Page 18

HARRY

Halfway home my phone buzzed, and I saw that the number on the screen was the same one from this morning. I could only assume it was Dean’s manager wanting to talk about the event planning for the concert. I knew I couldn’t ignore her call any longer. I answered the call.

“This is Harry Dalton.”

“Finally!” came the sharp British accent over the phone. “You’re a hard man to track down, Harry Dalton, do you know that? Don’t bother answering, it’s a rhetorical question and I don’t have time to beat around the bush. My name’s Astrid Aldridge, I’m—”

“I know who you are, Ms. Aldridge. Dean mentioned you.”

“Good, then hopefully you know all about the concert we’re holding on Friday night. I’ve already spoken to your sheriff and had all the necessary paperwork approved. Now all I need is someone to help me co-ordinate all the logistics and AV set-up. Apparently that someone is you, is that correct?”

“Yes, ma’am. I handle all the outdoor events in Mulligan’s—”

“Good. I’ll see you at six a.m. sharp tomorrow morning. My team will be bumping in the rigging and staging from seven. I hope you have plenty of perimeter fencing and bollards, we’re expecting quite the crowd.”

“Quite the crowd? How many people are we talking about exactly?”

“We don’t have precise numbers yet, but today’s pre-sale VIP tickets sold out in under a minute. Indications are we’ll have all ten thousand tickets sold by close -of -business tomorrow.”

“Ten thousand! They’ll overrun the whole town. Mulligan’s Mill can’t handle those sorts of numbers.”

“I’m afraid you have no option. It seems his fans can’t wait to see Dean in his hometown.”

With that she hung up.

“What the fuck?” I breathed to myself, my head spiraling into a panic over the thought of that many people descending upon Mulligan’s Mill. This was beyond the logistics of setting up a stage and AV rig. Every business in town would be overrun with concert-goers wanting food and accommodation and God only knew what else.

As my frantic train of thought rambled through my brain, I steered my way home on autopilot, pulling up out front of my house to see Madeline sitting on my front porch step, a bottle of wine beside her.

I jumped out of the car. “Madeline, I’m so sorry. I… I got held up.”

She smiled. “Don’t worry. It’s okay. You’re a busy guy, I get it. Although one more minute and I was about to smash the top off this bottle of chardonnay and start drinking.”

I helped her up off the step, fumbled with my keys, and opened the front door.

Instantly we were met with an overpowering smell.

“Wow, something smells nice,” she said.

Thankfully she was talking about the scent wafting from the lilies and lilacs I’d left in the sink, not jizz.

“I bought flowers, but I haven’t put them in vases yet, I got kinda waylaid. Come on in.”

I showed her into the living room with the kitchen and dining room off to one side. “You need some help? I’m good with flowers. I can help arrange them.”

“No, please. Sit down. Why don’t I open this wine and pour us each a glass, huh?”

Madeline gave me the bottle and took a seat on the sofa. I opened it and poured, taking her glass to her before turning the oven on, pulling the pie out of the fridge and scouring the cupboards for vases. I found three, all different shapes and sizes, filled them with water and plonked the flowers haphazardly into them.

I set one vase on the dining table, one on the mantle and one on a side table next to the sofa.

As I busied myself, Madeline asked, “Are you sure I can’t do something to help?”

“Not at all,” I said, sliding the pie into the oven. “I hope you like pie. Sorry it’s not homemade, but I picked it up from Pascal’s so it’s probably way better than anything I could have cooked anyway.”

“Are you sure you’re okay? You seem flustered.”

“I’m fine. Today was just a little… unexpected.”

“Are you talking about Dean?”

I froze, my anxiety suddenly peaking. “What?” My voice was uncharacteristically, uncontrollably shrill.

What did Madeline know?

Had she seen me going into Dean’s backyard studio?

Had she heard us crying out in ecstasy?

Oh fuck!

“What about Dean?” I dared to ask, trying to look as innocent and clueless as possible.

“You haven’t heard?”

I gulped my wine. “Heard what?”

“His manager turned up in town, seemingly out of the blue. She’s organizing a concert headlining Dean, right here in Mulligan’s Mill. Can you believe that?”

Soundlessly I let a long, even sigh leave my lungs. “Oh right. That! Yeah, I had heard. His manager called me, wants me to help with the logistics. Looking after the events in town is kinda my thing, although something this size? I have no experience with something this big.”

