Chapter 1: Aftermath

Indian Springs, Nevada
March 26, 2005
12:14 a.m.

Matt Tisdale was still on the stage.

He lay on his back where he’d fallen and been rolled over during the futile resuscitation attempt, shirt cut open and peeled away, the adhesive edges of the defibrillator pads still clinging to his chest, stark against his skin. An endotracheal tube protruded from his mouth at a slight angle, secured with tape that had already begun to loosen. An IV line trailed from his arm, saline bag hanging slack and forgotten.

Someone—no one could quite remember who—had covered him with a yellow emergency blanket. It rested awkwardly, more symbolic than useful, doing nothing to disguise the fact that he hadn’t moved.

It had been two hours since Jim Ramos had pronounced him dead.

The audience was gone now. All one hundred and twenty thousand of them. They’d filed out slowly, quietly, almost reverently, as if sound itself might have been inappropriate. Shock traveled faster than language. They’d witnessed a man die onstage, and now they were expected to carry that knowledge home with them, into cars, campsites, trailers, hotel rooms, and the long empty hours before sleep. No one quite knew yet what it meant.

All they knew for sure at this point was that Matt Tisdale had died and that Intemperance was likely not going to be the headliner for tomorrow night’s show as scheduled.

The house lights were still up. Not dimmed. Not softened. Full white. The stage lights too—white, unforgiving, clinical. The kind of lighting meant for work, not performance. The kind that stripped away illusion and left only surfaces and facts.

Jake Kingsley stood near the edge of the stage and counted the officials who were back here. Fourteen LVMPD officers, spread between the stage and the backstage corridor. All in uniform, some leaning against road cases or speaking quietly into radios. Two plainclothes deputies from the coroner’s office stood a little apart, their posture different, already operating on a longer timeline. And Jim.

Jim sat on the floor with his back against a packing crate, legs stretched out, hands resting loosely on his thighs. He hadn’t said much since making the call. Jake understood. There was nothing left to explain until someone asked the right questions.

Kim sat on Jake’s other side. Her eyes were swollen and red, her face blotched from crying she hadn’t tried to hide. She hadn’t left Matt’s side for long. She hadn’t said she wouldn’t. She simply hadn’t moved.

Owen moved in and out of the space like a nervous particle, never stopping for long. At some point he’d appeared with coffee—paper cups, lids, creamers scavenged from somewhere deep in the machinery of the venue. Not just for the crew. For the cops too. He handed them out without comment, without ceremony. No one refused. Several nodded thanks. Someone clapped him once on the shoulder.

GM was earning his keep.

In the backstage area, Intemperance’s road crew stood waiting, hands idle, muscle memory screaming at them to start breaking down the set. Cables lay coiled where they’d been dropped. Cases sat open and empty, ready for instruments that weren’t going anywhere yet. Everyone knew how this was supposed to go after a show.

This just wasn’t that kind of night.

Jake stayed where he was, eyes drifting back—again and again—to the Stratocaster lying where it had been set down after Matt fell. It hadn’t moved. He’d made sure of that.

And it wouldn’t be moved until he was ready for it to be.

Jake turned away from the stage and walked toward one of the uniformed officers standing near the edge of the backstage corridor.

The man noticed him coming and straightened a little—not stiff, not defensive. Just attentive. Late forties, maybe early fifties. Solid build. Gold bars on his collar.

“Lieutenant ... uh...,” Jake said.

“Jorgenson,” the officer replied. “Dan Jorgenson. North District watch commander.”

Jake nodded once. He had been told the name once but had forgotten. He was like that. Laura was not. She was a former teacher and great at remembering names. Jorgenson had arrived about forty minutes earlier and quietly taken ownership of the situation. Since then, everything had slowed down. Deliberately. No statements. No formal interviews. No one touching anything that didn’t absolutely need to be touched. Even the coroner’s deputies had kept their distance, standing back with their hands folded or tucked into jacket pockets, waiting like everyone else.

“What are we waiting on?” Jake asked.

Jorgenson didn’t bristle at the question. He didn’t hedge, either.

“Homicide,” he said. “They’re on their way.”

Jake looked past him for a moment, out toward the empty corridor where the crowd had once been. Then he looked back.

