“Andi??” Peter exclaimed, losing his balance and falling backwards onto the couch.
“Oh, come on, Mike. Andi would never do something like that,” Micky said, tossing his remaining drumstick aside.
“Well, Mick, she hasn’t exactly been thrilled since we went into the studio. And like Hank said—it couldn’t have been anyone else.”
“Mike,” Micky said. “Would you listen to yourself? You’re believing the word of someone you just met a week ago to Andi, for God’s sake! How do you know it wasn’t Hank who messed up our demo tape?”
“Man, why would he do something like that?” Mike retorted, irritation and anger creeping into his voice.
“Well why the hell would Andi do it?” Micky answered.
“I don’t know,” Mike rumbled. “But I’m gonna find out.”
Andi emerged a few minutes later, her still-wet hair neatly combed. The skirt and blouse had been shed in favor of a faded pair of jeans and one of Mike’s old button-down shirts. She tripped lightly down the stairs, missing the cold, suspicious look on Mike’s face.
“Hey, And,” Mike said, carefully schooling his voice to neutrality. “I need to talk to you for a minute.”
As she turned Mike swore he could see her swallow—hard. “Yeah, Mike?” she said, a slight tremble in her voice. “Is something wrong?”
“Yeah,” he said, crossing his arms. “That was Hank that just called. He said someone screwed up our demo tape, and he also told me who did it.”
To her credit, Andi remained perfectly still. “Well, who did it?”
“I was hopin’ you’d tell me,” Mike said.
Andi flashed a quick glance at Peter, whose eyes were focused intently on the floor, and Micky, whose expression was unreadable. “What makes you think that I would know?”
“Because Hank told me that you did it.”
The words hit like a fist, knocking the wind out of her. She collapsed against the stairs with a soft moan, her eyes moving past Mike to the back door, where Davy stood, gripping the door frame with white knuckles.
“He told you that I what?” she gasped.
In short, angry sentences, Mike relayed what the engineer had told him. With each word she lost a little more of her tenuous balance; when Mike finished she was sitting on the floor, shaking.
“Well, Mike?” she whispered as he gazed down at her silently. “What are you staring at?”
“I don’t know,” he said casually—too casually. “I’m waitin’ for you to deny it, tell me that it ain’t true . . . but your reaction kinda lets me know what the truth is.”
She shook her head. “No.”
“Well then tell me I’m wrong. Tell me Hank’s wrong.”
Andi’s desperate gaze flitted back and forth between Mike and Peter. Peter had finally lifted his gaze from the floor; the hurt and disappointment could be plainly read in the tears that were slowly forming in his eyes. Mike’s face remained stony, but his dark eyes glowed with anger . . . and pain.
She couldn’t lie to them, but she couldn’t bring herself to admit it. With a half-desperate, half-fearful shriek she dodged to her feet and fled from the Pad.
“No, man,” Mike said, holding Peter back as he leapt from the couch. “Just let her go.”
“But Mike—”
Mike turned away and smashed his fist down upon the endtable, knocking the phone onto the floor with a loud clatter. “I said . . . just . . . let her . . . go.”
~*~
Andi ran.
The rain had started pouring down only a few minutes after her abrupt departure; within minutes she was soaked. Her wet sneakers pounded on the wet pavement, keeping almost perfect time with the wild fluttering of her heart.
As soon as the Pad’s front door had closed behind her her mind had shut down, unable to function any more than to impel her to flee in any direction, and quickly. She knew that the guilt and grief would hit as soon as she stopped, so she kept running to keep the feelings at bay.
Her breath whistled in her throat as she sped around the corner. A large blue mailbox loomed in front of her and she twisted violently to avoid hitting it. Her luck on the rain-slicked sidewalk finally ended; her legs slid out from under her, slamming her into the pavement. Her jeans ripped, erasing the skin from both knees. There was a sharp ripping pain as a small shard of glass tore deeply into her forearm. Her head smacked sharply into the concrete, sending pain blossoming around her head and neck.
With her abrupt halt her thoughts caught up with her, and she lay shivering on the sidewalk, staring at the small trickle of blood from her head that stained the gray pavement black. How could you! How could you! How could you! echoed repeatedly in her ears until it finally faded away to a white noise in the back of her head. As it did her rationality returned. She knew she had to get off the sidewalk and out of the rain, and as soon as her injuries were taken care of she could figure out what to do.
Her knees burned in angry protest as she crawled carefully to her feet, picking the shard of glass out of her forearm. She stumbled numbly down the street, shivering—though if she was shivering because of her soaking wet clothes or the turmoil inside she couldn’t tell.
She finally reached a phone booth, whose cold, wet facade was strangely inviting. Slipping inside, she reached in her pocket and found, to her immense relief, two dimes. Inserting one into the slot with numb, trembling fingers, she dialed a number from memory.
“Hello? Mr. Nelson Dellin, please. It’s his niece, Anna.”
On to Chapter Three
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