“So whatever it is, it’s big to Leo. Stuff she thinks makes her unworthy of what the five of us share, and I’m sure with a little brainstorming, we could figure it out without having our girl relive her trauma.”
“That’s not what I’m trying to have her do,” Pete grunts while making the most menacing eye contact he can muster. “I would never?—“
“I know.” I hold up my hands because he is seconds from blowing up on me. “I know that’s not what you’re trying to do, I just meant there are certain topics that seem off limits for Leo, and a simple process of elimination would get us there in a way that would be easier for her to talk about.”
Because when Leonor decides to share something, she shareseverything, and then she gets weird on us because she has no clue how to handle the emotions or support. Getting to the bottom of whatever this shit with Franc is would inevitably lead to that, and if we can’t ease her in then it’ll be a mess for everyone.
“You got another peg winder?”
“In my room.” I sigh.Guess we’re done talking about that. “You really think this is just some copycat? Someone trying to fuck with Leonor since she starting leaving her crypt?”
“Maybe,” Pete says with a shrug as he stares up at the ceiling.
My brow furrows as I scoff. “What? You think Colin Hastings came back from the dead just so he could stalk Leo again?”
He doesn’t, no one does because people don’t do that, but in New Orleans, it isn’t totally out of the realm of possibility for someone to entertain the thought. Considering Pete and I stabbed him I don’t even know how many times while Mark held him so tight his ribs cracked and punctured both lungs, I don’t think Hastings could put himself together enough to come back at all.
And whether or not that’s possible doesn’t matter because that sick fuck is deader than dead. Franc worked it out—even though he didn’t want to—for the four of us to watch Hasting’s body go into the crematorium before we got locked up. So weknowhe’s beyond gone.
Which is why it’s weird that Pete saidmaybe.
“Obviously not,” he grunts as he rolls to his side, setting the guitar on the bed before propping himself up on an elbow. “Despite what you might think, my mama wasn’t intothatkind of spiritual shit, and she didn’t exactly believe NOLA is crawling with seven foot tall feral vampires lurking on rooftops.” I roll my eyes as he flashes a rare pretty smile. “Seriously though, this feels different from a copycat because some of the stuff she’s getting is stuff that was never shared with the press.”
Well, he isn’t really wrong there.
They held back a bunch of details thanks to our previous PR team, but it was hard to keep everything out of the media because of how gruesome and intense shit was. Our anniversary show, getting ready to launch an international tour, the paps were in full swing and once Justine came screeching backstageto find us… Well, it was a miracle anything was kept under wraps.
Very little was, our trial was all over the news, crews were camped outside our houses. They followed Lucky to and from the hospital, tried getting into his appointments, and my god, some asshole printed photos of them loading Leonor into the ambulance while Lucky fought to get inside with half his face hanging off. They were relentless, but our team went to battle from the second they found out and when photos of Leo backstage were leaked online, they went on the fucking war path.
And even though our hiatus has left our contract and where we stand with the label kind of up in the air, I’m so fucking grateful we had an entire record label backing us through that shit.
“Yeah…” I say hesitantly because it is weird but I don’t have an explanation. “But who knows, aside from when we got out of jail the story has sort of fizzled, and there’s no telling what asshole out there dug deep enough to get the unpublished details.”
“The dark webisa thing, Norman,” Pete says with a sigh. “Just because shit wasn’t officially released, it doesn’t mean it hasn’t been found out. For all we know, whoever this is could have gotten their hands on the police reports or medical files.”
And the truth in that really sucks.
I shrug as I go back to stringing the acoustic. “At least she told us what’s been going on in recent history.”
“Yeah.”
“She’ll tell us the rest when she’s ready.”
“Probably,” Pete grunts as he sits up. “Or Lucky is going to drive her so bananas while they’re out shopping for clothes that she runs away and we never see her again.”
I chuckle as I shake my head. “That is seriously one hell of a combination. Lucky is going to drive her nuts making her trythings on and shit, yeah, but Leo is ahugepain in the ass when it comes to doinganythinglike this. She wouldn’t go to the doctor let alone shopping. But I don’t envy either of them right now.”
“I won’t be surprised if only one of them comes back.”
“Which one?”
Pete shrugs as he swings his legs over the edge of the bed. “Total crapshoot there. Fifty-fifty down the line. Got extra pliers, too?”
My brow lifts but I nod.
It’s not often Pete is this chatty, or helpful, or this interested in wasting time. Which is exactly what we’re doing because we won’t practice without Leonor, and neither of us wanted to go shopping with them, or with Mark to see his grandma.
We love her, she’s basically all our grandma, but Nanny Vee has been struggling lately, and I’d rather not see her boobs again. Until she started going senile, I didn’t think I’d ever see a pair of tits that I didn’t want to motorboat but that woman proved mesowrong. Especially when she didn’t bother closing her muumuu, Nanny Vee just tucked her tits in the top of her underwear and kept swinging her walker at her roommate.
