I’d never been much of arule-follower, but Quinn was on thin ice. He wanted to keep what he had, andhere I was, ruining it.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
But I wanted to see himhappy,and this wasn’tit. This wasn’t what he wanted at all. He wanted to make hisownmusic, not justbe famous for the sake of it.
I wanted to rescue him. Tosave him from Uncle Vincent, and Harmony Records, and his own belief that hewasn’tworth anything if he didn’t win a Grammy for belting his little heart outbecause his parents had chosen to push him to pursue this.
The whole thing was a mess.
What would have mademehappy right now would have been bundling Quinn up in my arms and refusing tolet him go until everyone in his life had promised to stop hurting him.
But that seemed unlikely tohappen.
What Quinnneeded,from me, was to solve this case. Figure out where the leak was. Settle thequestion of what the hell was going on once and for all.
I was still working on that.
“Private investigator, huh?”Dave—the recording engineer—asked while we waited for Quinn, his headphoneshanging around his neck.
I turned my attention tohim, happy to focus on anything but the tangled knot I’d gotten myself into withQuinn.
I hadn’t had muchchance to speak with any of them, so I couldn’t afford to miss this one.
“That’s right,” I said.
“Cool job. How’d you getinto that?” he asked.
“Well. The US Army managedto get me blown up, so I thought I’d try my hand at something a touch safer.”
Dave’s eyes widened. Clearly, hehadn’t been expecting quite so blunt an answer.
“You were in the army? Here?”he asked. “But you’re…”
“British, I know. I was onloan,” I explained. “I’m very good at what I do.”
That’d never felt more like a liethan it did now. Ihadbeen good at what I did in the army and Ihad the commendations to prove it, but…
I was no closer to solvingthis case now than I had been when I started, except that I’d called in oneof few useful favors I had owing. If Jimmy didn’t come through, I was fucked.
“Cool.” Dave nodded. “Do youcatch a lot of criminals, or…?”
“Cheating husbands, mostly,”I admitted. No point inlying. I liked to think I was a good liar, but ifI didn’thave to do it, why bother? “Couple of cheating wives. Found a stolen parrotonce.”
“Oh,” Dave said, suddenlyless interested. “Well. I guess it pays the bills?”
“More or less. And on dayswhen I’m in the office, I’m going to see friends. Not a bad life, all told.”
I watched Dave plug in anovelty USB stick shaped like a revolver with a keychain hanging off it. Did hethink he was a cowboy?
One of Gray’s rules startingup Guardian Angels was that we wouldn’t be armed. It was part of why I’d agreedto go along with the whole thing. I couldn’t imagine a bodyguarding scenariowhere the best response to being shot at was to shoot back. The best responsewas always to get whoever you were meant to be protecting out of danger, whichmeantnothanging aroundfor a shootout.
“I’m not familiar with Quinn’swork,” I said casually. “Deaf in one ear, don’t listen to a lot of music. Whatdo you think of it?”
“I, umm,” Dave glanced atthe door. “He’s got a great voice. You should listen if you get a chance.”
Maybe I would, although thethought that I wouldn’t be doing it justice made me doubt I’d get aroundto it. I didn’t feel qualified to have an opinion on music anymore.
“Shame about the lyricsleaking,” I said. “He’s had a run of bad luck, hasn’t he?”
