Twisted Rhythm: A Dark Rockstar Romance (Twisted Rhythm Series Book 1) Read online

  Goal number one, get out of Conroy, followed by two and three, move to California, work with big cats. She sure accomplished those, Katelyn snickered and scanned the list. Fantastic and realistic boob job was number six. She had arrows crossed out a few times leading between goals nine and ten. She’d had trouble judging the relative importance of those. Make at least a million dollars. Happiness with the ultimate, sexiest guy of my dreams.

  Jeez, she got ‘em all, thought Katelyn, if you considered what she had with Jake heavenly bliss. But he certainly was the guy of her dreams. Katelyn had thrown her own book out long ago, barely a year after they’d moved to California. Dejected, she slid the book back on the shelf but removed it again quickly when she noticed an unusual bulge. Something was wedged near the inside back cover.

  She re-opened it and a tiny, pink toy ball fell out, rolling fragilely onto the plush carpet. What the hell, she thought, and picked it up, remembering what it was as soon as she saw the writing on it. Tiger, Amanda had written neatly in black marker. Her beloved long-haired gray tabby that had been killed on the road after being accidentally let out by her mother. Amanda had never forgiven her mom for that, not by a longshot, and had cried and cried as she and Katelyn buried poor Tiger’s remains solemnly in the backyard. The only cat of her own that had comparably captured her heart since then was Morocco.

  Carefully replacing the ball where she’d found it, noticing there was also a snip of Tiger’s fur within a small ziplock bag taped to that page, Katelyn was startled at another discovery. A wrinkled, worn piece of paper with another list. This time the list pertained to her.

  Help Kathrine, Amanda (nee Alison), had written, followed by a colon and indented points. Build her self-esteem, learn to believe in herself, get a great job, find her perfect soulmate. The list was surprisingly long. Shaken, Katelyn refolded the paper quickly, inserted it back within the pages and slid the book into its place on the shelf.

  So Amanda really had cared. At least when she was still Alison. Before she was heated by the vibrancy and inspiring warmth of the empowering California sun. At least before she landed her first job working with wildlife, toiling passionately and tirelessly for little more than minimum pay at Wild Hearts Animal Sanctuary, a little over an hour’s drive from L.A., nestled serenely within hilltops high in the mountains of Angeles National Forest.

  It was then, Katelyn remembered, that she saw the first amazing transformation in Amanda. It was shortly after Amanda had begun working there that the two of them changed and improved their names. And it was then, she thought back, that Amanda first began to realize her own incredible potential and the scope and power of her wildlife dreams.

  She’d come home from the sanctuary after 2 a.m. one night, hours after Katelyn had fallen into bed, exhausted from her demanding waitressing job. Unshielded from noise in their tiny apartment, Katelyn awoke to find Amanda tired but awake, sipping an extra large espresso and measuring leopard-patterned fabric to wrap around small wooden crates lined up in front of her.

  “What the hell are you doing?” she asked her, so tired from her job that her eyes actually hurt.

  “Some enrichment for Mai-Mai,” she smiled.

  Mai-Mai was Wild Hearts’ most difficult and ferocious tiger, made so because of the horrid conditions he’d languished in for five years prior to his rescue. His initial home had been a darkened, dilapidated garage in Alabama which contained his inadequate, barren 10x10 cage. Hand-raised but unsocialized after he’d grown unmanageable at six months of age, and immensely underfed at 280 pounds, Mai-Mai hadn’t as yet adapted to his new, enriched and spacious surroundings, even after three years.

  For that past week Amanda had been virtually out of her mind. Mai-Mai had suddenly taken ill, no discernable cause despite numerous tests and examinations by the sanctuary’s veterinarians. The poor, uncooperative cat had to be anesthetized each time. When Amanda called Katelyn just hours earlier, he was lying moribund and could no longer even lift his head.

  “He’s doing better now?” Katelyn asked.

  “Yes...no,” Amanda sighed. “He’s still just lying there, barely aware of anything. But I sat outside the fence, I could only get so close to his head, but he moved his eyes, trying to look at me.”

  Skeptical, Katelyn remained silent and Amanda shot her an evil glance.

  “Don’t be such a downer. It means something,” she said. “He wouldn’t even move his eyes before to respond to anything. He just has to try. So I’m making this new toy just for him.”

