Chapter 9

The security at Petco Park was as strict as Liz had promised me it would be. As with the radio station, there were people waiting along the road. Unlike the day before my car was not anonymous. Thousands of pictures of my Mustang had shown up on the Internet overnight.

Certainly Liz had been the focus of the photographer but my car had been present in them, too. To people of a certain age, a maroon 1969 Mustang convertible was just as recognizable as the woman getting in and out of it.

I had said that I was not worried about my anonymity so we put the top down. The people along the sides of the roads made me wonder if I’d made a huge mistake. Everyone had a phone and a few had real cameras. Each of them was pointed in our direction. Liz smiled and waved to her fans as we passed. I was going slow enough to read some of the signs that people held. A few just welcomed her to San Diego but others proposed marriage or professed their love for a person they had never met.

Thankfully the ones claiming love were mostly held by teenage girls that apparently had talked their parents into letting them skip school for the day. I wondered how my parents would have reacted to my suggestion that I miss a day of classes to go watch a singer drive past. The thought put a wide smile on my face.

“Are you starting to enjoy this?” Liz asked. She continued to wave and smile even as she spoke. It was a neat trick.

“I was just thinking about the monumental ass-whipping I would have taken if I told my folks I was skipping school to go see Shandra Rose on her way to a show,” I said. Liz’s smile broadened at the thought.

“I might have been able to talk my folks into if it was America or Three Dog Night,” she said as we neared the checkpoint. Stephanie must have alerted security – or the guy must have been really good at recognizing people from a distance – because he slipped the barrier open and we drove through.

“I probably would have liked to see America or Three Dog Night,” I said as I pulled to a stop near to where Stephanie, Jill and the hulking security guys were stationed.

“Yeah, me too,” Liz admitted. “A lot of my early stuff used the same chords and phrasing as some of their songs. It was what we listened to at my house – CCR; Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young; Peter, Paul and Mary.”

“That’s what I still listen to most of the time,” I confessed with a hint of embarrassment. Liz shook her head and turned on my radio. The oldies station was playing Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “The Ballad of Curtis Loew.”

We both laughed. The song ended when I turned off the key.

“You can come in and watch us set up,” Liz told me.

“No thanks,” I said. “I’m sure you have a lot to do and you don’t need me under your feet. Besides, it gives me a few more hours of life before your stylist catches up to me.”

“She’s not going to be as mad as she would have been,” Liz said as she ran a hand through her hair. “At least say hello to Stephanie and Jill. I also want to introduce you to Ryan Davis. He’s my security chief.”

“Sure,” I said. I got out of the car just as Jill, Stephanie and a big guy in a dark T-shirt and jeans walked in our direction. I stood a little taller than six feet and I weighed about 215 pounds. The guy had me by eight inches and 100 pounds.

Liz was beaming as she got out of the car. I saw the security guy give her a quick glance up and down. It didn’t appear proprietary. It was more like a guy inspects a car for scratches or dings after he parked in the grocery store lot. Believe me, I knew the look well.

Liz spun in a circle and then shook her head at him when she faced him again.

“No welts, bruises or cuts,” she said. The guy looked a bit ashamed of himself but I wondered if Liz had returned home from somewhere injured before. I guess the thought pissed me off and it showed on my face.

“Back in her wilder days, we had ... a problem,” Ryan said. “I handled it pretty efficiently.”

“Ryan has been with me for...” she looked at him for the answer.

“Eleven years now,” he said.

“Well, I’ll tell you now, if you find another ... problem ... and don’t want to get your hands dirty, let me know,” I said.

Liz gave my shoulder a squeeze and I grimaced when she hit a particularly tender spot. Everyone seemed content to ignore just how big a wuss I was even though I’d just made an ass out of myself.

“Those days are long gone,” Ryan said. “I heard you tore up your shoulder playing pro ball. It still give you trouble?”

“Sometimes,” I admitted.

