side of the court, his hands in his pockets and one foot propped against the faded cinderblock. He had an eye on her room and, catching her peering out the window, he straightened and headed across the lot.

Her spine snapped as straight and steely as a length of rebar. Enough was enough. Mama was sufficient trouble all on her own-P.J. didn't need the embarrassment of a watchdog on top of it.

She'd had it with handlers and people telling her what to do. She wasn't stupid-singing was the only thing she could call her own and she had every intention of showing up for her shows.

But the tour didn't start for a couple weeks, and she needed some alone time to lick her wounds and get centered and focused before it began. She sure as hell didn't need her one-time best friend to herd her toward her first gig like a blue heeler with one calf. And while it appeared she had no choice but to put up with him once the tour began, she saw no reason to tolerate his escort until then.

So let him catch up with her in Portland. Because the first opportunity she got, she was shaking Jared Hamilton from her heels like the dust of all those dinky towns she'd left behind.

STANDING IN THE Wind Blew Inn parking lot, Jared thought for sure the feeble light from the quarter moon riding the western sky was playing tricks on his eyes. His gut said it wasn't, however, and staring at the four flat tires on his rented Lexus, he swore like a sailor and kicked one of the hubcaps above the flattened rubber.

Then his reaction brought him up short. What the hell was he doing? He didn't lose control-he jumped head-first into the fray and didn't stop swinging until he came out on top. Pissing and moaning and kicking tires wasn't going to get the job done. Pulling his cell phone from a pocket, he punched in the Semper Fi agency's number.

But the minute he heard his brother-in-law's voice, his frustration boiled over. "She ditched me," he snarled. "Do you believe this? It hasn't even been one full day and she frigging ditched me!"

There was an instant of silence, then Rocket let loose a big belly laugh. "I always did like that girl."

"Sure, yuk it up.I'm real amused, I can tell you."

"I can hear that." Rocket's voice sobered, but Jared was pretty sure he could still hear amusement lacing its undertones. "What happened?"

"She played me like a goddamn Stradivarius." And how. From the moment she'd opened the door of that dingy little motel room and taken a flying leap to wrap herself around him like a chimp in a monkey-puzzle tree, he'd been hammered by memories.

Of her saving his life fifteen years ago by showing him the ropes when he'd fled Colorado Springs for the streets of Denver-even though she, like everyone else in their Centennial State, had believed he'd killed his father.