Let the snowflakes fall, let them cover all,
In the quiet, your voice is my thaw.
Forever here, where the cold winds call,
Hear my name, it’s yours, through the stormy snowfall.
She let the last of her song thrum out in the chords of her guitar, then smiled at her listeners.
The crowd erupted.
The man in the wings showed himself.
Dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt, hair cut short, a beard, and the form and outline of the man Dawson had chased down by the river.
Maybe.
Or Dawson’s brain could be playing games with him. Lying to him.
The man didn’t move as Keely leaned into the mic. “I wantto thank you again for coming out tonight. Your support of my friend Wren and her family is huge, and for every dollar we raised tonight, I’ll be matching it with my own donation.”
More cheering.
“I’m going to be taking a hiatus after this. I know, I know,” she said against the noise of the crowd’s raucous response. “But I wanted to give you a couple new songs first. These were inspired by the wild blizzard we just survived—and yes,we, because I was here too.”
More clapping, some cheers.
“I think you’ll like this next one. It’s more of a ballad. It’s called ‘The Whisper.’”
She leaned over the guitar and started to pick out an intro.
Dawson couldn’t just stand here, not with everything inside him pinging.
But he couldn’t exactly run up onstage, right?
He glanced at the wing. The man had vanished. And that was just it—
Dawson pushed through the crowd, to the edge of the stage. Security stood at the stairs. “Let me up.”
He recognized the man from their briefing, and he now frowned but moved aside.
Keely glanced over as she started into her song, but he flashed her a smile—nothing to worry about—and ducked into the wing, toward the shadowy backstage.
Flynn still sat with Zoey on her lap, the little girl now playing with Flynn’s phone. Axel stood behind her, Keely’s manager seated on the other chair, now glaring at him.
“What are you doing?”
“Something’s not right. You need to take Zoey and lock yourselves in the greenroom.”
Flynn got up, handed Zoey over to Axel. “I’m going with you.”
Axel leaned down and kissed her. “Stay safe.”
Goldie got up, clearly torn.
“I got this,” Axel said and headed toward the greenroom, holding Zoey. Caspian, good boy, followed him.
Dawson turned to Flynn. “You stay and watch Keely—”
