Dead Wood - By Dani Amore Page 0,77

full of sorrow and melancholy.

And then a voice.

A really beautiful, haunting voice that began to sing of lost love and the ghosts of lovers past.

I was listening at last to Jesse Barre.

The music itself was rough, but you could hear the quality, the command of the song and the ease of the voice. She sounded like a natural. But it was the power of the words that moved me the most. It was the kind of song that if you heard it on the radio, you would wait and hope the DJ would tell you who it was so you could immediately go buy the CD.

I looked at Shannon and I could tell she knew the same thing. The fear in her face was gone, replaced with a kind of warm recognition. Even in the midst of murder and mayhem, she was enough of a human being and a musician to recognize true beauty when she heard it. And she was hearing it now.

When the song was over, I turned back to the player and hit pause.

I heard clapping and when I turned back, Teddy Armbruster stood next to Shannon.

And next to Teddy was a man.

He looked oddly familiar to me. He had a smirk on his lean, slightly wolfish face.

The boat seemed to sway under me and my knees felt weak. I reached out with my hand against the side of the cabinet to steady myself.

“Surprise, surprise,” Teddy said.

The man just looked at me, curious amusement on his face.

It was him.

The man who I’d met on a snowy night so many years ago.

“Look at him, he’s in shock,” Teddy said.

I couldn’t stop looking at the man. I opened my mouth to speak but nothing came out.

Teddy spoke again, a wide smile on his face.

“I’d introduce you,” Teddy said, unable to suppress a chuckle. “But I believe you two have already met.”

It was him.

The man who killed Benjamin Collins.

Forty-four

“Why don’t you step away from the CD player, John,” Teddy said. On cue, the man who’d killed Benjamin Collins eased out a handgun from a shoulder holster.

“Take out the CD and hand it to me,” Teddy said.

I did as asked.

“Teddy, what are you doing?” Shannon said.

Teddy smiled at her, took the CD and slipped it into the breast pocket of his suitcoat.

“Nothing you need to worry about, Shannon.”

“But I do,” she said. She turned to me. “That was Jesse Barre singing, wasn’t it?”

I nodded. “And singing beautifully,” I added, still not taking my eyes from the man across from me.

“What a shame,” Teddy said.

“John,” Shannon said. She was looking at the final destination, but wasn’t sure how we’d gotten here.

“Jesse Barre was going to retire from making guitars,” I said. “Her boyfriend, Nevada Hornsby told me she was taking a sabbatical.”

“Permanent sabbatical,” Teddy said. “An oxymoron, I suppose.” His smirk was vile.

“At the time, I didn’t know what it meant,” I said. I was about to ramble, but I didn’t know what else to do. No one was stopping me, and I needed some time to try to figure something out.

“But then when I found the CD in Molly’s purse – the one Erma and Freda killed her for, I started to realize what had happened,” I said. “Jesse had contacted Memphis, probably for advice. Memphis lied to me about not knowing Jesse. Memphis was probably threatened by it, worried that Shannon would start buying Jesse’s songs, so she convinced Laurence Grasso that when he got out of prison if he killed Jesse for her, Memphis would try to get him back with Shannon.”

“Oh my God,” Shannon said.

“Oh, please,” Teddy said. He was bored, looking around the inside of my sailboat with obvious disgust. The man with the gun was only looking at me.

“And Grasso set Coltraine up to take the fall.”

“This isn’t true,” Shannon said.

“I think at some point, when Grasso was out of control, Memphis went to Teddy and spilled the beans,” I said. “Somehow, Molly realized what was going on and ever the spin doctor, Teddy had both Memphis and Molly killed. And now he’ll try to kill me. All to keep the gravy train rolling in.”

Shannon began to sob outright.

“Time to go,” Teddy said. “Get up.”

“You’d better go with him, Shannon,” I said. She looked like a broken woman. Her head down, silent sobs wracking her narrow shoulders-

And then she launched herself at Teddy, windmilling her arms, slapping at his face, trying to claw him. It caught us all flatfooted. Teddy struggled to get Shannon under control.