"Starlight" written by Andrew Creighton Dodd, Gannin Duane Arnold, Adam M. Watts, Ahmet Zappa, and Shana Zappa (Reservoir Media Music, Seven Peaks Music, Walt Disney Music Company, Dodd Music, Dying Ego Music, Ganologiks, Star Darlings Music Llc).

Chapter 24

Rory Llewellyn listened intently. "I appreciate your letting me know, Pizzazz," he said. "I doubt it'll be a problem, but I'll inform our PR people, all the same."

"Hey," Phyllis said. "I could be wrong."

"You must admit that to go from wanting to participate in the benefit to wanting to sabotage it is a bit of a stretch."

"You ask me, Riot," Phyllis said with a tinge of sadness, "Roxy doesn't care one way or the other about the benefit. She's miffed because we replaced her and now she wants to get back at me and she doesn't care who or what else gets hurt in the process."

"You sound fairly convinced. Why?"

"Because," her voice sounded tired on the other end of the phone, "back in the day, she wouldn't have been the only one with that mindset. Or do I need to refresh your memory?"

"No."

"We do have one thing going for us," Phyllis said a bit more brightly.

"Oh?" Riot said. "And what might that be?"

"When it came to dirty tricks," Phyllis said, "Roxy could come up with more ideas than I could and I wasn't exactly a slouch in that department. But when it came to executing them? I was the one with the bottomless bank account. Crude stuff like grabbing a fire axe and trashing the stage? Sure. But if she has to bribe a worker to get inside… how much money did you give her out of the goodness of your heart anyway, Llewellyn?"

"A thousand in cash and a week at the Redbury. I'm paying her room service tab, too," he added.

"You're a good man, Rory," Phyllis said seriously.

"Kind of you to say so," Rory bantered back. He sighed. "I've done that checking you suggested and…"

There was a heaviness in his voice as he let it trail off that prompted Phyllis to ask, "That bad?"

He sighed again. "Suffice to say that if you were to bring her back into your band, I'd probably need to take out a considerably larger liability policy. And the number of no-shows she's accrued… Let's just say I'd need some ironclad guarantees that she'd be on stage, committed, and stone-cold sober before I'd consider having her perform."

"Yeah," Phyllis said, blowing air out through her bottom lip. "I sorta figured."

The fast food restaurant was noisy, even though the lunch rush had been over for an hour. Deirdre was working here for the summer, and this was her first break since her co-worker had given her this message. "Hi, Phyllis," she said, projecting rather than shouting to be heard over the crowds. "Yeah, tomorrow at four-thirty works; I'll see you there. Sorry about the noise."

She hung up the phone with a smile on her face. As she made her way to the ladies room to freshen up before her break was over, she completely missed the white-haired woman in sunglasses, whose nose was buried deep in a book she wasn't reading. The smile on the white-haired woman's face was nearly as broad as Deirdre's, but it was a great deal nastier.

"Hey! Hey, you! Yeah, you, in the cap!" Deirdre turned in response to the rough voice shouting loudly behind her. "I thought it was you. Deirdre Baxter, am I right?"

"Uh… yeah," Deirdre tensed as she recognized the woman now approaching her at a trot. "Roxy, right?"

"You remember!" Roxy sounded genuinely pleased.

Deirdre nodded, but her answering smile felt stiff and tight. She did remember Roxy, but not with fondness. "What can I do for you?" she asked, her tone guarded.

"Nothing," Roxy said. "I heard you're taking over for me in the Misfits and… I just wanted to let you know: no hard feelings."

"Yeah?" Deirdre said, wondering whether Roxy had a twin sister nobody else knew about.

"I mean it," Roxy assured her. "Yeah, I'm ticked off that Pizzazz cut me, but… that's between her and me, yannow?"

"Uh… okay," Deirdre said. "Thanks. Um… I'm sort of running a little late right now, sorry. Was there anything else?"

"Huh?" Roxy blinked. "Oh. No, you go do what'cha gotta. But if you've got some time, like tomorrow, maybe… Well, I know I blew my chance of getting back together with the band, but maybe I could teach you some of the notes I played that weren't in the original arrangements." She smiled self-consciously. "Sometimes, when I was up there, I sort of got into the moment and started improvising. Fans used to love it," she added wistfully. "Maybe if you learn some of those riffs, it'll be… Nah. It won't be as good as being up there myself, but it'll be… something. What do you say?"

Deirdre hesitated. "I'm starting at five a.m. tomorrow; I'll be done at one. There's someplace I need to be at four-thirty, but… How long do you think it'll take?"

Roxy smiled at the yearning in the younger woman's eyes. "For you to figure things out?" she asked. "Not very long." In an undertone, she added, "not very long at all…"

"So," Kimber asked. "How about it?"

Stormer hesitated. "I… What if someone sees?"

"Well," Kimber said slowly, "we can either say we were scouting out a possible opening act, or we just didn't know." She winced. "I thought maybe we could go out together somewhere and not have to pretend. That's all."