“I played for the Titans for two seasons until I got my knee busted up,” he said. “I wasn’t a star, just on the practice squad, but at least the team has to look after me.”

“Same here,” I said.

“He’s just too stubborn to get it fixed again,” Liz declared.

“I feel ya, Bro,” the security chief said. “The thought of being laid up for two or three months is never going to be my idea of fun. You were one of the Angels’ Top 10 prospects when you got hurt. Rotator cuff?”

“Rotator cuff, dislocated shoulder, broken scapula,” I related. “They had to replace the ball of bone with titanium. There is still a lot of debris in there, I guess.”

“Baseball Reference was a little vague about the injury,” Ryan said. “I had to check you out a little. You understand.”

I did understand. Someone else didn’t.

“Ryan!” Liz said angrily.

“We agreed,” he said in a calm voice. “I don’t tell you which songs to sing and you don’t tell me how to look after you.”

“I’m fine with it,” I said. “Uh, Liz has talked to me about a possible job opening. I’m sure you’ll want a full background check before that happens. I’ll jot down my Social and you can get started. I had a reckless driving charge when I was 22 and lost my license. I did the defensive driving course and got it back. Outside of that, I’m pretty clean. I got a good signing bonus and my parents handled it. My credit is good. I own the car and my home. I think I owe Visa a couple of grand but I keep it right about there so my credit score doesn’t tank. I don’t think you’ll find anything troubling. If you still have questions, I’ll answer them. My friends are the same. The hospital does a thorough background check on all of its employees. We hired a nurse’s aide with a felony drug conviction a few years ago and we took a lot of heat for it when she stole from patients.”

Liz still had her arms crossed but her glare had shifted from Ryan to me.

“I’m sure he did a full work up on Stephanie and Jill and every member of the crew that has access to you,” I told her.

“I did,” Ryan confirmed.

“The man takes his job as seriously as you take yours,” I added with a nod, “and as seriously as you’ll want me to take mine. I’m never going to question anything he does to keep you safe ... and you shouldn’t either.”

Liz shook her head and smiled.

“Sorry,” she said. “I won’t go back on our deal unless you ask me to sing ‘Midnight Train to Georgia’ again.”

I glanced at Ryan.

“She would totally rock that song,” I said to him.

“I thought so,” he said, smiling at me. “Apparently you and I are in the severe minority. Anyway, it was nice to meet you. If you just pass your info off to Stephanie, she’ll get it to me. I wasn’t really worried but ... like you said ... I take my job seriously because I know there are serious people out there that would hurt Liz.”

“She told me about the stalker in New York,” I said, shaking my head.

“A restraining order,” he grumbled. He extended his right hand, glanced at my shoulder and changed to his left. We shook and he walked away.

Stephanie and Jill had seemed to content to let the security guy feel me out and I didn’t blame them. It was pretty obvious to me that he knew how to do his job and he was willing to do what it took to keep his charge safe.

“It’s nice to see you both again,” I said when I turned to them. “I hope my friends weren’t too big a pain yesterday. I got a recap about the car ride from their perspective but I know they can be a little much.”

“They were great,” Jill said, smiling. “You know, they said that until a few weeks ago you had never even mentioned that you knew Liz. I call my friends and name-drop every time I run into anybody famous. They said even when you did mention it, you downplayed things. You just said you went to school with her. You didn’t tell them anything more until you were backstage yesterday. That’s pretty cool in my book.”

I shrugged.

“Travis was always cool,” Liz said. “I’m not surprised. He understands that I have very little privacy so he didn’t want to intrude on the little I’m allowed. I don’t talk about my years before we moved to Nashville and he isn’t the sort to force me to do it.”

I decided to stay quiet. I didn’t think it had anything to do with her privacy or a concerted decision on my part. It was just something I hadn’t thought about much.

“You seem like you’re in a good mood today,” Stephanie noted. “It’s only nine-thirty. You’re usually still a bit ... grouchy.”