  Looking back on it, her own simple moment of stunned silence, was the beginning of the end for her longstanding close friendship with Amanda. She hadn’t believed in her penchant for success and communicating with animals. Believed in the sheer possibility of miracles. Believed in the all-conquering indestructible bond encompassing trust, understanding and boundless affection between human and animal species.

  Nevertheless, Katelyn remembered, she’d stayed up all night with Amanda, helping her create Mai-Mai’s inventive leopard toy. Inwardly wondering whether he’d be alive to see it when Amanda got back.

  Surprisingly, he was. As Amanda rushed down the winding, shaded path to Mai-Mai’s habitat, she came upon the facility’s chief veterinarian, the sanctuary’s manager and their senior wildlife technician. After her late night, all were shocked to see her return so soon, especially on her day off. God no, she screamed, seeing them huddling, talking quietly near Mai-Mai’s pen.

  “Is he gone?” she sobbed.

  “No, Amanda.” It was Dr. Sheppard who spoke. “But unfortunately, we’ve made the very difficult decision to put him down.”

  No one could explain, not even Amanda, how she’d ardently managed to talk them into waiting just a little while, the hour she’d begged for, to give him time to “try.”

  Despite her emotional and physical exhaustion, she mustered every ounce of strength, belief and courage within her and strolled into Mai-Mai’s pen with his new toy in hand. Hung it strategically a few feet from his motionless body. Sat down beside him and opened his massive mouth, gently smearing the untouched soft meal that had been left for him onto his gums, mindful of his large teeth and fangs, careful that in his debilitated state, he didn’t choke.

  “Mai-Mai, this is it,” she asserted, crying, leaning brazenly into the big cat’s face. “They’re gonna ship you to heaven, kill you, d’ya understand? Unless you get your shit together and try. Please, please just try.”

  Mai-Mai moaned weakly. Slowly mouthed and swallowed the food on his gums. In a frenzy, Amanda lifted the cat’s heavy head and positioned the bowl beneath him so he could lick and eat. When, exhausted, Mai-Mai had his fill, Amanda knelt beside him. Again risking serious injury and termination from her job - direct animal contact was prohibited - she kneed him sharply in the ribs, pushed him for all she was worth, and struggled with him to get him into a sitting position.

  When somber staff rounded the corner exactly an hour later, their jaws dropped. Mai-Mai was standing weakly, actually leaning against Amanda, who stood propped firmly against a tree, tears of joy streaming down her face. No one thought to fire her. That July she was voted Wild Hearts’ animal caregiver of the month, and honored in December as the year’s most valuable employee.

  No accomplishment, no accolade, she later told Katelyn, came close to her elation and gratification at Mai-Mai’s full recovery. She remained close to the tiger throughout her time at the sanctuary, almost another full year. She visited with him often, whenever she could, and donated a huge monument with his likeness etched in stone, as symbol to his insuppressible heart and Wild Hearts’ incredible work rescuing wild animals and educating the public about their often precarious lives within captivity. Still pouring large sums of money annually into the sanctuary, Amanda took Jake there to meet Mai-Mai and show him the monument she’d commissioned as salute to the big cat’s unremitting courage and unstoppable determination.

  Jake, Katelyn scowled, now strolling outside. Amanda
had opened up her life to him. Quick to expose, eager to share. Often at the exclusion of everyone that had always been closest to her, most definitely at the expulsion of her family and everyone she’d considered a close friend. He’ll be thundering in, no doubt, the day after tomorrow, as soon as he gets a break from tour.

  Just who we need here, Katelyn frowned, as if that idiot Wade and that skank of a sister Amanda had weren’t enough. God, how she hated her life sometimes. How’d I end up floundering here, Katelyn stewed, as she sat down dejectedly on the bench near the arbor a few feet from the winding stairway to the cat buildings. Unable to shake her growing apprehension at upcoming events, she glanced at the time on her cell, 2:03 a.m., but called Tyler Cassidy anyway.

  “Kat, what’s wrong?”

  Tyler answered shaken, almost immediately.

  “What isn’t wrong?” she laughed sarcastically. “When have things ever been right around here?”

  “Where’s Amanda?” he asked. “She all right?”

