All Things Considered Read online

  All Things Considered

  AB Plum

  PlumBooks

  Contents

  About the Book

  Other Books by AB Plum

  A Note from the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  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

  Epilogue

  Bonus Content

  Exclusive Content for The MisFit Series

  About the Author

  About the Book

  The police say Ryn Davis is guilty of murder.

  Ryn claims she was asleep. Sound asleep. Dead-to-the-world asleep.

  An insomniac with a long history of sleepwalking, night terrors, and other sleep disorders, Ryn’s dodging a life-changing decision. Should she leave her iconic rock-star lover? Is his fame and money worth his mood swings? After a particularly explosive argument, she goes to bed. He follows. The argument escalates. Exhausted, she goes to the guest bedroom. She pops a sleeping pill. Technically, a hormone. Not a drug. One melatonin, she rationalizes, determined to think more clearly.

  She wakens the next morning, groggy and disoriented. Fragments of a dream fade in and out of memory. Not the argument with Stone … but something more disturbing. When she enters their bedroom, she sees him in bed—a red hibiscus blooming on his chest.

  Unable to produce the melatonin bottle, Ryn acts more and more defensive and guilty. The police ridicule her testimony. Definitely bitter, can she prove how an insomniac slept through two bullets?

  Other Books by AB Plum

  Ready or Not

  A Psychological Thriller

  The MisFit Series

  The Boy Nobody Loved, Prequel

  The Early Years, Book 1

  The Lost Days, Book 2

  The In-Between Years, Book 3

  The Reckless Year, Book 4

  The Dispensable Wife, Book 5

  The Broken-Hearted Many, Book 6

  The Whole Truth, Book 7

  Writing as Barbara Plum

  Paranormal Romance

  BIg MAgIC (Book 1)

  HARd MAgIC (Book 2)

  TRUe MAgIC (Book 3)

  Romantic Comedy

  Prince of Frogs

  Queen of the Universe

  Writing as Allie Hawkins

  Romantic Suspense

  Presumed Guilty

  Unraveled

  A Note from the Author

  Thank you for reading All Things Considered. I appreciate your investment of time and money.

  Because reviews are critical to spreading the word, please consider leaving your comments on Amazon, BookBub or GoodReads if you enjoyed this mystery.

  If you want to read my other books, go here: https://amzn.to/2F6Giez.

  FREE BOOK: Get your free copy of The MisFit series prequel, The Boy Nobody Loved, available through my website.

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

  Copyright © 2019 PlumBooks

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, redistributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, print, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of Author.

  As always, for David with gratitude for your patience and support.

  Acknowledgments

  Just as cartons of milk don’t appear magically on the supermarket shelves, neither do books come to market without many unsung heroes. Maria, as always, thank you for your energy and creativity. Thanks, also to my favorite cover designer—he, whose name cannot be spoken—at his request. Beth, I so appreciate your perfect eyesight and comments to make the story more compelling.

  Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.

  ~Henry David Thoreau

  Prologue

  “… already know the Goddamn answer.”

  Shouts. Loud. Unclear. Noise. Penetrating her cocoon.

  … witnessed history …

  “Ummm.” She snuggles into the cloud of covers. So long since she slept, but she tries to open her eyes. Can’t. Tries to swim up from sleep. Tired. Too tired. Arms and legs useless.

  “Get out. You’re pathetic.” A staccato, furious rush.

  Her body jerks. She moans. Feels her heart racing. Too hard. Too fast.

  “A loser.” A long, mocking laugh.

  … caravan led by …

  “Bastard.” Shrill. Leaking tears. Beyond rage.

  More asleep than awake, fighting to breathe, she struggles to move. To raise her head. To open her eyes. They’re squeezed tight—allowing no light.

  “What … are … you … doing?” Disbelief rides a note of terror.

  “Exactly what you deserve, bastard.” Triumph sings in the quick, short laugh.

  A shout. “Noooo.”

  “Yessss.” A pause. Nothing.

  “Ummm.” Sleep pulls her under on a sigh of relief.

  Then nothingness.

  Chapter 1

  Beverly Hills – September 27 – 10:56 p.m.

  The ninety-five-inch home theater screen shimmered with the blurry, full-frontal shot of the white Bronco. On two seventy-five-inch TVs on either side of the big screen, six LAPD cop cars circled the lone vehicle like a small cavalry.

  Static, plus the whap-whap-whap of helicopter propellers, drowned out the CNN reporter. The ’copter dipped. The onboard-camera wobbled but then zoomed in on a young blonde commuter—out of her white BMR on the opposite side of Interstate 405. She held up a cardboard sign with a hand-lettered message: WE LOVE YOU, OJ!!!

