past me without a glance and seeking solace in Alan Dale’s comforting arms.
As soon as I saw the two of them together, I understood that their relationship was the real deal and I backed off completely. I don’t know if Alan had any knowledge about the reality of Jasmine’s comped-seat arrangement. He might have known, or then again he might not. He sure as hell didn’t know that the bus-and-truck company was really nothing more than camouflage for a drug-smuggling outfit, and neither did Jasmine. The investigation into that concluded weeks later without either one of them ever being charged with a crime.
And now, all these years later, here was Alan, asking for my help. Obviously Jasmine must not have told him about what had happened between the two of us. If she had, it seemed unlikely that he would have come to me looking for help concerning his errant daughter. And if Jasmine had never told him about it, I sure as hell wasn’t going to be the one to fess up.
Alan let out a soft snore, startling himself awake. “Sorry,” he said, sitting up straight. “I didn’t mean to drop off like that.”
“Not to worry,” I told him. “I suspect you needed that nap way more than you need either food or coffee.”
“Probably,” he agreed, picking up his sandwich. “So where were we?”
“I believe you were going to tell me about Naomi,” I told him. “Maybe we should start there.”
Chapter 2
I WAITED UNTIL ALAN’S SANDWICH WAS GONE BEFORE moving forward. “All right,” I said, pulling out my iPad. “If I’m going to help you on this, I need to know the details of what I’m up against.”
In the old days, my tools of choice would have been a ragged little notebook and a stubby pencil, but those seem to have gone the way of the buggy whip. Now I’m iPad all the way.
Alan leaned back in his chair, looked across at me, and said, “What do you need to know?”
“Everything,” I said, “starting with what you’ve been doing in the thirty years or so since I last laid eyes on you.”
“Jasmine and I went home,” he said simply, “home to Jasmine’s folks’ place in Jasper, Texas. Her dad was still alive back then. Jasper is north of Beaumont.”
Since Beaumont, Texas, my father’s hometown, is the real origin of my last name, I happen to be well versed in the location of that particular city.
“I’m from Oakridge, Oregon, originally,” Alan continued. “Jasmine and I grew up in small towns, and when we bailed on Seattle, we were ready to be away from big cities and off the road. We both figured that Jasmine’s career was over, but I was pretty sure that with my carpentry skills I could find enough work to keep body and soul together no matter where we lived. We found a house—Jasmine’s folks helped us with that—and we moved in together. We were planning to get married eventually, but when Jasmine turned up pregnant unexpectedly, we moved up the wedding date.”
“And got married in Vegas,” I put in.
“Exactly,” he said.
“And then what happened?”
“Jasper’s a small town. Everybody there knew that Jasmine had been a big star once, and in their eyes she still was. She started singing again, only at church to begin with, but people paid attention. When Helen asked Jasmine to come to perform at a statewide Christian women’s conference, something totally unexpected happened. She was a huge hit, and it was the beginning of Jasmine’s next chapter, as it were. She had started out singing gospel music. She had gone from there to rock, rock to jazz, and finally from jazz back to gospel.”
“Full circle, in other words,” I commented.
“Right,” Alan said. “She picked up several paying gigs just from that first conference alone. She did mostly church-sponsored events where she told her story and sang gospel songs. Everyplace she went, her program was a hit. There aren’t huge amounts of money to be made in the Christian-music business—at least there wasn’t back then—but by the time Naomi was three, Jasmine was making almost as much from her appearances as I was bringing in from working construction.
“And that’s when we decided to turn it into a business. She recorded a couple of albums, and then we bought a van and took our show back on the road. I went from being a head carpenter to being a tour manager. I set up the gigs, drove the van, sold the merchandise, did the