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** BRIAN **

My nose twitched as the smoke from AJ’s cigarette drifted by my face. I focused on the small puffs of smoke as they curled upwards and disappeared into the clear afternoon sky. For a brief moment, I considered asking AJ for a cigarette. He looked so calm, almost serene, as he drew the nicotine deep into his lungs. It was an irrational thought, but I was jealous of the fact that he had access to a pocket-sized coping mechanism. All I had access to at the moment were my thoughts; my deeply disturbed, anguished thoughts.

“Are you sure that you don’t want to go inside?”

AJ shook his head and exhaled slowly, sending another plume of smoke into the sky. “We should wait for Kevin and Howie.”

I scuffed the toe of my shoe across the freshly laid asphalt that coated Nick’s driveway and jammed my hands into the pockets of my jeans. “What if they’re delayed for some reason?”

“Howie sent me a text when he landed.” AJ took a long drag and flicked a piece of ash to the ground. “They’re on their way.”

“Fine.” I pulled my eyes away from AJ and turned to face the street. “Do you think that’s them?” I nodded in the direction of a silver SUV that was quickly navigating the corner.

AJ squinted into the sunlight. “The Volkswagen?” He shrugged and busied himself with the task of inhaling the remaining nicotine vapours from his cigarette. “Maybe.”

My suspicions were confirmed as the vehicle pulled into the driveway. Kevin gave me a small wave as Howie manoeuvred the SUV into the driveway next to my car. I was so surprised by the fact that Kevin was sitting in the passenger seat that I didn’t even bother to return his greeting; Kevin never agreed to be the passenger.

“Hey.” Howie pushed open the door and lowered himself to the ground. “Have you guys been waiting long?”

“Ten minutes, tops.” AJ tossed his cigarette to the ground and extinguished it with the toe of his shoe. “How was your flight?”

Howie shrugged. “Standard.”

“I see that Lauren’s car is here.” Kevin came around from the other side of the vehicle and joined the small circle that the three of us had unwittingly formed in the middle of the driveway. “Did either of you check to see if Nick’s car is in the garage?”

“It’s nice to see you too, cuz.” The comment was biting and I could see Kevin’s face falter as soon as the words left my mouth.

“I didn’t mean to insinuate …” Kevin stopped and started again. He was only addressing me now, his green eyes piercing into mine. “I wasn’t trying to be insensitive.”

“We haven’t checked the garage.” I admitted, my voice softening. “We wanted to wait for the two of you to get here.”

“We don’t know the access code anyway.” Howie had wandered away from the rest of us, and he was now busy inspecting the pin-pad that was mounted on the exterior of the house next to the three-car garage. “I don’t suppose that any of you guys have a key.”

“I never even thought about how we were going to get in.” Kevin frowned. “Maybe we should just head down to the police station and speak with the detectives. They might be willing to give us the key if they found one – if Nick had one on him when …”

“I know the code.” I interrupted Kevin before he could say the word ‘body’ or ‘killed’. I swallowed the lump that was forming in my throat and walked briskly towards the garage, well aware of the fact that the others were watching me with more than mild interest.

Howie stepped aside to allow me access to the pin-pad, and I swiftly entered the six digit code without hesitation: 750220. The security system beeped twice in response and the garage door began to rise amidst a series of squeaking and grinding noises.

“Really?” AJ ducked under the partially open door. “How did you know that it was your birthday?”

I followed AJ’s lead and ducked under the still opening door. “He’s used the same security code for every house that he’s ever owned. I just assumed that this one would be the same.”

“One of his cars is gone.” Kevin announced the obvious. “I was really hoping that Lauren’s car would be the one that was missing.”

“We know, Kev.” AJ sighed. “We were all hoping for the same thing.”

“There might be something inside that will tell us where she is.” I tried to interject a sliver of hope into my voice as I crossed the garage and headed towards the door that opened into the house. “Let’s not count Lauren out before we’ve exhausted all of our options.”

“What are you expecting to see?” Howie grumbled. “A note telling us where Lauren is and why Nick was at that club last night?”

I ignored Howie’s comment as I pushed open the door to the house. It had never even occurred to me that the garage door would be locked. However, the thought had apparently occurred to everyone else, and I suppressed a smirk at my friends’ surprise as I stepped easily into the laundry room. I punched in the security code for the second time and the alarm system stopped beeping; an eerie quiet descending upon the house.

“Of course Nick doesn’t lock his garage door.” AJ shook his head in mock disgust and stepped up beside me. “What the hell goes on in that head of his?”

AJ and I were now standing shoulder to shoulder in the laundry room. I could hear his breathing starting to become more laboured as we stood there staring at the washer and dryer. A pair of Nick’s jeans was crumbled up on top of the washer and a pile of his neatly folded t-shirts sat on top of the dryer.

“Maybe we shouldn’t go in.” I was having a hard time pulling my eyes away from Nick’s clothes. “What if we disturb something? What if we mess up some kind of evidence?”

“What evidence?” Howie stepped around me and AJ. He gave the two of us a curious look as he crossed the room and pushed open the door that opened into the kitchen. “His house isn’t a crime scene.”

“Even still … there might be something here that the police will want to look at.” I remained rooted to the spot, my eyes fixed on the pile of Nick’s t-shirts.

“There’s no reason why we can’t have a look around. Maybe we will find something useful and save the police the trouble of having to look for it.” Howie stated his case before disappearing from view.

“Are you guys coming?” Kevin raised his eyebrows as he, too, stepped around me and AJ. “Howie’s right. There’s no reason why we can’t have a look around.”