  Jaw locked, eyes closed, Ryn Davis kneaded the velvet arm on her custom-built theater seat. Anything to take her mind off the image of her marinating in warm buttered popcorn. The two flavors had comingled during the past three hours and erased all hint of the dozen yellow roses on a nearby table.

  You can’t marinate in popcorn.

  Okay, swimming in buttered popcorn. Drowning in buttered popcorn. Close to puking. Close to grabbing the remote control. Close to pitching it through the big screen. And then taking out that old-fashioned popcorn maker she’d bought before she lost her mind sniffing butter and popcorn night after night after frickin’ night a quarter of a century after OJ’s great caper.

  Calm down. She mashed her fist under her chin to prevent yelling, “I’m sick to death of pretending we have a life together anymore, Stone.”

  Next to her, Stone Wall, rock id
ol to fans around the globe, raised the surround-sound volume. Had he picked up on her choking frustration?

  Her jaw buzzed as if she was gnawing on a shard of glass. She opened her eyes. She took a deep breath, exhaled, inhaled, and went back to kneading the armchair. Pulse slowing, she heard the anchor drone words she hated.

  “Mile fifty on Interstate 405 and counting …”

  Stone took his cue and leaned forward. In perfect sync, pitch, and cadence he intoned—with the news anchor’s gravitas, “How much longer can this go on?”

  “As long as birds fly and fish swim and the butter doesn’t go rancid,” Ryn muttered.

  “You say something, Babe?” Stone kept his gaze glued to the giant screen.

  “Didn’t those people have a life?” Don’t we have a life? You’re watching ancient history.

  Stone tilted his head her way and patted her hand. He wasn’t watching the news story of the last century. He was watching the inspiration for his next big hit. Hell, he’d probably create a Broadway musical production that rivaled Hamilton.

  She clenched her fingers. What’d she expect? Did she think he’d turn to her and declare, “No, compared to us, they didn’t have a life. I love you.”

  “You bored?”

  His question surprised her. Almost as much as the pat on her wrist before he changed the video on the lower, right-hand TV. She jerked her hand out from under his. “What gave me away—besides the cobwebs covering me?”

  How long since they had said they loved each other? Maybe every day for a few weeks after Lavender died. Nearly nine months ago. The sudden flash of Lavender’s elfin face brought tears. Ryn scrubbed her eyes. When was the last time Stone mentioned his mother?

  Not since he’d become obsessed with the idea of using OJ’s chase for a song that would wow the whole musical world.

  “You think Runaway’s too obvious for the new song title?” He inched forward in his chair, his distinguished “stone man” jaw jutting out as he rested his chin in his hand.

  Ryn swallowed the laugh that felt like a bird in her throat. She put her hand over her mouth, coughed twice, and mumbled, “Hey. Social relevance is social relevance.”

  “Profitable, too, with the right beat, sexy lyrics, and me singing my heart out.” He gave her two thumbs-up and his boyish ear-to-ear grin.

  Her breath caught. The old Stone’s still in there.

  She opened her mouth, but he talked over her. “Hand me my notepad, will ya?” He tossed his dark head in the general direction of the desk.

  To reach it himself, he’d have to turn his back on the video replay of the TV helicopters, the police cavalcade, and the Bronco for about four seconds.

  Too much trouble.

  But. He raised his arms over his head and jiggled an empty, five-quart enameled bowl. “Refill?”

  Speechless, she fought the impulse to smack the bowl and send it crashing down on his head.

  “More butter this time, ’kay? Butter always leaves me inspired.” He spared her a glance and winked. The famous black curl—the one that drove teenagers and grown women to the edge of frenzy—dangled in the middle of his forehead, making him look damned near cherubic.

  Ryn bit down hard on her tongue, ignored the bowl, and stood. Why start an argument? “I’m going to bed.”

  “Howaboutarefill?” He extended the enameled bowl in her general direction.

  Mentally counting to ten, she let him hold the bowl—long enough that he glanced away from the chase and finally focused on her. He grinned. Slow. Sexy. “I owe you one, Darlin’ Ryn. Okay?”

  His baritone deepened on the innuendo. He hadn’t teased her for a long time, but her skin went hot all over. Her pulse revved up, and her hands felt sweaty on the smooth bowl. How did he do that to her? Make her knees wobble like she wore stilts?

