Page 71 of Red Hot Harmony

And I was here, alone, and lost in this wretched labyrinth of life.Or semblance of life.

Sirens blared outside my gate. After informing the operator that the paramedics were here, I tucked my phone into my back pocket and shot around the house and into the front yard to let them in. My jeans instantly felt heavy on my hips, the weight of Malik’s cross and my cell pulling them down.

Snowflake trailed after me, barking thinly, a vicious little creature.

Malik must have come when I was busy writing new tunes in my music room, because his Jeep was parked in my driveway. I wouldn’t have heard him arrive. Not with the guitar in my hands.

Guilt twisted my guts. Twisted and pulled and pinched.

How could I be so blind? So self-absorbed? So preoccupied? I knew he was spiraling. I knew he was hurting. I knew and I didn’t try hard enough to be there for him the way he was for me right after my stroke.

When the paramedics were hoisting him up onto the stretcher, one of them—a woman—touched my shoulder and asked, “Are you going or staying, Mr. Martinez?”

I didn’t remember if I’d given her or the operator my name. She wore a dark blue short-sleeved shirt and my gaze caught splashes of ink on her biceps.

I’m ambivalent, it said.

My head spun. Reading the lyrics of the song Frank and I had written on a stranger’s body was like looking at my reflection in a mirror that spoke the truth. It was eye-opening. All the shit I’d done and all the people I’d hurt and all the things I’d fucked up.

The past was impossible to outrun.

“Mr. Martinez?” the woman called, her voice urgent.

“I’m coming with you,” I told her and raced over to the edge of the pool to grab Snowflake, who was now barking at the dirty water. “Let me just get him inside the house.”

I realized that I didn’t have my phone on me in the back of an ambulance when I checked my pockets. One still held Malik’s cross and the other was empty.

Fuck, no!

Camille was going to be furious.

I needed to make that damn phone call, to tell her things had gotten out of hand, to tell her I was sorry.

I covered my face with my palms and tried to push the noises aside. The paramedics working hard on keeping Malik alive. The sirens screaming around me. The hum of the engine jolting my bones.

The same woman who spoke to me earlier in my yard addressed me again, “Mr. Martinez? Are you all right?”

Yes, she definitely knew who I was and that only made everything worse. There was something unnerving about having an actual fan witness you at your lowest, with your spirit crushed and your charisma and power and privilege absent.

I dropped my hands into my lap and blinked past the blur in my eyes. “Is he going to make it?”

“He’s stable for now.”

For now.

I didn’t like the sound of that.

Though the nearest hospital was just a few minutes away, the drive seemed to stretch on for what felt like days. The moment the vehicle came to a stop in front of a gray slab of a building with sliding glass doors, the paramedics hauled Malik’s body into the ER.

I glimpsed a white doctor’s coat and several people in scrubs rushing toward the gurney.

Voices shouted and wheels rattled against the floor.

My head pounded as I followed the procession inside, where I was quickly separated from them by one of the security guards and escorted to a private waiting area.

I was slumped in the plastic chair with my right foot tapping impatiently against the tiled floor when Shanice emerged. She rushed in like a hurricane, swallowing up all the oxygen.

I’d never met the woman, but I’d seen photos of her online and on billboards all over L.A. One had to be blind not to recognize her for what she was. Stunning and sexy and glamorous. But there was absolutely nothing glamorous about Shanice Dixon right now.

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