“How big is it?”

I joined her on the sofa. “They’re talking ten thousand.”

“Ten thousand! That’s how many fans Dean has?”

“That’s just the ones willing to travel to Mulligan’s Mill. I’m worried they’re gonna trample this town to the ground.”

“I thought Dean came back home to get away from all that?” she said.

“He did. I guess his manager has other ideas.”

“And Dean can’t just turn around and say ‘no, I’m not doing it?’”

I shrugged. “I don’t think you reach that level of fame by saying no. Maybe he thinks if he turns it down, it’ll be the beginning of the end for his career.” I didn’t want to mention the letters or the stalker or the real reason Astrid wanted to hold the concert. Instead, I just said, “I can’t imagine having to deal with that kind of pressure.”

Madeline shuffled her way along the sofa toward me. “I’m pretty sure you’re about to experience a whole lot of pressure yourself. Coping with ten thousand visitors to the town? Harry, you’ve really got your work cut out for you over the next few days.”

I took a deep breath. “Tell me about it.” I shut my eyes and gulped down more wine, and when I opened them again Madeline was right beside me.

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

I smiled uncomfortably. “You keep asking me that.”

“That’s because I’m good at lending a hand. You need me to help round up volunteers or type up run sheets or just pass out bottles of water, I’ll do it. You’re gonna need everyone to pitch in and help, so don’t be afraid to ask. God, you look stressed already, I can practically see the knots in your shoulders.” She set both our wine glasses down on the coffee table and said, “You know, I happen to be great at massages too. Turn around and let me work some of that tension out of—”

Her hands fell on one of my shoulders and I flinched.

No, I didn’t just flinch.

I practically launched myself off the sofa as though somebody had just thrown a live rattlesnake at me.

My arms swept wide.

The vase on the side table went flying across the room and hit the floor.

Glass shattered and flowers went everywhere.

“Oh shit! Oh fuck! I’m sorry,” I stammered, quickly apologizing to Madeline before scrambling across the room to clean up the mess.

“Don’t do that, let me,” she said. “You’ve already sliced your hand on glass once this week. You’re clearly on edge about something. Step away before you hurt yourself and tell me where you keep the broom.”

“I’m okay, really I’m okay.”

I was already picking up shards of glass.

Madeline was already opening the door to the closet under the stairs.

“No! Please don’t open—”

Too late.

Madeline was already staring into the closet, then looking back at me with a quizzical smile. “You play the guitar? I didn’t know that.”

There’s a lot about me you don’t know , I thought.

I shook my head. “I don’t really play at all. It’s a hobby, not something I’m good at. You can close that door now, the broom is in the laundry room. I’ll go get it.”

But Madeline had already pulled the guitar out of the closet… along with all the sheet music of Dean’s songs. She looked through the pages and looked at me. The expression on her face was a strange mix of surprise and a dawning realization. “You, ah… you’re more of a fan than I thought. Of Dean’s music, I mean. You’ve learned all his songs?”

I was a bad liar.

Some people have it in them to fabricate the truth. Some people are good liars. Some people are great liars. Not me.

I nodded.

“Does Dean know?” she asked.

I shook my head.

“Do you ever play the guitar for anyone?”

I shook my head again.

“Will you play it for me?”

“Oh, no. I can’t. I couldn’t. I’ve never played for anyone before. I don’t want to play the guitar for anyone.”

Madeline took a deep breath and said, “I think what you mean to say is, you don’t want to play the guitar for just anyone.” She paused and added, “You want to play it for Dean. Don’t you?”

“Oh, no, not at all.” That was true. I never wanted Dean to hear how terrible I was at playing the guitar. But Madeline was peeling away the layers of a much deeper truth.

That’s when we both noticed the card lying on the floor at her feet.

It was the card I’d tucked into the strings of the guitar. It must have fallen out when she pulled the instrument out of the closet.

She bent low.

“No, please—”

She picked it up, opened it. “You got a birthday card from Dean?” She read the message. “You’re his darling? His secret?”

“Oh God.” The sigh that came out of me felt like my soul was leaving my body. “It’s not… it’s not what you think. It’s…” Like I said, I was a bad liar. I had to come clean. “Dean didn’t write that. I did.”

Her brow furrowed. “You wrote a card… to yourself… pretending to be Dean?”

