Holding her coffee with both hands, Cara pretended not to hear him. But this was what Harper had been waiting for. She turned to Hunter. “What do you mean by ‘one of his acts’? Has Xavier disappeared before?”
“He’s always taking off without telling us.” His voice was clipped. “He’s a drama queen, like all the best artists.”
“Hunter, that’s not fair.” Cara fired a look at him, but he didn’t back down.
“Come on. New York six months ago. He walked out of a recording session and checked out of his hotel and disappeared. Stu was furious.”
“That was different,” Cara insisted, but he waved his cigarette at her, smoke trailing.
“It’s exactly the same.” His voice rose. “Xavier does this shit, Cara. He does. New Mexico, last year. Walked off the stage because he didn’t like the sound he was getting. Got on a plane and left. Stu spent two days trying to get him to come back.”
“I’m sorry, who’s Stu?” Harper interrupted.
There was a pause as the two of them exchanged a simmering look. It was Cara who replied. “Stuart Dillon. The band’s manager.”
“He’s getting a flight back from Paris tonight,” Hunter cut in. “I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to abandon his vacation to look for Xavier.”
“You have to stop comparing this with other times.” Cara looked increasingly tense. “Every other time he was working, and he got upset about something in the music. This time he’s not working. This is downtime. He doesn’t feel ignored. Everything was fine.”
Hunter gave her a weighted look Harper couldn’t read. Her face reddened, but she said nothing, turning instead to Harper and Miles and insisting, “I know Xavier. I love him. He wouldn’t run away like this.”
“He’ll come back.” A pixieish young woman stood in the doorway from the hall. She was tiny—under five feet tall—with short, glossy dark hair and huge eyes. Like Cara, she wore no shoes. “Stop talking like he won’t come back.”
With a frustrated sound, Hunter leaped to his feet and stalked to the window.
Cara, though, calmed down. “Of course he will.” She patted the sofa next to her. “Come here, Legs. Do you want some coffee?”
“No caffeine,” the girl said. “I already can’t sleep.” She walked across, taking a seat next to Cara on the sofa. Her gaze was disconcertingly direct as she glanced from Miles to Harper. “I’m sorry—I don’t know who you are.”
A South Carolina accent, thick as cane syrup, lay on every word. Harper knew where she’d grown up without even asking her.
“They’re from the Savannah newspaper,” Cara explained. “They want to write about Xavier. To help us find him.”
“I think he’s just gone to be with friends,” Allegra announced. “He does this kind of thing sometimes.”
“Could you tell me in your own words what happened last night? When and why he left?” Harper included them all in the question, but it was Cara who spoke first.
“Nothing happened. That’s what’s so strange. I came in from LA around six o’clock. We had some wine. Allegra cooked dinner.” She rested a hand on the girl’s arm—an almost maternal gesture. “Xavier was fine. Tired, maybe. But in a good mood.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Harper saw Hunter turn from the window to watch as she continued. “Zay and Hunter played the new music they’ve been working on. We talked for hours, the way we always do when we’re all together. I was tired after traveling so I went to bed around one. Hunter and Legs both stayed up.”
“After Cara went to bed, we talked some more,” Hunter said, picking up the story. “Drank some more. At about two in the morning, we were all going to bed, but Xavier said he was too wired to sleep and he wanted to go down to the beach. That’s the last time I saw him.”
“Was this unusual?” Harper glanced at the three of them. “Going to the beach in the middle of the night? Even in February?”
“He loves it there,” Allegra explained. “He says he takes strength from the ocean. It inspires him.”
As if this irritated her, Cara set her coffee mug down a little hard. “Zay has insomnia,” she said, simply. “He says watching the sea helps him relax.”
“So none of you thought anything about it until…?” Harper glanced back and forth between them.
“Until this morning.” Hunter walked back to sit down, picking up his cigarettes again, but not lighting one. “He wasn’t in his room. It didn’t look like he’d slept in his bed. There’d been a storm overnight. We went looking for him outside, on the beach—he wasn’t there.”
“I hate to ask this but, have there been any signs of trouble?” Miles asked, delicately. “Any sign that he’s depressed? Has he been using drugs at all?”
Cara dropped her eyes, the resigned set to her shoulders said she’d expected this question. Allegra looked outraged. “He doesn’t touch drugs,” she insisted. “He wouldn’t.”
“And he isn’t depressed.” Hunter’s voice was firm. “Our album just came out. Things are looking good.”
Miles considered this. “I just keep thinking about how he left that guitar behind,” he said. “I’ve never met a musician who wasn’t protective of his instrument. Was it like Xavier to leave his guitar out there all night, exposed to the sand and salt water?”
Hunter and Cara exchanged a long look.
“He just forgot,” Allegra insisted.
But Cara shook her head.
“Xavier would cut off his right arm before he’d leave that guitar behind.” She looked from Harper to Miles, her eyes filling with anguished tears. “Please help us. I think something terrible might have happened to him.”
5
Miles and Harper caught rush-hour traffic on the way back, and it was after six o’clock when they walked into the newsroom. By then, most of the day-shift reporters had gone home. Only DJ was still at his desk, headphones on.
The second she sat down, he ripped them off and spun around to face her. “Tell me Xavier Rayne isn’t dead,” he demanded. “I’ve got tickets for his show next month and I don’t think I can get a refund.”
“Maybe he’s lost.” She plugged her scanner in to charge. “People get lost.”
“Seriously, though. What do you think happened?” He rolled closer. “Has he gone on a bender or something? Is he a junkie?”
“I’m not sure yet,” she admitted. She thought about that guitar. “But I’m not getting a good feeling.”
“Ah, dammit. It’s always the talented ones.” DJ sighed. “His new album was going to put Savannah on the map.”
“Savannah’s already on maps,” she said.
“Yeah, but he was going to make us look cool.” His tone was doleful.
Across the room, Baxter appeared in the doorway of the glass office. Spotting Harper, she hurried across, her navy blazer fluttering behind her. “What’ve you got?”