Page 3 of Saving Mr. Bell

“Seatbelt,” the driver demanded.

I rolled my eyes as I pulled it across my chest and clicked it into place. I guess it was understandable that he didn’t want to be immortalized as the driver who killed Rudolf Bell should we crash. I’d give him that one. Even if I did it with attitude. I stared at the back of his head, the light too dim for me to make out his face in the rearview mirror. Back in London, I had Gustav as a driver, my father having vetted him to make sure that the riskiest thing about him was how overgrown his mustache got.

In Austria—now that Jade had reminded me where I was—I’d had the same driver for the entire trip. A man named Dagobert. Dagobert might have long since left his bodybuilding career behind, but there was no getting rid of the tree-trunk like neck it had left him with. This man did not have a neck like a tree trunk. Ergo, he wasn’t Dagobert. See, who needed to be sober for critical thinking? Not me.

Considering it was late, I surmised Dagobert was required elsewhere. I hadn’t asked him whether he had a wife or kids, because I’d be moving on soon. Different day. Different country. So what was the point? But he probably had, so it stood to reason he was needed at home. No need to let my imagination run away with me. If I remembered rightly now I was sobering up, it was less than a fifteen-minute trip to the hotel. I’d be tucked up in bed in twenty minutes. Alone. Probably wishing I had picked someone up from the club. “Was Dagobert not available tonight?”

“Na.”

Austrian German for no. There was no point in asking the guy more if he didn’t speak English. I leaned my head back against the seat and closed my eyes. When my internal body clock said that close to fifteen minutes had passed, I opened them, expecting to see the bright lights of the district where I’d been staying. My phone rang as I stared out at the encroaching darkness and I pulled it to my ear.

“Where are you, Rudolf? I thought I could at least trust you to get in the car once I sent it. Let me guess, someone threw themselves at you and you just had to go home with them and never thought to inform me?”

Jade. An even more pissed than usual Jade. “I’m in the car.”

“No, you’re not. I’ve had Dagobert hassling me for the last ten minutes. He has a home to go to, you know. He can’t spend all night sitting in front of a nightclub. Not to mention that he’s currently being paid for not driving you. Your father and I were just discussing how to get you to cut down on unnecessary expenses. How I’m supposed to do that, I haven’t got a clue.”

“By sending me to rehab, presumably.”

“Yeah, that.” Jade gave a bitter laugh. “So… just tell me where you are and I’ll send Dagobert to come pick you up.”

“I told you where I am. I’m in the car.”

“What car?”

I didn’t like the confusion in Jade’s voice. It made my palms sweat and my heart race. When you were in the public eye, you always knew you could have a target on your back. That’s why I had a bodyguard. A bodyguard I’d left back in the hotel.

“Rudolf, you’re worrying me.”

Yeah, I was worrying myself. Just who the fuck was I in a car with? And why hadn’t I at least checked when I got in that Jade had sent him? Could I be any more of a fuckup?

I surreptitiously wrapped my fingers around the door handle and tugged.

Locked. Although, what I thought I was going to do if it hadn’t been, I wasn’t sure. Would I really have done a kamikaze roll out of the car? And then what? Run off into the freezing cold? Being kidnapped and ransomed wasn’t my idea of fun, but neither was dying of exposure.

“Hang up the phone.”

I jerked my gaze to the rearview mirror to find eyes on me. No Austrian accent this time. English all the way. Did that make it better or worse? “Jade, you need to call the—”

The car lurched to so sudden a stop that it threw me against the front seat, the impact enough to wind me even with the seatbelt on. I was still shaking my head and trying to work out whether I had a concussion when the phone was snatched out of my hand. Had Jade heard enough to raise the alarm? Probably not. Which meant no one would likely miss me for a few more hours, leaving me at the mercy of some stranger who wanted God knows what. And he hadn’t even had to try that hard to kidnap me. I’d volunteered myself. Fucking idiot.

Chapter Two

Arlo

Two weeks earlier

I stared at the newspaper’s headline.Musical sensation, Rudolf Bell crashes and burns in a spectacular fall from grace.Did I really want to read on? Something made me, though. The same something that’d had me following his career for the last few years.

Twenty-three-year-old Rudolf Bell, the piano wonder kid who dresses like a rockstar but plays classical music like an angel, flounced off stage halfway through his show the other night. His unexpected departure came after a succession of uncharacteristic bum notes, leaving the audience clamoring to know whether they’d get a refund.

I contemplated the information so far. Too right, it was uncharacteristic. The Rudolf I’d known couldn’t have played badly, even if challenged to do so. His fingers had been like lightning over the keys. Lightning that teased and tormented, that filled the eardrums with an emotion that went straight to the soul. It had left me and everyone else on the documentary crew in awe.

It had been a documentary that never saw the light of day, Rudolf’s father pulling the plug long before we had enough usable footage. I could play the piano. It was the reason I’d been interested in making the documentary. But compared to Rudolf, I was a rank amateur. One who’d refused to play in front of him for fear of humiliating myself.

That had been six years ago, and I’d kept tabs on him ever since, following his meteoric success: the sell-out tours, the girls who screamed for him like he was Justin Bieber. Which, in a way, he was, the messy blonde hair, the Kohl-lined eyes, the tight leather outfits that molded to his muscular physique, and his trademark bare feet, making him just as alluring as any popstar. But where they crooned or danced their way into girls—and boy’s hearts—Rudolf let his fingers do the talking. And they were very persuasive, sparking a craze, where people who’d never shown the slightest bit of interest in classical music, suddenly declared their love for Beethoven, Bach and Rachmaninov, amongst others.

I skimmed the rest of the article, not surprised to find the usual overdramatized tabloid narrative, the last paragraph really hammering its point home.

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