Music: Out of the Box 26 (The Girl in the Box Book 36) Read online

  MUSIC: OUT OF THE BOX 26

  The Girl in the Box, Book 36

  ROBERT J. CRANE

  Ostiagard Press

  MUSIC

  The Girl in the Box, Book 36

  (Out of the Box, Book 26)

  Robert J. Crane

  Copyright © 2018 Ostiagard Press

  All Rights Reserved.

  1st Edition.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, please email [email protected].

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Chapter 99

  Chapter 100

  Chapter 101

  Chapter 102

  Chapter 103

  Chapter 104

  Chapter 105

  Chapter 106

  Chapter 107

  Chapter 108

  Chapter 109

  Chapter 110

  Chapter 111

  Chapter 112

  Chapter 113

  Chapter 114

  Chapter 115

  Chapter 116

  Chapter 117

  Chapter 118

  Chapter 119

  Chapter 120

  Chapter 121

  Chapter 122

  Chapter 123

  Chapter 124

  Chapter 125

  Chapter 126

  Epilogue

  Teaser

  Author’s Note

  Other Works by Robert J. Crane

  Acknowledgments

  CHAPTER ONE

  Nashville, Tennessee

  Neon lights lit the sidewalks of Broadway, and music spilled into the night. Some of it rang out hard, some of it pitched sweet; all of it was loud, the competition on to get the attention of the tourists and locals moving by on the sidewalks. Broadway was like a piece of old Vegas dropped into Nashville, packed crowds bustling past. Honky-tonk bars lined the street, their windows pushed open and music blaring out like an attempt at an open air concert into the cool—but not cold—February evening.

  Brance Venable came along Broadway at an easy saunter. His heart was thudding about a million miles an hour, warring against his attempts to keep cool as he went. He was a little taller than average, a little thinner than average, looked a little better than average, based on his luck with the ladies. The words of Alan Jackson’s “Chasin’ That Neon Rainbow” were bouncing around in his head as he threaded his way through the teeming, living mass of humanity threatening to spill over the metal sidewalk barricades and into Broadway itself, where the traffic was at a complete standstill waiting for the next light. Brance noticed none of it; not the overripe tourist spitting a curse at the homeless guy next to him, not the scent of margaritas wafting off the loud bachelorette party passing by him.

  Brance was focused on one thing, and one thing only.

  Screamin’ Demons was a honky-tonk on 2nd Avenue, just off Broadway. It was ahead. Everything else...well, everything else needed to be behind him right now.

  Because this was it.

  Brance had moved to Nashville a month ago from Cody, Wyoming. A month of craziness, of trying to get his crap unpacked in his tiny apartment in Germantown. He’d gotten the lay of the land in Music City, USA, and now he was ready to make his debut. He’d chosen everything carefully, figuring the optimal venue that he, a nobody, could succeed at. And he’d found it.

  Open mic night at Screamin’ Demons, which was a honky-tonk and a dive bar all in one.

  The red neon lights off the Screamin’ Demons sign were like the fires of hell, ominous and crimson, casting the glow out on the street. Screamin’ Demons wasn’t even a block off the chaos that was Broadway.

  Brance slipped in through the open door of the honky-tonk, nodding at the big dude in black bouncing at the door. The bouncer nodded back, barely. It was the most human contact Brance had gotten since he’d moved here.

  He bellied up to the bar as the lady on stage warbled a broken version of Patty Loveless’s “I Try to Think About Elvis.” Her voice broke on the chorus, and the crowd—half full at best, mostly with young people out for a Wednesday on the town—evinced a collective disinterest, paying more attention to their drinks and conversations than her crackling vocals.

  “What do you want?” the bartender asked. Guy looked about Brance’s age, mid-twenties, buff.

  “Mich Golden Light,” Brance said, and chucked a thumb over his shoulder toward the stage.
“And where do I sign up for that?”

  The bartender pulled a beer bottle out from under the bar and popped the top, then pointed down the bar. Ah. A clipboard.

  Brance made his way over, cold beer in hand, condensation working its way down his grip. The list on the clipboard was long, filled to five pages. He stared at it only a second before adding his name and settling back at the bar, squeezed between a couple and a lone dude who weighed about three-fifty and was fully done up in a cowboy hat and boots with a Roy Rogers shirt. Brance tried not to stare at the rhinestones as he sipped his beer. Talk about out of date.

  Nashville nowadays was Dierks Bentley and Kacey Musgraves. Had it ever been that ostentatious? Maybe in the seventies, long before Brance’s time. He chuckled in a self-satisfied way into his beer. Only a month and he was already thinking like a local.