My head fell into my hands.

Madeline set the guitar and the card and the sheet music down on the coffee table and sat on the sofa once again.

For a moment I didn’t move, and she didn’t gesture for me to sit beside her, but there was a conversation that needed to be had and we both knew it.

I walked away from the smashed vase and sat next to her on the couch.

“You don’t think of Dean as just your best friend’s son, do you.” It wasn’t a question. She didn’t look offended or betrayed or even shocked. Her voice was calm. Comforting even.

I shook my head.

“Does Dean know how you feel?”

I struggled to find my words, to even be talking about something that had been my cherished secret for so long. When I finally spoke, my voice was gravelly. “No, Dean didn’t know. Not for a long time. And I had no idea how he felt about me. But then today… out of nowhere…” Suddenly my tone went from defeated to concerned. “Oh, but Andy doesn’t know. Everything is so… new… and I’m pretty sure Andy doesn’t have the foggiest idea. Please don’t tell him.”

Madeline gave a gentle laugh. “Oh, don’t worry. I won’t tell him. That’s your job.” She picked our wine glasses off the coffee table and handed me mine, before clinking our glasses together. “I think we’re going to need these.”

We both drank, then Madeline said, “So… tell me all about it.”

I sighed with relief more than anything, and eased back into the sofa.

I may have completely fucked up my first and last date with Madeline Montgomery.

But that night I got the feeling we’d be friends forever.

* * *

Apart from the possibility of a ghost living down the well, Mulligan’s Mill Park had always been a peaceful, happy place. A safe little patch of green where folks could bring their dogs, their kids, their heartbreak, or their fishing rods and just sit by the river on a lazy afternoon. It was a place where you could sit on the same old bench under the same old tree, toss a coin into Winnie’s Wishing Well, and know that life would keep ticking along just the way it always had.

This morning, though?

Hell, it wasn’t even six a.m. and already the park looked like it had been invaded by a traveling circus made entirely of electricians and chaos goblins.

Yep, this morning the park looked like it had gotten drunk and signed up for an industrial rave.

Trusses like skeleton scaffolding rose out of the ground like alien bones. Cables coiled across the grass like snakes on a mission. Speakers the size of my truck stood stacked like black monoliths, humming with quiet menace. Crew members swarmed in hi-vis vests, waving clipboards and frantically shouting things like “Check phase on the line array!” and “Where is my gaffer tape?” like their lives depended on it.

I barely made it ten steps from the truck before someone hollered, “Heads!” and a coiled cable thunked onto the ground right at my boots. A little closer and I’d have been wearing it like a necktie.

This wasn’t a concert setup.

This was the exorcism of peace and quiet.

I took a slow, calming breath through my nose. It didn’t help. Mostly because there was so much ozone and burning solder in the air it nearly fried my sinuses.

There were crates everywhere—those big black travel cases that always looked like they’d been dropped out of a plane, survived, and were ready for more. Half of them were leaking lengths of gaffer tape like some kind of arts-and-crafts horror show. A guy with a mullet was using a smoke machine to defrost a sandwich. I gave that one a wide berth. He looked like he knew his way around bad decisions, so I let him do his thing.

“Excuse me!” I called out, aiming my voice at the first person who didn’t look like they’d been awake for twenty-four hours straight and surviving on nothing but Red Bull and donuts.

She turned sharply, red ponytail snapping like a whip. The woman had the kind of expression you only get from a lifetime of wrangling egos twice your size and not backing down once.

“Astrid Aldridge. Manager and Site Director,” she said briskly. “Please tell me you’re Harry.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I’m Harry. I’m also… concerned.”

I gave a helpless sort of wave toward the absolute circus happening behind her. “This feels like… a bit much.”

Astrid didn’t blink. “Oh darling, this is just the preliminary setup. We haven’t even put the light towers in place yet.”

I opened my mouth to ask what that meant—then thought better of it when a forklift whizzed by at an alarming speed, hauling a massive speaker on its forks. There was a guy riding shotgun on top of it, one leg slung over the side like he was Miss Mulligan’s Mill in a parade, waving a bag of zip ties over his head like he’d just won the lottery. “Found ’em!” he called to Astrid as they flew by.

