Why the hell did I agree to continue with this? Jesse’s death gave me a no-litigation way out of the contract with the publishing house since I was not obligated to continue with the publisher’s choice of a replacement author. I should have shit-canned the project then. I don’t need a celebrity biography to memorialize my life and career. I sure as hell don’t need the publicity.
What more can a man want in his life than what I’ve achieved? I have money, more than I could ever spend in a lifetime. My face is adored and recognized by millions. I’ve got pussy shoved at me 24/7. There isn’t a woman on this planet I can’t have. I’m obnoxious to everyone and they tolerate me. I do what I want always. My entire life is about me. How many men can say that and have it be true? It’s why everyone wants to be me.
Fuck, I know that sounds arrogant, but it’s the truth. I wait sprawled on the long bench seat, scotch in hand, looking rock star chic and wondering if this jerk will ever get around to asking another question. At least when I started this project with Jesse it was fun and interesting. I could probe him about his marriage to Chrissie in between the questions he posed to me.
We’ve only got twelve more hours until we land. Another question, Miles, so we can finish this fucking thing finally. I’ve got things to do in the States. Once I set foot on US soil, I’m ditching you there. I’m not taking you along for the ride to see in real time the epilogue of my sorry life tale.
I make the scotch swirl in my glass, a subtle gesture of my impatience with him. He’s probably sitting there, wishing he were me. Fuck, second arrogant thought in under five minutes. I down my drink…and he would be wrong to want to be me.
Miles Abernathy looks up from his notepad. “I spoke with Jackson Parker before joining you in London. I asked about the Chicago incident. He refused to comment.” Those beady eyes focus on me from behind his heavy-rimmed glasses. “Can you explain what happened in Chicago?”
I can feel my gaze begin to simmer and I wonder if he’ll back off since I’m giving him the fuck off stare. That was territory specifically noted as a no-go. I haven’t talked about it, not once, in twenty-five years. Jack hasn’t either. Why would this idiot think I’d be willing to share? And I hate euphemism. Chicago incident. Fuck, he’s a writer. He should have been able to frame that question better.
I arch a brow. “Which part do you want me to explain? When I drove a motorcycle off stage injuring two fans? The going to jail? The part where at a party I snorted a mountain-sized speedball intending to kill myself? The waking up in the hospital? Rehab in California, maybe? Or the day in that Chicago apartment where Jackson Parker filled a syringe with enough heroin to kill a horse and threatened to pump it into my veins? Or do you want to know how Jack kept me from shooting up for six fucking hours in a dingy Chicago squat by laying a picture of his daughter in the center of the table beside my smack and talking nonstop about Chrissie?”
Miles’s eyes widen like a bullfrog and his face turns crimson. He definitely wasn’t expecting that answer and I definitely wasn’t expecting to answer with parts of the truth. Fuck, why did I do that?
“Did all that really happen?” he asks, stunned and excited.
I shift my gaze to my drink. “As far as I can remember, yes.”
He hits the icon on his phone to start recording. “Start at the beginning. As much detail as you can provide will help me when I sit down to write this chapter of your story.”
Why do people still want to know about Chicago?
* * *
Chicago, November 1988
My eyes open to a stark room flooded with too-bright morning sunlight, and I try to move and realize I can’t. I’m in a hospital strapped to the fucking bed, and there are handcuffs on one of my wrists as if the canvas restraints weren’t enough to make this fucking humiliating.
Don’t these assholes know who I am? Who the hell tied me to the bed?
“You’re alive,” says a calm voice. “You’re not dead, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
I turn my head. Jesus Christ, that’s ’60s iconic musician Jackson Parker sitting in a chair, staring at me. What the fuck is Jack Parker doing here? We don’t even know each other. Why the hell would he be here?
“Where am I?” I snap.
Jack leans forward in his chair. “Mercy Hospital, Chicago. Don’t fight the restraints. They’re not coming off. You tried to kill yourself.” His gaze sharpens. “Do you remember any of past two weeks?”
Oh shit, what the hell did I do? A vague memory of riding a motorcycle on stage and then into the crowd is followed by flashing images of a party, of snorting something, and then nothing.
My temper flares. “I didn’t try to kill myself. Tell them that. I want the fuck out of here.”
Jack’s lips pucker. That irritated him. “Don’t try to bullshit a bullshitter. You need to shoot up or maybe you just want to finish what you tried to do with that speedball. I’ve been where you are. Well, technically not exactly where you are. Nope. Never been in a hospital bed tied down for my own good. Never tried to kill myself, though I did fucking nearly do it with a bottle. But I’ve been where you are, no doubt about that. Do you think you’re the only man to ever lose a child?”
My black eyes begin to simmer and against my iron command over my own thoughts, Jackson Parker’s personal story flashes like billboard images in my head. Jack on stage at Woodstock. He’s a fucking musical genius and the voice of his generation, an undisputed walking, breathing, adored worldwide fucking legend. The death of his beautiful wife, Lena Mansur, the virtuoso violinist. The suicide of his enormously gifted punk rock son, Sam Parker. And yes, fuck what it said in the press. It was a suicide. I know that about Sam the same way Jack knows my snorting that pile of smack was deliberate. No need to say it. And no need to deny what I did. You can’t bullshit a bullshitter who has been where you are. Jack Parker is right about that one.
“Who the fuck told you about Molly?” I ask, infuriated.
Jack’s expression softens into something almost amused and definitely annoying as hell. “Brian Craig.”
My temper explodes internally as I keep my face carefully expressionless. The second I get out of here, I’m firing my fucking manager. If Brian Craig thinks he can tell my personal shit to anyone and I’ll tolerate it, he’s got another thing…
“He’s also the one who called me,” Jack continues compassionately. “Asked me to come. Asked me to help you. I wouldn’t fucking be here if he hadn’t told me about your daughter, Molly. Got me on a plane from Santa Barbara. Got me to leave my daughter, Chrissie, while she’s home from school over the winter break. Got me here. Now it’s up to you how this plays out.”
I look away. There is something unnerving about those brilliant blue eyes. Like he can read my thoughts. I wish I could fucking do the same thing. What exactly is it we’re playing out?
“What precisely are you referring to?” I snap.
“Oh, I forgot. You don’t know your current circumstance.”
My gaze shifts back to him. “Enlighten me.”
Jack pulls a yellow sheet of paper from his pocket. “Do you know what this is?”
Fuck, how am I supposed to be able to read it from across the room? I glare and shake my head.
“This is the term of your release from the Cook County Correctional System.”
“Release?”
“You fucked up pretty darn good. You’d be in jail for that motorcycle stunt if your lawyers hadn’t been able to convince the judge to let me try to help you instead of putting you in a cell.”
He takes a key from his pocket and undoes the handcuffs. He removes the restraints as well.
He smiles. “I should have removed those long ago. Call it a symbolic gesture leaving them on. I wanted you to get a clear picture of the direction your life could take when you woke. You are not under arrest any longer. The judge released you to my custody this morning. You’ve already passed the seventy-two-hour psych hold for the suicide attempt. You are now a voluntary patient here.”