AJ and I exchanged a pained expression as Kevin disappeared after Howie. As much as I had been in a hurry to go inside when we had first arrived, I now had absolutely no desire to go snooping around Nick’s house. The thought of being near his possessions was enough to make me want to pass out. Even being this close to his clothing was sending a series of shooting pains from my abdomen to my chest.

“Are you okay?” AJ’s breathing was definitely laboured as his eyes drifted towards my chest.

I looked down and was surprised to see my own hand clutching at the fabric of my shirt. “I’m fine.”

“Liar.” AJ hissed, taking a gulping breath.

“I’m not the one who’s having trouble breathing.” I shot back, wincing as the pain in my chest intensified.

“I’m not the one who’s grabbing at my chest.” AJ narrowed his eyes. “Please don’t have a heart attack.”

“I’m not having a heart attack.” I wasn’t sure if the statement was entirely true, but I took a tentative step forward to reinforce it anyways. “Let’s go find Howie and Kevin.”

“This is fucking weird.” AJ cursed as he followed me into the kitchen. “We shouldn’t fucking be here, man.”

I did a quick scan of the kitchen; nothing appeared to be out of place. There was a half-empty glass of Ginger Ale on the counter and a few unopened pieces of mail on the table. Aside from those few items, everything else was clean and in its proper location. My eyes drifted around the remainder of the kitchen before settling on the heaping bowl of dog food that was optimally placed next to a practically overflowing water dish.

I was in the middle of opening my mouth to ask AJ about Nacho when the pudgy pug banged through the doggy door that connected to the backyard. The obese creature huffed and puffed its way into the kitchen and headed directly for the water dish. My eyes filled with tears as I watched Nacho noisily lap at the water; the poor thing had no idea that his ‘daddy’ was never coming home.

“Great.” AJ also had his eyes trained on Nacho. “Who do you think is going to become responsible for that thing?”

I thought about the look that would appear on Leighanne’s face if I were to return home with Nacho by my side. I could practically see the smoke rising out of her ears. “I wouldn’t mind having him.”

AJ snorted and bit at his bottom lip as the two of us left the kitchen and headed down the hallway towards the living room. I could hear Howie and Kevin talking as we approached the front of the house, so I purposely avoided looking in any of the other rooms. If the sight of Nacho was enough to bring me to tears, I definitely wouldn’t be able to handle looking in the first-floor office that was filled with all of Nick’s most prized possessions.

“What’s all that?” AJ asked as the two of us stepped into the living room.

Kevin and Howie were sitting on the couch, peering at the mess of papers that was splayed out across the coffee table. The typed-written pages appeared to be email printouts and Nick’s handwriting was scrawled across the majority of them. He had made notes and arrows in all different colours of ink and there were a few post-it-notes thrown in here and there for good measure.

“You two were working on new material?” Kevin directed the question at me; his eyes were almost accusatory.

I sank down onto the empty loveseat and picked up one of the sheets of paper. Nick and I had been sending each other lyrics and song ideas since we had returned from Europe. We had each been recording audio clips and revising one another’s concepts with the intent of presenting some of the better songs to the others during the second leg of the North American tour.

The paper was shaking in my hands as I stared at the notes that Nick had made about one of my latest suggestions. I had only emailed him the lyrics a couple of days ago; I hadn’t even had time to record the basic sound clip. My eyes burned with unshed tears as I tried to make sense of the arrows that criss-crossed the page. He had printed the document directly from his email account; our addresses still visible at the top of the paper.

“It was for the group.” I returned the piece of paper to the coffee table. “We were going to show you guys what we had been working on as soon as the tour started.”

“There’s some good stuff here.” Howie, unlike Kevin, seemed impressed. “Is there audio to go with any of these lyrics?”

“We’ve each recorded some stuff.” I shrugged and dropped my eyes to the table. “Not like it matters now.”

AJ slowly lowered himself into the empty seat beside me on the loveseat. He grabbed a few sheets of paper off of the coffee table and began to flip through them. “We could still piece together whatever it is that Nick has already recorded and make it work. It would be easy to mix his vocals with ours.”

“We’re getting ahead of ourselves.” Kevin tossed the sheets of paper that he was holding back on top of the pile. “This is not what we came here to do.”

“You’re right.” Howie anxiously rubbed his palms against his knees. “We need to figure out where Lauren is. Then, we need to speak to the police and find out what really happened to Nick. We also need to release some kind of a statement to the media and to the fans; Eddie has already been pestering me about that. After that, we need to see if there’s a will, which I’m assuming there is considering that there was a Next of Kin Contact form.”

I felt dizzy as I listened to Howie rhyme off all of the things that still needed to be done. Truth be told, I didn’t even want to think about doing any of those things. Aside from finding out what had happened to Nick, of course. At the moment, all I really wanted to do was bury my face in one of Nick’s couch cushions and cry.

“Jesus, D.” AJ rubbed at his face. “Are you letting yourself process what’s happened? I don’t want a repeat performance of the situation that followed your sister’s funereal.”

“Of course I’m aware of what’s happened.” Howie snapped. “I was just explaining what needs to be done.”

Kevin caught my eye and gave me an anxious look. It was clear that he had already come to the conclusion that Howie was bottling up his feelings. Not knowing what else to do, I simply returned my cousin’s look of despair. There wasn’t a hope in hell of getting Howie to openly grieve until he was ready.

“It looks as though you’re about to check one item off of your to-do list.” AJ pulled his hands away from his face and nodded in the direction of the window that faced the front porch. “Here come the cops.”

I sucked in my breath as I mirrored AJ’s line of sight. Two plain-clothed police officers were approaching the front door. They were both dressed in business suites; guns holstered at their sides and their faces set in determination. I watched as they simultaneously stepped onto the porch and removed their badges from their pockets. One man pressed the bell and all of our eyes met in apprehension as the slow chime echoed through the house. This was it.