  Jesus, Katelyn glowered. Is she all anyone ever thinks about?

  “Fine, Ty. She’s up in her room with Morocco.”

  Probably counting down the minutes to Jake’s grand arrival, she didn’t add.

  She asked instead, “You gonna be here day after tomorrow?”

  “Yeah, that’s day before show time. You called me in the middle of the damn night to ask me that?” he replied, annoyed.

  He wouldn’t sound so righteously irritated if Amanda was making this call, Katelyn thought, but remained pleasant.

  “Yeah, sorry. I just can’t sleep and I’m worried.” She paused. “Jake’ll be here then.”

  Tyler huffed, “And you’re callin’ me with this obvious news at this time of night, why?”

  “Christ Tyler, think about it. God knows what he put her through in Portland, remember the wonderful pic in his tweet? And that was before Wade’s ridiculous heroic challenge, before Amanda stupidly called for a showdown. Wade will be here,” she emphasized. “Think about what happened the last time Jake really lost it. Now he knows Amanda screwed that fuckhead.”

  Tyler winced. Not the reminder he needed that Amanda had not only dissed him for Jake, but for her former philandering boyfriend as well.

  “She’s not gonna be alone with Jake, Katelyn. There’s you, me, her sister and Wade.”

  “Wade’s who I worry about.”

  “Don’t we all,” he caved. “Whatever mess he and Amanda created, he may just be the one who keeps Jake from goin’ off the deep end. Jake’s a fighter, but he prefers female opponents, and I’ll be there too.”

  “Yeah,” she groaned. “D’ya really think everything’s gonna be all right?”

  “No,” he said. “But maybe we can all make it as all right as it gets.”

  After their talk, Katelyn strolled to the cat buildings, visiting briefly with the lions, then tigers, before heading to bed. Tonga, Safari and Sumatra, Morocco and Kontikki’s cubs, greeted her enthusiastically when she went in. Dozing serenely along with Kontikki, each in their separate quarters, Seh-Khan, Kahari and Sahara welcomed her with soft chuffs. Morocco’s den was empty because he was with Amanda in the house.

  She paused at it nonetheless, uneasy. Morocco was Amanda’s prized companion, her unquestioning pillar, feral source of strength, her passion, pride and joy. If anything ever happened to him she’d be devastated and lost. She shook off the dreadful prospect and headed outdoors. But the thought she couldn’t shake overpowered her. Things were going to get extremely ugly. No matter what Tyler said. Despite what any of them could do.

  Chapter 14

  “Missing me?” Jake’s welcomed voice was soft, cool and seductive.

  Amanda gasped. She’d quickly prayed for the slim possibility that the unblocked number was Jake calling, if not on his own cell then from someone else’s.

  “I think you know the answer,” she exhaled deeply. At the shock of his voice she’d been holding her breath.

  “I don’t know anything with you anymore,” he sneered and added, “Maybe I never did.”

  Jake’s pain was almost tangible, touchable, as it floated through her phone. Realizing she was trembling, and sweating, Amanda clutched her cell tighter and curled up semi-fetal against Morocco who lounged beside her on the bed. His warmth and pent-up power gave her comfort and strength.

  “Please don’t say that Jake,” she pleaded. “You do know me. You’ve always known me. Better than anyone ever has. More completely than anyone ever will. Nothing’s changed,” she added, “No matter what’s happened, or will happen, you’re always my heart and soul.”

  He snickered.

  “Yeah, right,” he said.

  “Listen to me,” she sat up.

  Petrified he’d hang up. Afraid that no matter what she said she wouldn’t get through to him. Terrified that even her carefully chosen words would only make things worse.

  “You have to believe me,” she begged. “I know how bad I fucked up with my book,” she paused and took a deep breath, “and in Conroy.” And thinking of her hasty invitation for a showdown, she added, “And maybe I’m still fucking up. But I just don’t know what else to do, what else to say, to get you to understand what you really mean to me. To get you to believe how much I’ve always loved you. How much I still love you now.”

  She closed her eyes, shaken, both dreading and anticipating his response. But she heard only indiscernible rustling and then Jake’s low euphoric groan.

  “Jake?”

  And then the moist repetitive sounds of sliding and slippery wet suction, unmistakably a blowjob as he held his cell closer to Misty’s head. It took a moment for Amanda to process what she was hearing, and only a fraction of another for the true horror to set in.

