The Club

CHAPTER 17

"I was scared."

"About what?" he asks as he starts rifling through my cupboards. I start to ask him what he's doing, but he pulls down a couple of coffee mugs then fills up the tea kettle with water. Apparently we're having some tea. Maybe a little chamomile will help me calm down a bit?

"Don't make fun of me...okay?" I whisper that last part. I've never felt so vulnerable in my life as I do right now. I haven't told anyone about this. Not even Kyle. And it's freaking me out telling Graham. We haven't seen each other since high school but for some reason it's so easy to open up to him.

"I won't." He busies himself with finding the tea and dropping a bag into each mug. "You should know me by now."

"The voices," I whisper as if he's going to come back and start talking to me again. But I doubt he would do that with Graham here. It seems I'm lucky and get to experience it while I'm all alone.

The kettle screams, alarming us that the water is done and causing me to jump out of my seat. Shit, I need to get myself under control. He turns the burner off and pours water into both mugs.

"What about the voices?"

"He says he's coming for me."

I feel so small right now. Like I'm that same unsure little girl who thinks everyone is the world is out to get her. When I signed the record deal with Lost Souls Records and my world blew up it gave me a confidence that I didn't even know I had inside of me. Now? It's shot and I'm the same person I used to be. I guess I was just fooling myself more so than everyone else around me.

"Well, if I have anything to do with it—" I look up at him and his eyes are fiercer than I've ever seen them before in my life. "He won't be coming for you. That's for sure."

"So you believe me?"

He sighs and grabs the mugs of steaming tea. He sits down next to me at the counter and turns to me. "I don't know what I believe. I can tell you're scared and that's enough for me. Has this happened before?"

"Yes, it keeps happening, but it didn't start until after my twenty-seventh birthday. I was given a warning when I was in Malta celebrating, but I brushed it off as nothing. It's not nothing. I see that now."

I blow on the steaming mug of tea in front of me and take a small sip. I'm mulling over the past month since my birthday and I don't know how I could have been so naïve. Ghosts of famous musicians don't appear out of nowhere and give you a warning for no reason. Why did I ignore it? I'm running out of time and I've already wasted so much.

"Maybe I'm thinking about this too logically."

He sets his mug down on the counter. "What do you mean?"

"I've been so focused on the key. Maybe that's not what I should be thinking about." But what should I be thinking about? My laptop comes into focus and the research I was doing before. I was so sure that the key was the answer. Maybe it's simpler than that. "Can you think of anything related to the theories about the twenty-seven club?"

He turns his body so he's facing me and fully zoned into the conversation we're having. Maybe he doesn't think I'm so crazy after all. "Like what?"

"I don't know. Maybe there's an origination somewhere. Who was the first person to join the club? Where are they from? Maybe they made a deal and it's just spiraled from there."

"So what, you want to go wherever this person originally made their deal?"

I shrug. "It couldn't hurt. I mean, what other choice do I have besides agonizing about finding some god-forsaken key when I don't even know what it looks like or where to start? I've already wasted time as it is and I don't even know how much time I have left."

He grips my arms pulling me out of my tirade and forces me to look him in the eye. "If that's what you want to do, then I will follow you wherever you go and I will help you."

"You'll really do that?"

"I've been by your side this long, haven't I?" He drops his arms and I suddenly feel empty without his touch on me. I don't know where that feeling came from but I can't think about that right now. "Why would I change that now?"

"You wouldn't."

He gets up from the bar and walks over to my kitchen table where my laptop is still sitting. I grab my mug of tea and follow him. Glancing over his shoulder, he has a new Internet browser open and I take a seat next to him.

"Let's start with listing all of the people in this elusive club. Maybe they have something in common."

"Okay. Well, there's Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, and Kurt Cobain." I count them off on my hand and come up with those three. Other than the basic knowledge of it being a conspiracy theory, I don't know much about the exclusive club. But everyone has to start somewhere, right?

"There's got to be a lot more than that."

"I can't think right now. It's all too much pressure and I feel like I'm going to crack any minute."

"It's okay, I'll just do a Google search." He massages my shoulder with one hand while he searches my laptop with the other.

I know what he's trying to do, but it doesn't do a damn thing to ease an ounce of tension in me. The closer I get to my twenty-eighth birthday is just getting me closer to dying. When you make a deal with the devil, you really should know what you're dealing or I guess I should say who. It doesn't really seem fair that I didn't even know I made the deal to begin with by opening a damn door. But that's why he's the devil, nothing has to be fair and he doesn't play by any set of rules.

Graham pulls up a list and my mouth hangs open. "Are there really that many people?" My eyes glance down the page as he continues scrolling. Holy shit. Is this real? "I know I shouldn't be shocked, but I didn't think the list was that long."

"Yeah and who knows how accurate this list is."

I touch his hand to stop him from continuing and I point out a name on the top of the list. "Wait, who's Robert Johnson? That name sounds really familiar for some reason."

He shrugs his shoulders and clicks on the link attached to his name. An older vintage looking photograph comes up on the screen of a young black man. Which makes sense since he died when he was twenty-seven.

"Have you ever heard the story of the guy who met the devil at a crossroads and made a deal with him?" I nod my head and he continues. "Apparently, Robert Johnson was that guy."

If it all started there, shouldn't we go back to the beginning. Find out what I have in common with all of these people? "How do you feel about taking this on the road?"

"I kind of saw that coming. So where are we starting?"

This whole idea is nuts but maybe it's exactly what I need. To get out of the city and follow these leads. The worse thing that happens is it leads us nowhere. But maybe it could be the answer to everything. I hesitantly smile and say, "Where else? Mississippi. Let's go where it all started."