“That’s a dead bird.” I stare at the gray and white pigeon attached to the front of my Stratocaster. A breeze ruffles the fluffy feathers on its chest, but otherwise the bird is still. Unnaturally so. Its head is bent at an odd angle, the beady eyes staring straight ahead.
“And a hunting knife.” Bronx points out.
The equipment truck is a mess. Our instruments are strewn around. Whoever did this was looking for my guitar. Not Golden’s. Not Neil’s bass. And not Bronx’s snare, which is currently plinking with each drop of blood that plops from the stained plumage onto the drum’s surface.
Bronx crosses his muscular arms across the barrel of his chest. “This isn’t playing anymore, man. You know when they level up from just leaving creepy messages to killing animals, they’re unhinged.”
“Yeah, but you like the unhinged ones,” Golden says to him as he joins us. “Fuck. Jesus. That’s not okay.”
“It couldn’t have happened long ago.” I swallow thickly with the need to hurl as Golden hops into the back of the truck.
“Don’t touch it,” I say before he can wrap his hand around the handle of the knife and yank it out. “Our guys secured the area, called the local cops. They’re enroute. Where’s Coffey?”
Coffey is our road crew manager. He’s in charge of making sure everything gets broken down and packed up properly so our trucks roll out on time. But there was some mechanical issues with the stage that put them behind tonight and kept the truck here. Which is how some creep managed to get in and vandalize my guitar. And kill that poor, defenseless bird.Psychotic motherfucker!
“They’re escalating,” Bronx says.
“We can’t be certain it’s the same person,” Golden says. “There’s no note.”
“Actually, there is,” Coffey says, joining us at the grim scene. “Security has it.”
“Is it the same as the others?” Usually, the notes are poems about how me and the author belong together, interspersed with my lyrics. They’re creepy but harmless—at least I thought so— although the admirer never left me a dead bird before.
Bronx pales. When they couldn’t get hold of me they called him. He got here first and must have seen the message.
I stride toward the group of security guards watching us. “Hey, I want to see the fucking note.”
“Riot.” Bronx grabs my shoulder and drags me to a stop. “You don’t. It’s not good for your state of mind, bro.”
“What does it say?” Obviously, he’s read it. “Paraphrase.”
“They won’t let anyone, or anything, get in the way of you two being together,” he says flatly, the words sounding ridiculous. “There is not a soul in the world who understandsyou like they do. You’re fated to be one. And soon. You can count on that.”
A chill trickles down my spine. By the expression on Bronx’s face, he’s holding back. “What else?”
“There was a picture too. Of you and Carmine’s daughter in the green room earlier. Sonatina’s head was missing. It’s pretty creepy.” Bronx shivers.
“Holy shit.” I hold my temples with both palms. “They were here tonight, At the party.”
“Fucking hell,” Golden mutters. “That’s crazy.”
“That some unhinged person could get that close without anyone noticing is scary as fuck.” The adrenaline coursing through me explodes with my heart rate.
“It’s not quite that bad,” Bronx reassures. “It wasn’t taken from inside the suite. Or at least not by your stalker.”
“What?” I stop trying to wear a track in the asphalt. “I need to see it.”
“I took a photo.” Bronx brings it up on his phone and hands it to me. “But I can show you the original. You’re tagged in it.”
“What am I looking at?” The photo is of me and Sonatina, but it is unmarked.
“Go to the next one.”
I slide my thumb across and the one with her head cut out appears.
“She, he, whoever they are got the image off social media,” Golden says what we’re all thinking.
“But Sonatina only posted this two hours ago.” The time stamp says so. I would have preferred she didn’t, but it’s not unusual to have our photos posted all over social media by the people we meet.
