“Exactly.” Hope’s phone rang and she excused herself with a quick apology.
Dean didn’t mind. It gave him a minute to do a quick internet search on Liana and Track’s history. It didn’t take him long to get the gist of what she was dealing with. An awful lot of judgement for breaking up their relationship eight years earlier. Tabloid stories still to this day that she wanted him back, the kind of screaming headline that immediately made him doubt their veracity.
Photos of her on dates, judging her outfits. Those same photos pasted beside photos of Track and his wife, who seemed to be pregnant more often than not.
Rumours of… And he’d read enough.
He tucked his phone away as Hope came back into the room.
“Nearly a decade and he still has an upsetting effect on her?” Dean tried to soften the question, but Hope still bristled and he held up his hand. “I’m not saying that to be critical.”
“She’s not a delicate flower,” the actress said, steel in her voice. “But Track messes with her head. It’s subtle, and he’s American’s golden boy, so nobody else sees it. He’s won artist of the year three times. He’s got a gorgeous wife and three kids with another on the way. Why would he care about what Liana does? That kind of bullshit.”
There were key words that jumped out during an investigation, and Dean might not wear the badge anymore, but he was still a cop. Andnobody else sees itset off all kinds of red flags for him. “Has she ever explicitly said anything to you about it?”
Hope shook her head. “Never. Everything I know, I’ve figured out in the disconnect between the stuff you see in the media and what I know of my best friend.”
“Maybe you should tell me more about her.”
“She’s amazing. Vibrant and smart and talented. Funny and sexy. If you ask me, Track’s the one who’s never gotten over her.”
“He’s married.”
She snorted. “Like that ever stopped anyone. I think he’s still punishing her for breaking up with him. Punishing her for not accepting that men play by a different set of rules. But it’s not just about hurt feelings. I’m talking abouthim. He isn’t nice to her, he never was, and he’s hurting her because she stood up to him. He probably does it now just because it hurts her, no other reason.”
He leaned forward. “You don’t need to convince me. I believe you.”
She looked up, startled. “Really?”
Jesus. He shouldn’t be shocked by her reaction, not after fifteen years on the force, but he was. Somehow, he’d hoped that wealth and worldly experience would have made this easier for these women. Apparently not. “Hope, I’ve had this conversation before. The first dozen times, I said some bonehead things. Doubted that a reasonable man would do such things. All the shit we’re taught from early age, like you said…subtly. But after a while you see a pattern. Of course it’s not news to women, because you’ve been taught something different from an early age. So it took me longer than I’d like to admit to come around to it, but when a woman says something is wrong in a relationship, I believe her. Without question.”
She examined him closely, slowly, looking him in the eyes, then down at his mouth. His hands. He’d seen this before, too. The search for something to hang on to, some sign that it was okay to trust him.
He had an advantage here. Hope knew him as a friend of her fiancé, and he hoped maybe she saw him as a friend herself. That would help.
Finally she relaxed. Her shoulders sagged as she dropped her guard and she shook her head. “It’s so hard to tell you about something that I only see the edges of. I’m not sure what is real and what I’m imagining. The same for her too, I bet. But I’ll tell you this: she was in a good place last spring, when she came to visit me, and I saw her in the fall and she was fine, then, too. Something serious has happened since the start of this tour. Something that has to be Track’s fault. Even if he didn’t orchestrate it, she’s not in a good place right now, and having to see him on the fourth is going to be really hard for her.”
“She could…develop laryngitis.”
Hope shook her head. “Not for just one concert. And she lives for performing on stage. She wouldn’t want to risk the rest of her tour. The label might get involved, or the tour promoter, with the insurance companies…Too risky. Besides, Track’s not just the label’s biggest star. He’s also part owner.”
“Her ex is also her boss?”
“Yeah. And he makes her life a nightmare before an album gets approved. There’s a reason she’s only had two out in the last six years.”
Dean clenched his jaw. Zander had been right to pull him out of the party. This was fucked up. And it might be his first day on the job, but he wasn’t new to sticking up for what was right and fair. “Then let’s see what we can do about convincing your friend that maybe I can be on her side.”
— —
Liana layon her back and counted backwards from ten, telling herself to get a grip. When that didn’t work, she tried a hundred, but she petered out somewhere around seventy.
The problem was, she reallyhadlost it in Savannah, and when she walked off stage, she wasn’t sure that she hadn’t made a bad decision to keep on walking.
Officially, it was fine. The tour had taken a four day break. It wouldn’t be unusual for her to fly home to Nashville. Coming up north to see Hope was acceptable.
Unofficially, she’d felt the emotional break coming even as she waited for the cab that night. So she wasn’t sure she could get a grip.
And there was a stranger downstairs that Hope had thrust into the middle of Liana’s breakdown. She wanted to murder her best friend, and that wasn’t great, either.
