Time Out of Mind (Suncoast Society #43)(8)

Chapter Three


Mevi kept his gaze focused out the passenger window while Clark drove. At least now he had his wallet, keys, and phone back, for all the good any of them would do him. No cash, no credit cards, and his phone was dead.

Clark had brought Mevi’s car charger with him and plugged it in, and said the account was paid up.

It was a fairly new phone, too, because he’d accidentally killed his last one right before rehab.

Unfortunately, he was hard on phones even without meaning to. He went through several a year, usually because of dropping them in a toilet or down a flight of stairs or something.

“So what’s my babysitter’s name?” Mevi didn’t bother disguising the bitterness in his tone.

“Doyle Turner. Give him a chance, and stop being a jerk.”

“Where’d you find this *, anyway, if he’s so super-secret?”

He heard Clark’s deep breath, the man trying to buy himself some patience. “Through friends in the business. Very discreet friends.”

They were heading south from Malibu, into the city.

There’s a song there somewhere, but I don’t have any desire to write it down.

Which sucked.

There was a small leather notebook packed in his computer bag, along with his favorite pen. He liked the notebook because it had a flap and leather laces to hold it closed. It looked old, but it was modern and had a small address book-sized binder inside it so you could replace the pages.

Before his life went to shit, sometimes he’d spend hours jotting stuff down, stuff that later made it into one of his larger spiral notebooks.

Which were also packed in the back of the Ford Escape Clark had rented. He’d seen them there, in the back, when loading his shit at the rehab facility. They had an enclosed, secure garage for people who needed privacy coming and going.

Although no one had been waiting outside the gates anyway.

No one knew he was there in the first place.

And since being admitted to rehab, he hadn’t written anything down that didn’t involve filling out a medical form.

“The girl in the room next to me was working on a heroin addiction,” he flatly told Clark. “Guy on the other side of me had OD’d twice on the shit. I was the most normal person there, if you believe that crap.”

“Then take it as a lesson.”

“I never did drugs. You know me, I’ve never even smoked pot. It was extenuating circumstances.”

“That’s what an addict would say.”

“I’m not a f*cking addict.”

“A drunk, then.”

Mevi knew he wasn’t going to win this argument, so he shut the hell up.

At a stoplight, Clark sent someone a quick text. When they finally arrived at their destination, pulling into a parking lot outside a small office building, two men were waiting outside, one with several pieces of matched luggage.

Mevi tried not to notice either guy, especially the taller one, who had killer green eyes but was wearing a wedding ring. No, that likely wasn’t his babysitter.

The other guy…he couldn’t read him. Brown eyes, brown hair, nondescript, still, there was something about him.

Clark hadn’t even shut the engine off. He’d pulled into the parking space next to the building’s door and shifted into park before getting out, leaving the vehicle running. Guy number two shook hands with Clark, then all three walked around to the back and started to load the man’s stuff into the hatch.

Mevi didn’t look back. “Watch my guitar, dude,” he gruffly called out. “Thing’s expensive.”

The three men finished loading everything and walked around to the passenger side, where Clark opened Mevi’s door. “Doyle Turner, Malcolm Maynard.”

The guy nodded, but either had a great poker face or was very practiced at dealing with celebrity clients, because he didn’t even blink. “Hi.”

“Hi. Mevi.” He didn’t extend his hand.

“I wouldn’t go by that if I were you,” Clark warned. “Low profile, remember?”

Mevi glared at Clark and flipped him off.





Whoa.

Sure, Doyle had seen Mevi on stage before, both in videos and in person a few times. He had all the guy’s albums on his iPod. Despite the shadows cast by the hoodie and ball cap riding low over Mevi’s forehead, Doyle could still see his eyes, and his trademark silver-dyed hair poked out.

One thing he hadn’t been prepared for was how hot those ice blue eyes looked in person.

Shit. Focus.

Didn’t matter how hot the guy was, Malcolm Levi Maynard—aka Mevi—was a client.

That meant off-limits.

Even if he weren’t a client, hellooo, straight. He’d seen the reports of on-again/off-again relations between Mevi and the band’s keyboard player, Bonita. Apparently, the latest off-again blow-up, on the heels of Mevi being ripped off, had triggered the final showdown for Mevi, forcing him into rehab.

Clark handed Doyle a large manila envelope of papers. “There’s everything you need, including a limited durable medical power of attorney. He relapses, don’t hesitate to commit him and call me, in that order. And there are two different credit cards in there for you to use.”

Doyle fished out the credit cards and put them in his wallet. “I already have a place lined up when we get there. How do I pay the guy?”