  “You fuckin’ sick bastard!” she screamed.

  “Isn’t that the way you like me?” was all he said.

  ***

  Awake and unsettled after Katelyn’s disquieting call, Tyler strolled to his gun cabinet, unlocked it decisively and pulled his revolver from its mount. Correction Katelyn, he mused, it’ll be me, you, Amanda, Rachel, Wade, Jake and my friends Smith and Wesson.

  The gun’s stainless steel frame glinted in the subdued glow of his living room’s night light as he rolled the weapon gently over in his hand. Two-and-a-half-inch barrel cool to the touch, its wood grip was smooth and comforting. Although the seven-shot double action weighed merely more than two pounds, Tyler knew it would be more than enough reinforcement to stop Jake, if need be, dead in his tracks.

  He pressed the thumbpiece forward, unlocking the rotating swing-out cylinder, and pushed it to the left. It had been awhile since he’d fired but he was a well-practiced, excellent shot and he remembered keenly how the recoil transferred straight back into the web of his hand.

  He sauntered to the kitchen and opened the far right drawer underneath his countertop, removed the red and white box of .38 Special Hollow Point Ammo and, with two fingers of his right hand in the gun’s frame, he used his left to place a round of ammunition in each of the cylinder’s charge holes. After pushing the cylinder back into the frame to lock it into place, he carried the gun to his bedroom, placed it into his already packed suitcase, and sat down apprehensively on the bed.

  What the hell was Amanda getting him into now? His mind raced and for a few moments he had trouble collecting his thoughts. He was tempted to ask himself what Jake was getting him mixed up in but he knew better. He didn’t give a rat’s ass about Jake, he was involved because of Amanda, and even though Jake was exponential trouble, Amanda had a choice. She didn’t have to be with him, provoke him or surrender him her control. And sighing, Tyler shamefully admitted that he himself had a choice too. He didn’t have to get involved, put himself in danger, on the line for Amanda once again.

  So why was he? He flopped backwards on the bed, dejected, smoothing his long hair from his face and resting his palms on his temples. Why indeed?

  He was painfully certain that Amanda wasn’t up
at this time of night thinking about him. That all her current fears and anxieties probably didn’t even involve Wade. Her thoughts, as always, would be on Jake, he reminded himself, and any worries she had centered solely on Jake’s appeasement and well-being and only secondarily on her own contentment and safety.

  He couldn’t help but remember when she had cared, not only for herself but for him as well. They’d been casually dating for only a few months and were busy putting the lions through their newly learned routines. Bongo was in a restless mood that day and although he obediently paced up and down the ramp, he wouldn’t stop hesitating and snarling at Zambuka, even though she’d done nothing to provoke his rage.

  Enough was enough when Bongo blatantly ignored commands and, rising on hind legs, threatened and swatted Zambuka. Tyler remembered correcting him with his training stick, a quick, sharp boink to the nose. Bongo spun, reared up and came after him with the force of a hurricane. Marcus and Alvirez raced forward, jabbing Bongo with cattle prods and quickly placing bite sticks in front of his jaws. But the cat ferociously latched onto Tyler’s upper thigh nonetheless.

  If not for Amanda’s quick thinking, she jumped into the melee with fire extinguisher in hand, Tyler’s injuries would have been immensely more serious. As it was, Bongo released him and ran to the corner of the enclosure to lay down in defeat, and Tyler needed only 42 stitches, two weeks off work and some gentle rehab to curtail the stiffness and pain and bring back full movement to his leg.

  Feeling sick about what happened, Amanda had stayed reassuringly by his side. Driving him to rehab, calling regularly and checking on him when he was at home, and even bringing him dinner, often steak, delicious casseroles or roasts with sauce-covered potatoes and vegetables along with salad, meals she’d taken the time from her tremendously busy schedule to prepare herself.

  Tyler smiled at the happy memories and let his mind drift to many more. They’d had so much in common, numerous interests besides the big cats, and had gone boating, water skiing, camping, fishing and even hang gliding along the San Mateo coastline. For a while, they were best friends turned lovers and for him at least, their lovemaking was even more exciting than their other adventures. At the time, he believed Amanda felt the same way.