Page 43 of The Wolves Come at Night
“Georgia’s place. East Nashville. Not far from the house she bought for the boyfriend.” He reeled off the address.
“Got it. I’ll report back. Don’t bother Marcus, I can handle it.”
“I kind of like this—me giving you a detail.”
“Me too. Wanna trade?” He laughed and hung up. Taylor rinsed out the remnants of the beer and tossed the bottle in the recycling, brushed her teeth, then pulled on her boots and leather jacket again. Talking with the parents of a dead girl was not her favorite thing to do by any means, but at least they already knew the contours of the situation. There was nothing worse than having to do a notification. Breaking apart a life wasn’t something she ever got used to.
Then again, she had nothing to give them. A dead daughter, a dead boyfriend, and a couple of hunches that she was definitely going to keep to herself.
Lincoln texted her the address as a backup, though she remembered it easily. She set the alarm and took the elevator to the garage again. This late, the drive to East Nashville was quick. She had no trouble figuring out which house it was; the renovated bungalow was glowing with light from every window.
Loss makes people afraid of the dark.
She knocked, and the door was opened by a young man dressed all in black: skinny jeans, Bluestones concert T-shirt, Converse. Even his hair was dyed black, falling into his reddened eyes. The fingernails on his right hand were longer than the left and painted black. She pegged him as a member of the band, a little edgy for country, but not unusually so, even before he said, “Hi. I’m Meddows. Georgia’s guitarist. Was. Damn. Come in.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” she said, stepping into the foyer.
“Thanks. They’re all in the kitchen,” Meddows said. “I was just heading out. Nice to meetcha.”
He shouldered a broken-in leather jacket and closed the front door quietly. Just as softly, he opened it again. “Ma’am? Make sure you ask about the issues we were having with Travis.” And he was gone before she had a chance to speak.
Twenty-One
The kitchen was full of people. The group was far from jovial, but they weren’t weeping, either. The chatter decreased as she stepped into the room. She spied a few faces she recognized from the music scene around town, and a couple of acoustic guitars leaning against the walls, though no one was playing anything at the moment. The music community in Nashville was close-knit, a loving communal family who spoke not only in words but in sounds, as well. Soon enough, they’d all be circling the fire pit, singing Georgia’s favorites into the wee hours.
“You must be Captain Jackson,” a stocky man said, standing and putting out a hand. “I’m Georgia’s dad, Kurt Wray. Thank you for coming this late. Can I get you anything?”
“No, sir. I am very sorry for your loss.”
He nodded, mouth a grim line. “Georgia was an incredible young woman. I wish you could have known her. Come on, her mom’s out back.”
The patio was screened in, and a fire roared and sparked in the pit, warming the area and sending tiny flaming fireflies out into the night. Couches and chairs were set up in a conversational square, and a petite woman with shiny blond hair was curled in one, rocking slowly.
“Heather? Captain Jackson is here.”
Heather Wray’s eyes were red, but she seemed pretty well contained, considering. Granted, she’d had some time to get used to the idea that she’d never see her daughter alive again, but Taylor still sent up a private thanks as she sat in the chair opposite. Kurt took the corner of the sofa closest to his wife. The remaining people bled away without a word. When they were alone, Kurt Wray took the lead.
“We wanted to talk to you privately, and we appreciate you being here. We’re concerned that because of our daughter’s lifestyle, things may get overlooked. We understand you’ve already talked with Travis about Justin and his issues with how their careers were going?”
“Mr. Bloom told me Justin was causing serious disruptions, if that’s what you mean. So did some of the staff at the label. Is there more?”
Bloom hadn’t mentioned any problems with Georgia other than Justin Osborne’s animus, but he’d also seemed completely shocked by the news, and jet-lagged from his red-eye from LA. Of course, there were always two sides to every story.
The Wrays met eyes, and Heather Wray took over. “We want you to have the whole picture. Justin and Georgia were a lovely couple, and they made great music together. When it was clear Georgia was going to be the star, the label did everything they could to drive a wedge between them. Everything. Georgia was put in a terrible position. A career in the spotlight over the boy she loved. She felt pressured into breaking up with him, and it was eating her alive. Justin was heartbroken, absolutely. But homicidal? No way. We’ve known the boy nearly his whole life. He was upset, but he wasn’t mad at Georgia. He got it. We all knew Georgia was the more talented of the two. He was proud of that, proud that he helped get her into the position to have a career. But Travis didn’t want Justin hanging around. A boyfriend made Georgia less appealing to the masses, you know? Travis created as much animosity as he could between them.”
“I have to interrupt you here, ma’am. There is some pretty incendiary stuff in Justin’s notebooks. He was most certainly mad at Georgia. Furious, in fact. Furious enough that it seemed quite clear he was upset enough with the situation to kill her.”
Heather shook her head. “Blowing off steam, maybe. Trust me. He would never hurt her. Hear me out, there’s more. Here’s what else Travis Bloom doesn’t want you to know. Georgia was fed up with his manipulation and was threatening to pull out of the contract. Everything was going too fast for her. She was being isolated from all of us, not just Justin. Bloom and his flunkies were putting up a wall between Georgia and everyone who genuinely cared about her. They were dominating her every moment, her every thought. They were even offering her drugs, and she told us Bloom was always around when she was pulling late nights in the studio, hitting on her. Anything they could use to get her under their thrall. She was scared enough to buy herself a cell phone they didn’t know about to communicate with us. The texts between us will corroborate everything we’re telling you.”
Kurt handed over a sheaf of papers. “I took the liberty of printing them out for you.”
“That’s very helpful, thank you.”
Taylor glanced through the stack. It certainly looked like a regular exchange between the parents and their daughter. She was going to have a long night digging through all of them.
“Does Mr. Bloom know about these communications?”
Kurt shook his head. “No. No way. He would have taken the phone away from her. I’m sure if you took her phone, or Justin’s, into evidence, you’ll see a different story entirely. She was doing everything she could to maintain the facade while our lawyers looked for loopholes in the contract.” A small sob escaped his lips. “We were too late. We told people we were on vacation, but we were holed up with an entertainment attorney. Georgia called us and said Travis had threatened her, and we should have just come here immediately and taken her home with us. I will regret that for the rest of my life. I had a chance to save my baby, and I failed her.”