"I hear that," Stormer admitted ruefully. "Well, if we go to the Palms, we definitely won't. Only thing is, that place gets a lot of celebrities. Joplin used to go there. And Jim Morrison. What I mean is, if some photographer is there hoping to snap a celebrity photo… Craig already knows about me and if my folks don't suspect it already, well, I think they'll be cool once the initial shock wears off. But are you ready for Jerrica to find out?"

Kimber swallowed. "I…" She took a deep breath. "Well, it's not like she doesn't know about secrets."

"You've said that before," Stormer said with a puzzled frown. "I-I don't want to pry. Unless you're bringing it up because you want me to pry, I mean."

Kimber shook her head. "I don't," she admitted. "Oh, what the heck? If anyone asks, we've heard about the place and we were curious to see what it was like. That's not a cover story; it's the truth! We're going!"

Stormer grinned. "You're on. I'll swing by Starlight House after my Misfits rehearsal and pick you up… probably at eight. I'll call if we're still going strong at seven-thirty."

"Sounds like a plan," Kimber nodded. "Do they have a dress code?"

"I dunno, but if I were you, I'd wear something glamorous!" Stormer shrugged. "Or outrageous. Like always."

Kimber laughed.

Emma was trying to remember the melody that Stormer had written for her on the spur of the moment the other day. She thought she almost had it, but then it sort of seemed to blur into "Don't Stop Believin'," or maybe some song she'd heard/watched on MTV she couldn't recall the name of now.

She looked at what she'd written down already.

Come with me
We're chasin' dreams, makin' history
We'll find a way and a place to be
Far away, findin' new memories

Time and space
Like stardust they will blow away
Run on faith and we'll be okay
Watch the ground as it's fading away

Stormer had said that she needed some sort of 'hook' that would flow into the chorus. Emma wasn't completely sure she understood. She didn't even have a chorus yet. Frowning, she read over what she'd written. Okay. So if the song was about leaving the ground, about flying, then…

Up in the sky, lookin' down the night
We are the Starlights, Starlights

That… that actually didn't suck.

Between the moon and the city lights
We are the Starlights, Starlights

She hesitated and then added one more word on a new line:

Starlights

She had a chorus. She wasn't sure about a hook, but she had a chorus and it didn't suck. She couldn't wait until she saw Stormer or Kimber again.

Deirdre stuck one hand in her pocket, reassuring herself that her wallet was still there. She'd never been to this neighborhood alone before, and if she couldn't find the address soon, she was just going to turn around and head right back to the Westlake/MacArthur Park subway station and take the B-line home. All the same, her other hand was sweating as she clutched her guitar case tightly.

Unexpectedly, an arm wrapped around her shoulders and she stifled a shriek as a boisterous voice exclaimed, "Great! You made it!"

Deirdre exhaled. "Roxy! Don't sneak up on me like that; you almost gave me a heart attack."

"Sorry," Roxy said, not sounding at all miffed. "I'll do better next time."

Deirdre frowned, but decided not to ask what exactly Roxy intended to 'do better'. "So… where's the recording studio?"

"Well, it's not exactly a recording studio; more like a place to jam. And it's not too much farther," Roxy said. "Just turn left here and…" she pointed to a windowless warehouse with boards nailed over its windows, "it's just in there."

"There?" Deirdre repeated. "That place looks like it's been condemned!"

"Yup," Roxy nodded. "Has for years. Back when the Misfits were just getting started, we used to play in there all the time. That's your guitar?" she asked abruptly.

"Uh…"

"Great!" Roxy didn't wait for an answer. "You go in and start tuning up. I'm just going to run into the grab a few cold drinks for after."

Deirdre eyed the structure dubiously, as Roxy produced a key and turned it in the lock. There was a loud click, and then Roxy tugged on the door and it grated open.

"Still works after all this time," Roxy said, satisfied. "Well? Go on?"

Still hesitant, Deirdre obeyed. "Where's the light switch?" she asked. "Roxy, are you sure this place even has elec—"

The door slammed shut behind her and then Deirdre heard the key turn in the lock once more. "Hey!" she yelled. "Roxy? Roxy, this isn't funny! Let me out! C'mon, I gotta…" Her voice trailed off as the realization hit. "I got a rehearsal with the Misfits at four-thirty…"

…And Roxy had lured her here in order to keep her from making it.

"Okay," Jetta said, tapping her watch irritably. "Where's that blighter got to? It's already a quarter to five."

"Maybe she got caught in traffic, or there was a holdup on the subway," Stormer suggested. "Or she got sick."

Pizzazz shook her head. "She sounded fine yesterday. Damn."

"Well," a merry voice called from the doorway of the rehearsal studio, "that's always a risk when you're dealing with amateurs."

"Roxy?" Pizzazz asked, spinning to face the newcomer. "What the hell are you doing here?"

Roxy shrugged. "Deirdre did some heavy partying last night; I saw her at the Viper Room. Except when I left at ten, she was still there and tossing back Long Island iced teas like coca-colas. She was talking about how excited she was to be jamming with you guys and kept repeating the address. I thought I'd just pop in and make sure she got here okay in the end, and if she didn't," Roxy held up her guitar case, "I figured I could sub, so you guys wouldn't be wasting your time."

