No. I’d return thenotebook, but I wouldn’t bother him.
“I need to find a vendingmachine,” I said, starting to picture what I wanted to do next. “Or aconvenience store or something. And a pen.”
“There’s a pen in theglovebox,” Logan said. “Vending machine?”
I nodded. “Vending machine.It’s important.”
Logan shrugged. “Well, if it’simportant, it’s important,” he said. “No point in trying to get you to explainyourself.”
A snort escaped me. “No,” I said. “There’snot.”
TWENTY-FIVE
QUINN
Vincent had leaked thealbum.
The thought echoed in mymind as I woke from a light doze just as the sun was starting to peek over thehorizon.
Vincent had leaked thealbum. No one elsecouldhave. No one else had any reason to.
And I’dseen himholding mynotebook before it’d disappeared. I remembered him waving it around and snarlingat me now. Everything with Fox had happened so fast that I hadn’t thought aboutit since, but that was the last time I’d seen that notebook.
He’d taken it.
All for what? Publicity,like Lucy said?
Fuck.
Fuck.
How the hell was I supposedto pack today and head off on tour tomorrow knowing he was coming with me? Thathe’dbetrayed me before and he’d do it again? How was I supposed to handle him beingmy only support?
And why was I still workingfor a company who’d donenothingfor me? And who’d hired a privateinvestigator to scaremeinto behaving.
Probably because they’d thought I wasresponsible.
Hell, maybe they still did.It was the song I’d written that’d leaked, wasn’t it? That had to look like I wastrying to convince them that there was an audience formyideas, insteadof an audience for packaging me as a pretty face and aslightly-better-than-average voice.
Just like thefirstleak must have looked like something I’d done on purpose after the pathetic saleson the first album.
And like Lucy had said, theyweren’ta good or smart company. All they cared about was protecting their investment,even if they were protecting it the wrong way.
The sound of someone at thefront door made me tense up. Fox?
Please be Fox,I begged as Igrabbed sweatpants and hopped into them on the way to the door, not about toanswer it in my underwear in case itwasn’t.
I fumbled with the lock,growling in frustration as my clumsy just-woke-up fingers slipped and I had tostart over, relief washing over me when it opened.
No Fox.
No anyone?
I thought for a second thatI’dmisheard, but as I went to step out my toes nudged something.
A notebook? And…
A package of peanut buttercups.