  Pathetic. But he didn’t notice her reaction to his power. He was once more totally engrossed in the vintage news story. Heart thumping, she whipped around. She had to concentrate—really put her mind to it—to totter across the room and open the glass windows on the popcorn machine. God, had it been five years since she’d given it to him on his thirtieth birthday? What had happened to them?

  “Lotsa butter, please.”

  “It’s a wonder every artery in your body—” She stopped herself. He’s an adult. You’re not his mother.

  The words triggered a memory of her standing there, three hours earlier in the same spot, making the evening’s first batch of popcorn, listening to Amber’s pointed reminder. You’re not his mother, Ryn. But if you don’t get some sleep—

  I will look older than his mother. His dead mother. Ryn dumped popcorn into the hot kettle, slammed the doors, and peered into the glass. Reflections thrown off by the table lamps behind her washed out a clear image of her face. A face with crow’s feet, baggy eyes, and marionette lines. When had she last slept through the night? She yawned. Once. Twice. The first kernel of corn popped. She mentally measured the distance between the popper and her seat.

  Might as well jog to Malibu and back. She parked a hip on the nearest bar stool and sighed. Definitely not worth the effort to schlep across the room only to return three and a half minutes later. Did Stone even realize she’d stepped outside his orbit?

  The explosive pop, pop, pop slowed. Raising her arm to spill the steaming corn into the bowl required willpower. Sleep. God, she needed sleep. Less stress would help.

  How about less melodrama?

  Stone accepted the full popcorn bowl with a grunt and no eye contact. I could’ve stroked out. Stifling the impulse to scream, Ryn sat down and tapped out a couple of beats on the arm of her chair and then stopped. Rhythm Stone would notice. Immediately. He’d want to know why, after all the complaining she did about never spending any time together, she couldn’t sit still for thirty seconds?

  Ryn jammed her hands in the pockets of her sweater, traced the shape of a small bottle, and closed her fingers around its neck. Damn, another sign of sleep deprivation. She’d slipped the melatonin into her pocket just to get Amber off her back and then forgotten it.

  “The gift of sleep,” Amber called the stuff.

  “Ah took it ever night on the East Coast tour,” Amber had confided, her Texas drawl thick as peanut butter. “Ah swear Ah slept like a log …”

  Ryn bit the inside of her cheek and ran a fingernail around the plastic seal. At least she hadn’t asked Amber if her log-like sleep came from the melatonin or from Stone’s dick sending his back-up singer to logland.

  As if they were BFFs, Amber had detailed the research she’d done before buying her first bottle of melatonin two years earlier. “Ah didn’t want Stone to think I was usin’ an illegal substance.”

  Her breathy, sing-song cadence jangled in Ryn’s aching head. “When Ah bought a new bottle yesterday, Ah thought, why not buy one for Ryn, too? Maybe help her sleep, too?”

  Riiight. Ryn had dropped the bottle in her pocket without a thank-you. Maybe if she went a full month without any sleep and started howling at the moon, she might consider swallowing one of Amber’s little white “gifts.” Or, if she woke up in a time warp where Amber worked side-by-side with Mother Teresa in Calcutta, she might use the melatonin.

  Surprising herself, she’d swallowed her sarcasm, mumbled something inarticulate, and buried the fantasy of slipping one or two capsules in Amber’s beer around nine p.m.

  By eight-thirty though, Amber had grown so bored with the OJ drama and Stone’s lack of attention, she told Beau she wanted to go home. Both band members left, leaving Ryn to sit in the dim media room staring at the Bronco and cop cars for two more endless hours.

  “Okay,” she announced, without waiting for Stone to take a break between handfuls of popcorn, “I’m going to bed.”

  “You know,” he said, shaking his head, “the guy should never have run if he wasn’t guilty. You gonna kill someone, don’t run.”

  Ryn managed not to snort. The man wrote music half the world thought sounded like a dent
ist’s drill. He gyrated on stage like a drunk monkey. With money, fame, and movie star-looks, he might as well live in a different galaxy. She clamped her lips together, and her jaw cracked.

  Keep your opinion to yourself. She pinched her lips. No matter what she said, unless she agreed absolutely with Stone’s opinion, they’d end up in an argument. Which was even more boring than staring at the damn TV and sitting there like a mute.

  “It’s too early for bed.” Stone squeezed her hand—lightly—because he was always careful of his fingers. Creating magic on a guitar required strong fingers.

  “I promised Celia Ramirez a private tutoring sess—”

  “You spend too much time—and energy—on those women.” He dropped her hand, gave her his back, and picked up the remote. “They take advantage of you.”