Page 7 of Killer Notes

“Thank you both for meeting us here. Did you hear from Mr. Harper? He promised me some news on the latest note,” Ron Darling says with an edge to his tone. He glances down at his phone without waiting for a response from either us. “I thought I’d hear something by now.”

I’m about to tell the impatient manager that it takes more than a day to track down a stalker, or get any evidence off the paper he sent only this morning, but my partner beats me to it.

“They’re still working on getting leads,” John says coolly, in spite of the way his jaw is set. His sentiments about the manager apparently mirror mine.

“Sounds good. Follow me inside, gentlemen, and I’ll introduce you to the band. Then, we’ll let them do their thing,” the manager says in a rush.

John lines up behind me as we step inside the building, following Warrior Black’s manager through the reception area. I take off my sunglasses and tuck them into my jacket pocket.

Ron leads us toward an open seating lounge, where the band has congregated. The big room looks misplaced. It should be in some fancy hotel rather than in a small recording studio.

The square room, with its textured wallpaper in blues, grays and white, has an easy relaxing vibe. There’s a single dark blue couch that sits angled on one wall with three flanking dark gray chairs and a large black oval coffee table in the middle of the seating arrangement.

Slicing a look across the bar—yes, I did say bar, I note that every bottle that’s lined up is premium liquor. Then I glance at each band member and try to assess if any of them are heavy partiers. From looking over the files previously, I suspect three.

“Drinks anyone?”Bingo. Bobby Hicks, who plays the keyboard, asks the room as he reaches into the four-foot fridge. He grabs a bottle of lager, pops the top, and takes a long pull of beer. “No?” He then downs it like a pro in five seconds flat.

I glance over at John, who will be keeping an eye on the four band members, and his lips thin into a barely perceptible frown before that familiar mask of indifference slips back onto his face.

We both thought this job was going to be an easy one. And yet, I should know better.

“We have four songs to work on today, so no alcohol. And that includes you, numb nuts.” The singer grabs a second, unopened bottle out of his keyboardist’s hand and pushes him to a set of doors at the other end of the room.

To my surprise, the singer’s watchful gaze slices to me for all of three beats before he turns his back, ready to leave.

I don’t know what that is about, but I can care less.

“Wait, guys. I want you all to meet your security team. This is Tobias Grant and John Brand. They are your bodyguards until this shit is over,” Ron explains with narrowed eyes on the band members.

“Grant and Brand? Sounds like a kids cereal.” Connor chirps out a laugh.

“Shut up, Wildman. Tobias, this is Danny—or Raven, if you prefer. He’s the front man for Warrior Black. John, this whack job is Connor Wild, he plays drums. to his right is Raef D., who’s the lead guitarist. Next to him is Callum Fitz who plays bass, and Bobby Hicks over there is on keyboard.”

“Hey, mate.” Callum reaches out a hand to John and then to me.

“Your accent…” John quickly shakes his hand.

“I’m an Aussie transplant from five grade, and it stuck,” Callum chuckles.

“Gotcha,” John says.

“Mr. Wells,” I say, catching Danny’s attention.

He takes his time to make direct eye contact. His pinched scowl proves he doesn’t like that title. Or me.

“Call me Raven, or Danny—anything else but Mr. Wells. Mr. Wells is my father,” Danny responds tightly before averting his eyes.

I decide I’ll comply, even though Raven doesn’t suit the guy, and Danny fits him better.

“Have to ask, but where does the name Raven come in?” I ask, curious how he got the name when he’s far from the dark the bird represents.

“Danny used to dye his hair blue black in high school and one of our friends nicknamed him Raven. And it stuck,” Connor explains with a smirk to the singer.

“Ah, okay. Then Mr. Raven—”

“Just Raven,” he snaps without looking at me.

I’m not going to let this princess bother me. “Okay, just Raven.”