“You think this was a homicide?” he asked.

Jorgenson shook his head slightly. Not no. Not yes. Something in between.

“I don’t think anything yet,” he said. “Common sense says catastrophic medical event or he overdosed on drugs. But belief isn’t the standard. Procedure is.”

Jake nodded. He didn’t bother telling the lieutenant that Matt didn’t do drugs before a show. Never had. Not in twenty-five years of stepping onto stages and playing that Strat that was now lying next to him. He knew better than to waste the breath. Even if Jorgenson believed him—and Jake did not think he would—that wouldn’t change anything.

Jorgenson continued, his tone matter-of-fact.

“Homicide are the most meticulous investigators we have. They document everything. They miss nothing. When a high-profile person dies in public, especially onstage, they take the lead. That way, nobody gets to ask later why corners were cut.”

Jake absorbed that. He could already see the shape of it. The reports. The scrutiny. The inevitable second-guessing by people who hadn’t been there.

“I understand,” he said.

And he did.

Jorgenson watched him for a beat, then gave a small nod in return.

“They’ll walk it, ask a few questions, and make their own determination,” the lieutenant said. “Once they’re satisfied, things will start moving again.”

Jake glanced back toward the stage—toward the body, the lights, the Strat still where it had been left.

“Soon?” he asked.

“Should be,” Jorgenson said. “They know who it is.”

Jake nodded again. He turned back toward the stage without another word and resumed his place.

Waiting, it turned out, was the only thing anyone was allowed to do tonight.

Jake stepped off the stage and pushed through the backstage door, the familiar smell of dust, sweat, and hot metal closing around him.

One of the roadies stood just inside, leaning against the cinderblock wall, arms folded, eyes unfocused. It was Gene Volga. The other roadies called him Vulgar for short. He had been on the Millennial Tour and the Never Say Never Tour after that. A good solid roadie who knew his shit. And he was a smoker.

“Got a cigarette?” Jake asked.

Vulgar blinked, surprised, then nodded and fished a pack from his pocket. He tapped one out and handed it over without comment. Jake took it, feeling faintly ridiculous and vaguely relieved at the same time. Thirteen years. That was how long it had been since he’d last asked anyone for one. That had been the day that his old Chancellor had hit a Canadian goose after taking off from Portland with Celia aboard.

The roadie struck a lighter and held it up. Jake leaned in, cupped the flame, drew.

The first drag burned. He coughed once, then again, turning his head aside. The roadie pretended not to notice. Jake straightened, nodded his thanks, and wandered back out onto the stage.

The lights were still too bright. The smoke looked wrong under them—too visible, too honest. He took another drag anyway. Slower this time. Let it sit.

He wished Laura was here. Not because she’d know what to do—though she probably would—but because of her warmth. The way she grounded him just by standing close. The way she’d put a hand on his arm without saying anything, letting him borrow her steadiness.

She wouldn’t like the cigarette. She’d wrinkle her nose when she smelled it on him later. She always did.

Celia would smoke with him.

Celia wouldn’t wrinkle her nose. If someone offered them a joint, she’d take it and ask him to secondhand her, like it was the most natural thing in the world. And she’d do it right here. Right in front of Matt. Matt wouldn’t mind. Hell—if Matt was still hanging around somewhere, hovering just out of sight, he’d probably be cheering them on.

Jake smiled faintly at that, then took another drag.

It still made him cough, but the burn was oddly soothing. It gave his hands something to do. Gave his head something small and manageable to focus on. For a few seconds, the noise in his mind softened.

He knew he needed to think about what came next. About calls and cancellations and statements and planes and lawyers and families and the thousand small decisions that would start stacking up the moment this night finally loosened its grip.

His mind refused.

All it wanted—desperately—was to get through this night. Just this night. To make it back to the Bellagio. A couple of drinks. A dark room. Sleep that might or might not come.

Later would deal with itself.

He flicked ash onto the concrete and looked back toward the center of the stage. The Strat was still lying there, exactly where it had been set down. Untouched. Unmoved.

I am not taking my eyes off of it, he told himself. Not yet.

Jake walked back toward Kim, the cigarette still burning between his fingers.