“I had a very good day yesterday,” Liz declared. “After we left the radio station I got to spend 11 whole hours acting like a normal person. We hung out at Travis’s house and then went to eat with his friends. They are really nice. I enjoyed being around them. They’re ... they’re people I can see being friends with for a long time. They included me in their conversations and didn’t make me feel ... like I was an outsider. You two are going to have come back to town for a couple of days to really get to know Travis and that group. Then after the photographers interrupted my pleasant evening, we went back to his house. His house is a lot like him.”

She tilted her head.

“Stephanie, I’ve been around you for, what, four or five years now,” she continued. “I’ve known Jill for a couple of years but I still think we know each other pretty well. I can see just from how you’re standing that you’re comfortable around Travis. You’re not tense; you’re not defensive. You aren’t worried that someone might say something that will make its way to the Internet. It’s like he’s been around us for years.”

Stephanie frowned slightly but Jill nodded. I had learned long before that it is hopeless to try to put an age to most women. My mother was 54 years old but she looked a decade younger. I knew Matt’s mother well and she was the same way. Jennifer Clement was two years past her 40th birthday but everyone that meets her thinks she’s closing in on retirement age.

I knew Liz was 30. Her birthday was in early October but I didn’t know the day. I just knew she was almost three months older than me. I decided that Stephanie was two-to-five years older than Liz and Jill was two-to-five years younger. That was as close as I was willing to guess – and I damned sure wasn’t going to ask them.

“I felt that way around his friends yesterday,” Jill noted. “They were talking about work stuff but still brought me into the conversation. They didn’t make me feel invisible or like an eavesdropper. Mostly they were talking about how great it was going to be to show up some of the people they work with. I guess some of them thought Travis was lying about knowing you.”

“Travis bet the guy a week’s pay against a punch in the mouth that I knew him,” Liz related with a grin.

“That we went to the same high school for awhile,” I corrected. “I had no idea if you would remember me or not. Honestly, I was surprised that you did. As you found out last night, I don’t remember many people from there.”

“You should see the list of people he has to ask his mom about,” Liz dished. “I was a total non-entity and I remembered some of them. He practically owned the place and he could only come up with faces to about half of them.”

“If any of them are in town, I’m going to have Mom tell them you asked about them,” I said.

“Don’t you dare,” Liz said.

“Then I’m going to have her tell them you said they could kiss your ass,” I added with a laugh. “She’ll do it. You know she will!”

“I know she will,” Liz agreed with a laugh. “Just let her know that I’ll tell them that if I get the chance.”

“I hate to pull you away, Liz, but...” Stephanie said.

“I know,” Liz said. “My work is never done. Are you sure you don’t want to stay and watch?”

“I’m positive,” I replied. “I’m meeting up with everyone at 11 to talk about job prospects. Besides, what’s the old saying about sausage? If you saw it made you’d never eat it again. Well, I have a feeling I don’t really want to know all the work setting up your stage is going to require. Not to mention that I’m still a bit worried that your stylist will gut me for driving you here with the top down.”

Liz slipped her arm around my waist and hugged herself to my side.

“I’ll protect you,” she said. “You better get moving before someone conscripts you for a project. Any free hands are put to work around here. Don’t forget, the VIP greeting starts at four so you need to be back for that.”

“Yes, Mom,” I said.

Liz rolled her eyes and looked up to the heavens.

“Give your old Mum another hug and then get lost for a while,” she said.

I complied with the first part of the order but Stephanie kept me from leaving.

“Jill, why don’t you get her to the back to look at the sound board,” the road manager said. “I need to get Travis’s information for Ryan.”

Liz shook her head again but followed along after a wave goodbye.

“Can you just jot it down?” I asked. “My arm is a little shaky today.”

“I don’t need that,” Stephanie said. “Ryan can do his thing with only the barest of information. Besides, I can already see that you could have a murder conviction and it isn’t going to change her mind. I just wanted to talk to you privately for a minute.”