Ducky removed his hat, revealing his dark, bald head, and sighed. “Come with me, Kash. And whatever you do, keep your mouth shut.” Ducky’s shifted demeanor took me back. Not only did he never take his damned hat off, but he had never spoken to me in such a way. It was so out of character and made me even more nervous. “This way.”
I followed the old man down a few winding halls backstage before we ended up at the door of an office I had never seen before. The door was shut, and the window to the office wasblacked out. The whole thing gave off an eerie vibe, and my feet immediately stopped as Ducky kept walking. “Ducky? What’re we doing here?” The old man lowered his head. He stood there, with his hand on the doorknob, in complete silence. “Ducky?” I reached out to him but stopped as he opened the door. There, sitting in perfect view of the open door, across a plain desk, was a cop. The same cop I bumped into a few days ago and the very one from the campsite.
My blood ran cold, and the color drained from my face. The man was dressed in his uniform, his elbows across the top of the desk and hands clutched together as he smiled back at me. No, that wasn’t a smile. That was a sinister grin. Everything in my body was screaming at me to run away, but my feet wouldn’t move.
Ducky turned to look at me. “Come on now. I went through a lot of trouble to keep this as far away from the concert and the rest of the band as possible.”
“What is he doing here?” I asked. Ducky stepped out and grabbed my arm. I tried to resist him, but it was no use. For such an old, feeble man, he was shockingly strong. Ducky shut the office door behind us and motioned to the two chairs in front of us. I shook my head as my eyes met his.
“No. I don’t want to be here. Ducky, what the hell is going on? Why?—”
The cop’s voice shot through the office. “Sit down, boy.”
My head snapped at him as Ducky took a seat. “Go on, Kash. Sit down.” He pulled my arm again, and I fell into the cold metal chair. “There you go.” He rubbed my back.
My body felt numb, as if it was existing as I watched it from above, unable to move or say or do anything but stare back at that fucking cop. What was going on? Why was he here? Why was I here? Fuck, I wanted answers!
“What the hell is all this?” I spewed out.
The cop raised a brow as Ducky snapped his head toward me. “Alright now, calm down, Kash.”
“Calm down? Ducky, you just ambushed me with a fucking cop! How am I supposed to be calm? What the fuck is going on?” I was beginning to lose my temper. Ducky tried to put me in check, but his voice felt distant. My mind was racing, and I could hear the sound of my heart pounding against my ears. Ducky’s mouth moved, but all I heard was my heart moving faster and faster, smothered in my own heavy breathing. “Ducky?—”
“Enough!” We all turned to look at the cop, now standing, with what looked like a file in his hand.
What the fuck is that?
“You want to know why you’re here, Kash? Why your manager had to pull you away from your little bandmates? Well, I’ll tell you why. You know what? No, I’ll do you one better. I’ll show you.” The cop scoffed and opened the file as he tossed a handful of large photographs in my direction. The prints sprawled all over the desk. I tried to ignore them, but he only pressed harder. “Go on. Look. Look at what we found out near your band’s campsite.” The cop shuffled the photos and spread them out for me to see.
I reluctantly looked down at the photo closest to me. It was a photo of Guy’s torched car, pulled from the lake. These weren’t just normal pictures. These were crime scene photos. But as my eyes carefully scanned the pile laid out before me, I quickly realized they were all of the car. There were no pictures of Guy’s body anywhere. “Not sure what this has to do with me.” I pushed the photo away, slightly relieved. “You’re wasting your time here. I don’t know what that is.”
The cop made an eerily confident face. “Is that so?” I nodded and crossed my arms while I leaned back in the metal chair. “And you’re sticking with that story?” I shrugged my shoulders. The cop sucked his teeth. “Well.” He opened the file and slidanother photo across the desk. My smug smile fell as I looked down at it. “I find it pretty convenient that you and your band were camping out not too far from where we foundthis.” He tapped the photo of Guy’s zipped duffle bag. It was dirty and bloodied, drenched in lake water and mud. “You know what we found inside?” He placed another photo on top. A photo of the bag unzipped.