She looked up when she saw him coming, eyes already red again, jaw tight like she was holding herself together by force alone. He didn’t say anything. He just wrapped his arms around her and pulled her in.

She went into him gladly. Hard. Her face pressed into his chest, fingers gripping the back of his jacket like she was afraid the ground might give way if she let go. Jake held her and felt the tremor in her shoulders, the effort it was taking just to stay upright.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

“I know,” she said. The words came out rough, but she didn’t pull away.

She reached up, took the cigarette from between his fingers, and brought it to her mouth. Took a long drag like it was muscle memory. Held it. Let it out slow. Then handed it back to him.

“I always knew he’d go out like this,” she said. Not dramatic. Not bitter. Just stating a fact she’d apparently carried for a long time. “Onstage. Doing exactly what he loved. It was the only way Matt could go.”

Jake nodded. He didn’t interrupt.

“I just ... I wasn’t expecting it so soon.” Her voice wavered. “He told me he loved me the other morning. First time he ever said it. Twenty years together, and he finally says it like it’s no big deal. Just drops it in there.” She gave a short, broken laugh that collapsed into something uglier. “And now he’s gone.”

The tears came then. Kim folded forward, hands coming up to her face, shoulders shaking as the dam finally broke. Jake tightened his hold and let her cry into him, steady and unmoving, the way you do when there’s nothing to fix.

“It’s okay,” he murmured—not reassurance, just permission.

After a bit—how long didn’t matter—her breathing slowed. She wiped at her face with the heel of her hand, then again, then drew a breath and straightened a little, embarrassed but not apologetic.

“I really did love that asshole,” she said. “He wasn’t exactly the most romantic man who ever walked the earth.”

Jake let out a quiet huff.

“But he was alive,” she went on. “God, he was alive. Every second of it. Even when he was being impossible.”

Jake looked past her, back toward the stage—toward the lights, the body, the Strat still lying where it shouldn’t have been.

“Yeah,” he said. “He was.”

He took the cigarette back, finished it, and crushed it out carefully under his shoe.

“He was a legend in his own time.”

Kim nodded once, sharp and decisive, like that was something she could hold onto.

They stood there together, the noise of the world kept at arm’s length, while everything waited for the next thing it was going to demand from them.

They broke their embrace. And then they waited some more.

Time kept doing its strange, elastic thing—stretching, compressing, refusing to move in straight lines. Kim eventually wandered back toward the backstage door and bummed another cigarette from one of the crew. She came back a minute later and held it out to him without a word. He took a drag, then handed it back. They shared it that way, passing it between them like an unspoken agreement.

Jim stayed where he was, still seated on the floor against the packing crate, posture unchanged. He looked smaller somehow now that the work was done.

After a while, Kim walked over to him.

She didn’t announce herself. She didn’t ask permission. She just sat down with him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. Jim hesitated for half a second, then leaned forward and rested his forehead against her shoulder. His hands came up slowly, awkwardly, and settled against her back.

He cried a little. Quietly. The kind of crying you do when you don’t want to make a scene and can’t quite stop it anyway.

Jake looked away.

Guy code.

He told himself he’d check on them in a minute. He didn’t. He stayed where he was and kept his eyes on the stage, on the yellow blanket covering Matt’s body. He still hadn’t cried. He wasn’t sure he would be able to. Everything inside him felt wrapped in cotton—muted, distant, unreal. Even now, even looking straight at the outline beneath the blanket, some part of his brain kept insisting that Matt couldn’t actually be dead. Not really. Not permanently.

GM dropped down beside him and sat with his back against the stage riser.

“How are you doing, Mr. Jake?” Owen asked quietly.

Jake took a breath and let it out slow. “Holding it together. For now.”

Owen nodded like that was a perfectly reasonable answer.

“Matt was an interesting guy,” he said after a beat. “I mean ... I used to worship him when I was in high school. Posters, solos on repeat, the whole thing. Then I got to work with him and he was exactly what I thought he would be like.”

Jake smiled faintly.

“And a little bit more for your money, too,” he said.

Owen snorted. “Yeah. Definitely that.”

They sat in silence for a moment, the hum of the lights filling the space.

“You know,” Owen said, glancing sideways at Jake, “he got me through my first threesome.”