Music to Die For by Radine Trees Nehring Page B

weeks.”
    Now the room echoed with giggles and hoots of laughter. Chase stared at the floor, and Carrie couldn’t tell whether he was angry or embarrassed.
    As soon as she could be heard over the laughter, Brigid Mason waved and called out, “Be there in a bit.
    I’m just finishin’ my story.” She turned back to the group, and the rising volume of her voice indicated the story was at a crucial point. Once more, she had the full attention of her audience.
    A tall young man sitting near the door put down his guitar and rocked back in his chair, staring at Tracy for a long moment. Then he got up and came toward them, his red checked shirt stretching and pulling around broad shoulders and arms as he moved. He punched Chase hard in the biceps. “I see you found ’er, pretty boy. I knew she hadn’t run off, seeing as how I wasn’t with ’er.”
    Chase flinched, but now the man ignored him. He had turned to look Carrie up and down. “Well, well, did you go and get Tracy a chaperone? Looks like the poor woman’s already been tripped up tryin’ to hang on to your...”—he paused and turned his eyes toward Tracy—“...your wife.”
    He stared at Carrie again. “Got scratches on ’er face and,” he bent his head to look insolently at the back of her skirt, “dirt on some-a the rear view.
    What’d she have to do, Tracy, tackle ya?”
    He leaned his head back and laughed.
    Tracy’s words sounded pinched, almost a squeak. “Shut your mouth, Bobby Lee Logan,” she said. “You make noises about nothing.”
    Bobby Lee seemed not to notice the strain in her voice. “Aw, now, can’t take a joke, Tracy m’love?” he said and winked at Carrie.
    Chase ignored the man and spoke directly to his mother as groans and laughs from her audience signaled the end of the story. “Come on, Momma, we gotta leave, see how Dulcey’s doing.”
    “Well, you sure are frosty,” Bobby Lee said. “Guess fancy man Mason’s too big-time now to even say a word to the likes of us. You agree with that, Tracy?”
    Carrie looked around the room, which had fallen silent. Several of the faces looking at them appeared hostile.
    “Now leave ’em go,” said one of the women from her seat near Aunt Brigid. “Their kid’s sick. Little Dulcey. Leave ’em go.”
    The room was so quiet it might have been empty. Brigid Mason looked at her son and slid quickly to the floor, forgetting the skirt that had been carefully arranged to fall around her on the stool. The fabric was pulled up and over the top of the stool as her feet hit the floor, revealing a red petticoat and a generous expanse of heavy black pantyhose.
    She yanked at the skirt, her mouth held in a firm line, and this time no one laughed. Before she could pick up her fiddle case, Chase had disappeared into the hall, pulling Tracy behind him.
    As she waited for Aunt Brigid, Carrie took a good look at the man called Bobby Lee. She hadn’t been wrong. Bobby Lee looked like a volcano about to erupt.
     

Chapter VI
    Chase and Tracy were out of sight by the time the two women reached the stage, but Brigid Mason knew where she was going. She turned behind the stage and headed down a hall bordered by dressing rooms. Though she was hurrying, Chase’s mother could still talk without any problem. It was obvious she had sensed her son’s anxiety and was also aware that Carrie—though a stranger to the family—was somehow linked to the cause of that anxiety.
    “Seems like something’s happened,” she said without preamble. “Is it to do with Dulcey?”
    “Yes, something has happened,” Carrie said as she sidestepped around a boy carrying a tub bass, “but so far as we know, Dulcey’s all right. Because of the...new development, I need to make a phone call. Is there a phone here I can use?”
    “Phone’s in the office down this hall. I’ll show you. What’s happened then?”
    “Chase and Tracy may want to be the ones to tell you about it, but we’re involved in a bigger problem