  The night dragged on as Brance waited. The crowd was good; they didn’t boo when someone was terrible. Polite applause followed the ones that utterly bombed, voices cracking or lyrics forgotten. There were a couple of solid performers in there, too. One young lady did a pretty good rendition of Elton John’s “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me.”

  Brance was still sipping that first beer two hours later, though it was really warm, when they called him up. He finished it in an easy pull, wiped the condensation of the beer mingled with the sweat onto his jeans, and made his way up on the stage.

  “My name’s Brance,” he said. He’d decided his stage name was just one word. Like Garth. But without even the Brooks. “And I’ll be singing an original song.”

  That didn’t get much reaction. Most everyone was paying attention to their beers or whatever they were drinking. It was tough to see much beyond shadows through the stage lights.

  Brance started up, a cappella:

  “I see you

  out there in the night...”

  He really put some effort into his voice, tried to use the microphone to push it out there, project over the crowd and the buzz of people drinking, talking. A couple eyes watched him from the bar. Could they be someone from a record label?

  He had to nail this.

  “...I see you

  at the end of my fight...”

  Man, he sang. Voice projected to the rafters, all the soulful sound and feeling he could put into it. These were the daydreams he’d had for all the years of his life since the first time he heard someone singing on the radio one Sunday afternoon while his dad worked on an engine block in the garage. His foot moved in time with the music and Brance watched, tried to mimic it. Then, later, he tried to mimic the sounds, the words. And his daddy’s leg just kept moving in time with the music as he sang.

  “...You were always thereeee

  always the one for meeee...”

  This was it. Time to ramp up to the chorus and really give her hell. If he was on The Voice, this was the part where some chairs would start turning. He was all up in his own head now, perfectly focused on his lyrics, the music, hitting the notes perfectly as he sang. The outside world was just shadows he could barely see through squinted eyes, pure emotion on his face, the stage lights hot on his skin, beads of sweat popping out on his brow. The distant noise of the crowd was just a faint rumble.

  This was the moment. His whole life had been leading to this. Ever since that time in the garage when he’d heard the music, and his daddy had smiled—

  God, one of the only times it felt like he’d smiled at Brance—

  “...Like a desert dream

  Like a teenage queeeeEEEN—”

  There was a rising scratch in the back of Brance’s throat. It caught him halfway through “queen.” Something happened, something bad, and he hit a different note, real different—

  Someone screeched loud enough that Brance jerked. The whole room seemed to be shaking gently, and the lights at the base of the stage all blew out in a blast of glass and sparks as Brance’s eyes jerked open. The speakers blew, too, and Brance stopped singing as the noise in the room swept over him like a wave after a dam broke.

  “Ohmigod—”

  “Aiiiiiiee! Make it stop!”

  The cacophony was painful, pained. His eyes open, the stage lights shattered, he could see the crowd now.

  That standing ovation he’d hoped for? Wasn’t happening.

  Every single person in the place was on the ground. Clutching ears, clutching their heads. Only a very few eyes were even on him at all.

  Brance just stared for a moment, dumbstruck, then realized the microphone was still in his hand. “Are...are you all right?” he asked, then realized his voice wasn’t magnified at all. Oh, right, the speakers.

  Then he glanced down at the mic.

  The entire top of it looked like it had been shredded off by a metal grinder.

  “What the...?” The mic stand that had been parked in front of him was missing its top, too, smoking as though someone had burned it like a candle wick.

  “What the hell did you do, man?” someone shouted from the crowd.

  “I...I don’t know,” Brance said, clammy feeling falling over him, sweat drenching his brow. He stared out over the darkened bar, wondering what he should say.

  “You almost killed us!” a woman’s voice screamed into the silence. Distantly, Brance could hear the noise of Broadway, the crowd. It sounded normal, like nothing had happened there. Nothing like what had happened here—

  “I...sorry,” Brance said, and tried to shove the shredded microphone into the ruined stand a couple times before realizing it was futile. Staring at the strange object, he finally just dropped the ruined thing, stepping off the stage.

  “Who the hell are you?” a man asked from his knees. “Were you trying to kill us?”

  “I...I was just trying to...” Brance stumbled past him, past the others. He made it out the door just as people were getting to their feet.

  There was a strange silence in his head as he ran—surprisingly fast—down 2nd, old brick buildings blurring past as he hurried back to Broadway and lost himself in the crowd.

  This wasn’t how it was supposed to go tonight. This was supposed to be his chance, his shot.

  This was supposed to be the beginning of his dream.

  Then why, Brance wondered, as he threaded through the noisy crowd, a ringing in his ears like distant sirens, did it feel so much like the end?

  CHAPTER TWO

  Sienna

  New York City

  This was not exactly the stuff my dreams were made of.

  “Sienna Nealon, do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”