“Good for you, darling. Another life goal achieved.” Astrid’s gaze shifted past me toward the LED crew who were now trying—and failing—to wedge a giant screen into a truss that was very clearly two inches too narrow.

“Look, I get it,” she said, waving one hand vaguely behind her. “You’re worried this is gonna trash your nice little park. But my crew? We’ve done shows in worse spots than this. Smaller spots. Trickier spots. Bat-infested spots. We’re good. We’re fast. We clean up after ourselves.”

I was about to argue when somewhere behind us a voice shouted, “The lasers are here!” and a delivery van backfired hard enough to make me physically flinch. A flock of pigeons shot out of the trees like they’d just remembered they had an appointment elsewhere.

“I thought your guys weren’t supposed to be here yet,” I grumbled. “Didn’t you say the setup starts at seven?”

Astrid gave a one-shouldered shrug that somehow felt dismissive and apologetic at the same time. “They made good time on the road, and we all know time is money. So here we are.”

She reached up and pressed two fingers to the headset snug around her ear. “Barney, I swear on my favorite shoes, if you so much as touch that wishing well with anything resembling a scaffolding mount, I’ll bloody well duct-tape you to the fog cannon and fire you straight into the river myself. Are we clear?”

I squinted at Winnie’s Wishing Well. Someone had added a sign to the fencing around it: No Dancing, Climbing, or Jumping Down the Well.

Good to know we were covering the essentials.

“This used to be a quiet town, you know,” I muttered.

Astrid gave me a glance, softer this time. “And it will be again. After Friday. This is for Dean, remember. He’s one of you.”

The knot in my stomach tightened at the sound of his name. Yeah. Dean was one of us. More than she knew. “Just promise me you’ll leave the place exactly how you found it.”

Astrid held out her hand. “Scout’s honor.”

I hesitated for a moment, then shook it. Her grip was firm. Bold. Sharp. No surprises there.

At that moment, the subwoofers fired up a bass test so deep my teeth rattled. Somewhere in my guts, a small, vulnerable part of me wondered if my spleen had just moved to a new neighborhood.

Astrid turned away to bark another order into her headset, and I took that as my cue to retreat before anything exploded or collapsed or blasted off like a skyrocket.

I barely made it ten feet before I heard someone yell, “The fog pony is back!” followed by the wheezy growl of the mobile smoke machine kicking into life and half a dozen crew members hacking and coughing as the first thick plumes of fog rolled out across the grass.

I didn’t even look back.

This was happening.

Our park was turning into a battleground of cables, lighting rigs, and questionable pyrotechnics.

All I could do now was call my people to help supervise, stay the hell away from anything that sparked, and pray that out of the ten thousand strangers about to swarm my little town, the one person we didn’t want showing up—the sick bastard stalking Dean—wasn’t among them.

* * *

On the edge of the park, I found Maggie hunched over a compost bin, dry-heaving like a cat coughing up a hairball.

“Maggie? You alright?”

“Oh, hey Harry. Yeah, I’m okay. I just got a little close to that smoke machine as it fired off a shot. There’s chemicals inside me now that will outlast time, but unless I turn into Spider-Woman in the next few minutes, I think I’ll be okay.”

I rubbed her back in little, slow circles, and she wiped her mouth on her sleeve and gave me two thumbs up.

“This is all pretty chaotic,” I said. “You think you’re okay to help me out? We need some volunteers to make sure these guys don’t permanently wreck our park. You good with that?”

“Hell yeah! Bud already decided to close the store today and help out Pascal in the patisserie, so I’m all yours.”

“Great. Why don’t you go rustle up some locals. Folks we can trust not to knock over a lighting rig or electrocute themselves.”

I told her we needed people we could trust, people who wouldn’t already be run off their feet trying to keep the hordes fed and sheltered. That pretty much ruled out Pascal and his staff members, Lonnie and Ronnie, and Maggie already said that Bud would be donning a waiter’s apron to help his boyfriend out. It also meant that Benji, Bastian, and Connie would be flat out busy at the BnB, as well as Bea who would no doubt need Gage to help tend bar. River Raven would probably be busy either helping Clarry in the ice-cream parlor, or his old man at the general store, or both. Which left Mitch and Ginny, Bo Harlow if he was back in town, Brooks from the bookstore, and of course Andy and Madeline.