Pizzazz's eyes narrowed. "Yeah?"

Roxy held up her right hand, palm facing outwards, thumb pinning down her pinky finger, and the other three fingers straight up. "Scout's honor," she said sweetly.

Pizzazz shook her head. "Since you're here," she said, "you might as well tune up. I'll be back in a minute."

Roxy grinned. "All right!"

Pizzazz gave her a tight smile and headed down the hall toward the bathroom. Ducking into the alcove between the men's and ladies' rooms, she grabbed the receiver off the wall phone and punched in a number. "Jerrica? Phyllis. You seen Deirdre today? Uh-huh. Yeah, I thought so. Not sure, yet, but she hasn't shown and Roxy's here. Damn right, I think something's up. No, I think I got this, but I'll let you know if I don't. Later."

She replaced the receiver and stalked back toward the rehearsal room, cursing under her breath.

"I will not panic," Deirdre told herself firmly. By now, her eyes had adjusted to the dim light that filtered in through the slats over the windows, at least enough that she could move about without walking into things. "I will not panic. Just because I'm in a bad part of town, locked in a warehouse, probably about to get fired from the Misfits for missing rehearsal, and the only person who knows I'm here is the person who locked me in is no reason to panic."

She wished she had a phone. One of those mobile ones she was seeing more and more people carrying. Even if hills and high rises blocked too many signals, making coverage spotty—or so she'd heard, maybe one would have worked here.

Was there a phone here? Deirdre shook her head. She could make out shapes: shelving units, stacks of something that, when she brushed her hand over one, were probably pallets or maybe lumber. She couldn't make out anything that looked like a phone and, anyway, this place was boarded up with no electricity. (She'd already found a light switch and tried it to no avail.) Even if there was a phone, it probably wouldn't be working.

Maybe she could get the boards off one of the windows. If the wood was old, it might be rotting. She made her way to one of the shelving units and tested the shelves. They seemed sturdy enough. Carefully, she scaled her way up until she could reach the window beside it. She groaned. Of course the wood would be nailed to the outside. "Help!" she called, willing someone to hear her—someone who wasn't a gang member or a drug lord or…

Calm down. Even in bad parts of town, there are plenty of good people.

Yeah, but could she count on one of them hearing her? Maybe she should try another window. She climbed back down carefully, feeling for the footholds that she couldn't see until she was on solid ground once more. She started for another window. Halfway there, her foot stepped on something that gave way and she screamed, as her leg plunged into empty space up to the top of her thigh! She tried to pull herself free, but she didn't have the leverage. She was kneeling, one leg pressed to the floor, the other dangling through the floor, well and truly trapped, with no idea how—or if—she was going to get out of this.

"I will not panic," she said aloud, a quaver in her voice giving the lie to her statement. "Roxy knows where I am and she wouldn't just leave me here to starve. Sooner or later, she's going to come back and get me out. I know it."

Or, at least, she hoped so.

"Uh… Jerrica?"

Jerrica turned to see Starlight House's newest resident standing nervously before her. "Hi, Emma," she said, her thoughts still on the phone call she'd received several minutes ago. "Hey, can we talk later? I've just had something come up."

Emma nodded. "Uh… sure. Um, is Kimber here?"

"She'll be back later," Jerrica said at once. "I'm sorry, Emma. I really need to go. I heard from Mrs. Bailey that you've made some new friends at camp," she added. "Why not invite one of them back here next week, okay?"

She spun on her heel and was halfway down the hall before Emma mumbled another 'sure'. The young girl bit her lip. She'd been used to being pushed onto the sidelines back in Boston, but she'd thought Starlight House was different. Maybe Jerrica just had a lot on her mind. Maybe in a little while, she'd come back and they could talk.

Or maybe, Emma thought with a familiar pang, now that she'd 'settled in' and wasn't so new, Jerrica just didn't have time for her anymore and Starlight House was just like every other placement she'd had after all.

There was less light in the warehouse now, but as shadowy outlines blurred and dimmed, it seemed to Deirdre that her ears were growing keener. Background noises came sharply into focus. The slow drip of water from some unseen pipe or leaky faucet was now so loud. Creaks and cracks set her teeth on edge. All buildings made noises, she knew. Even Starlight Mansion wasn't totally quiet. There was the hum of air conditioning and electricity. During the day, laughter and chatter and running feet filled the air. At night, there was the steady sound of breathing, punctuated by the slight grate of bed springs as one girl or another moved in her sleep. And even with the windows closed, you could tell when it was windy from the way leaves and branches blew against the walls and roof.

Somehow, those same familiar sounds seemed a lot scarier when you were stuck with your leg in a hole in the floor, your other leg was cramping up really bad, and you were all alone in an unfamiliar neighborhood.

Her breath caught. That last sound hadn't been a drip or a creak. It sounded like something running or skittering across the floor. She swallowed hard. Make that somethings. Probably mice. Her heart seemed to plummet into that same hole that her leg was stuck in. What if it was rats? And if the noise she was hearing was any indicator…

What if it was a whole lot of them?