Once I got close

Once I got close, though, my worrywart nature took over, and I decided to check out the bus first to make sure my things were still there.

The crew knew me by now, and directed me out the back of the auditorium. I found the tour bus being guarded by a big, bearded roadie, and he let me aboard.

Utter and complete relief. All my stuff – my purse, my wallet, my phone, my computer, my luggage, Ryan’s Zoom digital recorder – were exactly where I’d stowed them, in Derek’s personal closet.

There was a message on my phone from Glen, my editor at Rolling Stone, but I wasn’t exactly looking forward to that conversation about journalistic ethics, so I just stowed the phone again and vowed to call him later.

I took just a couple of minutes to throw on some light makeup in the posh bathroom, then put my purse back and turned to exit –

When I saw Miles standing at the head of the bus.

He did not look happy.

In fact, he looked sort of like a serial killer in a horror movie. I guess it was that ‘fa