Maggie gave a wild salute. “On it, bossman!” Then promptly tripped over a coil of cable and fell behind a crate with a loud thud. Quickly she jumped back to her feet. “Ope! Guess my Spidey senses haven’t quite kicked in yet.”

I gave an exhausted sigh.

By seven-thirty, I had what passed for a ragtag crew of local volunteers slowly trickling in.

First to show was Mitch, pushing Ginny across the grass in her wheelchair like it wasn’t the bumpiest terrain this side of Mount Whittlesey.

Ginny, as usual, looked like she was here on official business, clipboard balanced on her knees, tablet in hand, pigtails braided tight.

“Morning, Harry,” Mitch called out, steering Ginny clear of a particularly precarious tower of crates. “Maggie-pie said you needed some help.”

“At your service,” said Ginny, proudly waving her clipboard at me before I could even respond. “I brought a site map. I did some googling, found the staging company online and copied the blueprint off the AV producer’s email thread.”

“You hacked the AV guy’s account?” I asked in a stunned whisper.

“I like to think of it as ‘borrowing information.’ Anyway, I annotated it myself. The production team’s got power cables running too close to the eastern path—total accessibility nightmare, by the way. And they didn’t factor in a proper emergency egress. But don’t worry, I fixed it.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You got yourself on the payroll yet?”

“Working on it,” she deadpanned, clicking her pen.

I chuckled under my breath. “Appreciate you both showing up.”

“Of course,” Mitch said. “I mean, I have no idea what I’m doing, but always happy to help.”

From across the grass came Andy, wide-eyed, face full of wonder as he scanned the hive of activity, all for his son. He clapped me on the back. “Hey, big guy. Maggie said you need help. Figured I’d better pitch in, seeing as my boy’s the reason this circus is parked in the middle of our park.”

The mention of Dean hit me like a wrench to the ribs. The idea of having to tell Andy about me and Dean made my stomach flip. I forced a nod and tried not to let my face give anything away. “Glad you’re here, buddy.”

A moment later, Bo Harlow came striding across the grass with his usual too-much swagger, wearing his trucking aviators and a leather jacket. He jerked his chin at me in greeting.

“Heard you’re lookin’ for some extra muscle,” he said, cracking his knuckles like he was hoping I’d say the job involved breaking kneecaps.

“I’m looking for people who won’t scare the tourists,” I replied.

Bo grinned. “No promises.”

Behind Bo, Brooks wandered over at the cautious speed of a man who regretted every decision that had led him outdoors today. His trousers were already dusty from the walk across the park, and he looked personally offended by the existence of morning dew. Under one arm, he cradled a thick sci-fi novel—hardcover, naturally, the kind of book big enough to double as a weapon if things really went south. His other hand was shoved deep into the pocket of his cardigan, sleeves already pushed up like he’d prepared for battle but fully expected to die in the first wave.

“Maggie ambushed me,” he announced, his voice as flat as the expression on his face. “Cornered me right outside the bookstore. Told me I was ‘on the team’ now, not that she gave me much of a choice.”

He held up the clipboard she’d apparently forced on him, turning it slowly between his fingers like it might bite.

“Apparently, you need me to… I don’t know… hold this. Or something.”

“You’ll make it look good,” I told him.

Brooks sighed, long and theatrical. He tucked the book under his arm and gave the clipboard a grudging little shake, like he was testing its structural integrity. “I hate outside,” he muttered. “It’s where the bugs live.”

I clapped him on the shoulder. “Welcome to the team, champ.”

His only response was a glare.

Lastly, Madeline arrived, looking calm and prepared as always—neat ponytail, sensible shoes, cooler bag of sandwiches tucked under one arm like she was leading a field trip.

“Morning, Harry,” she said warmly, being nothing but her usual self. I knew she wasn’t about to telegraph last night’s news to the others. I trusted her.

“Thanks for coming.”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” she said. “Oh, by the way, I just saw Maggie asking if she could play with one of the laser lights. I think we need to implement the buddy -system.”

“Good idea.”

I glanced around at the crew I’d managed to scrounge together. Mitch, rock steady. Ginny, small but terrifying. Andy, strong as ever, big heart to match. Bo, cocky but useful. Brooks, miserable but compliant. Madeline, calm and practical.

And Maggie—chaotic, clumsy, and way too enthusiastic.

God help me.

“All right,” I said, clapping my hands together. “Let’s get to work.”