Ducky reacted and covered his mouth. “Jesus.”
“That’s exactly what whoever did this needs: Jesus.” My face tightened at the photographed image of Guy’s bloodied body, torn apart, and stuffed into the bag. “You see, Kash, I find it really suspicious that you and yourfriendwere so close to the crime scene and yet had nothing to do with this murder. Our little town had been murder free for almost twenty years, that is, until your tour bus rolled into that campsite.”
I brushed the photos away. “A sad coincidence.”
The cop sucked his teeth again, and his dark pornstache moved with his lips. “Your manager here keeps saying the same thing. But I don’t buy it.” The man rounded the photos up and returned them to his file as he sat back down in his chair. “You rockstars think you’re invincible, shouting and playing that damn devil music. A bunch of sick satanists prancing around onstage stealing the souls of our innocent youth with your violent lyrics, sexualized moves, drugs, and evil agenda.” I laughed. “Oh? You think that’s funny?”
I raised a brow. “You don’t know shit about me and my band. And unless you want me to call a lawyer, we’re done talking here. Ducky?” I turned to look at my manager. “I’m leaving.” I stood from the metal chair and kicked it away from me. Ducky remained seated, unsure of what to do. I couldn't blame him really. Ducky always did get nervous around cops. “I’m not putting up with this shit anymore.”
“Oh, before you go, maybe you’d like to return this.” I froze as a loud clunk of something hit the desk. My body froze as I eyed the item. “Say, Kash, you got a light?” I stared at Motley’s lighter in a small evidence bag. The cop watched me closely, and I tried to hide my emotions and swallow my nerves. “Ah. What’s wrong? Cat got your tongue?” The cop opened the bag and pulled Motley’s lighter out. Ducky’s gaze burned into my cheek, and I knew he recognized it.
Fuck.
The man opened the lighter and began to play with it. He flicked it until a single flame ignited. “Impressive. Even despite being partially submerged in lake water, it still works.” He stared at me through the flame before shutting the lighter. “You see, my colleagues and I found this in the back seat of that torched vehicle. Thank god whoever did this couldn’t get it fully submerged or we would've never been able to salvage this.” He shook the lighter with a grin. “Say, Kash, did you know that when a person touches something, they leave behind these invisible oils from their fingers? Little fingerprints.” He wiggled his fingers in my direction.
What?
“Oh yeah. We leave them on everything we touch. Our own personal little calling cards that are unique. No two people have the same fingerprint.” I didn’t like where this was going. “Did you also know that all convicted criminals are fingerprinted when being processed during intake?”
No.
The man placed the lighter down and pointed to a dark smudge along the metal side. “You see that?” I shot him a look as I stepped closer and eyed the lighter. There, clear as day, was a fucking fingerprint. “The nice thing about the justice system is that we store all the fingerprint records of inmates across the country in a single database. Makes it easier for us to eliminateknown criminals from open cases. Only in this particular case, well, it did me one better.” He pulled a single sheet of paper from the file and laid it next to the lighter. It was an official document of some kind with a police logo at the top and a grid of fingerprints. My stomach began to churn at what I knew he was about to say. “We matched the fingerprint ofthislighter tothisvery criminal. An inmate who was charged and convicted for a whole list of offenses. I mean, the charges just went on and on! It was pretty impressive in a sick and twisted kind of way. But then I got to thinking, how could an inmate from across the country have committed this crime all the way out in my town?” My face burned. “Well, as it turns out, this man’s charges were dropped! Apparently, some half-assed wannabe hotshot messed up during their investigation, and thanks to an anonymous tip, boom. He was let go. And where is it you suppose this man went?” He placed a small photo down. It was a mugshot of Motley from years ago. “He joined a band. And that very same band happened to be at that same campsite where the first murder in twenty years happened inmytown.” He glared at me. “Still think that’s just a coincidence, Kash?”
My nostrils flared as my face burned with rage. He wasn’t here to take me down. He was here for Kash. And I couldn’t let this smug pig take him from me.
