(2004)

If Lance had looked over his shoulder, back at the rest of the courtroom, he would have seen his band mates sitting on the bench directly behind him, with his mother and father, his sister and her husband.

He didn’t look over his shoulder, though. Instead he looked straight ahead at the witness stand.

Detective Simon sat in the partially enclosed seat designated for the witness. He raised his right hand and swore to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Lance watched as the detective answered all of the questions that the state prosecutor asked him using full, detailed sentences.

"Did you ever think, possibly, when you started this investigation, that the defendant, Mr. Bass, would be responsible for fraudulent dealings with his own company?" the prosecutor asked.

For the first time during the interrogation, Detective Simon paused. Then he shook his head. "No. Never."
--
(1999)

Lance took the steps up to JC’s apartment two at a time. The stucco wall was rough against the palm of the hand he used to balance himself.

He pushed the small button of the doorbell and listened to the gong-like ring. He waited for a minute, shifting his weight from one foot to the other as he waited for JC to open the door.

JC looked tired when he opened the door. "Lance?" He rubbed a hand over his eyes. "What’s up?"

Lance gently pushed his way by JC to enter the apartment. He turned around and faced JC.

"Hypothetically speaking," Lance said. He ran fingers through flat blond hair. "Let’s say you had a friend who maybe wasn’t so much of a friend as you thought he was."

JC crossed his arms over his chest and tipped his head just slightly to the right side. "Okay?"

"And let’s say that sometimes he did work for you."

JC arched one eyebrow.

"If you found out that he was doing bad things to you, things against you, but he had been a really good friend, what would you do?"

"What do you mean?" JC asked.

"If he’d been doing illegal stuff," Lance said. "Would you fire him, or would you turn into the police?"

Blinking, JC stared at Lance. "But Lou hasn’t been doing illegal stuff to us. Do you know something else that I don’t know? Has he been doing illegal stuff?"

Lance frowned. "I’m not talking about Lou."

JC didn’t look like he believed Lance. "Hypothetically speaking, this friend. I’d let him go for sure, definitely not resign with him—cause that would just be stupid—but about turning him into the cops. I don’t know."

"That’s my problem." Lance sighed loudly.
--

Lance had never been to Tommy’s office in Jackson before, but when he walked in, it looked exactly like he had pictured it would look.

He watched as the secretary called back to Tommy’s office and said, "There is a Mr. Bass here to see you, Sir."

Tommy’s head popped out the door to his office and into the waiting room the next instant.

"Lance?" he asked. "What’re you doing here, man?"

Lance shrugged. He walked towards Tommy, close enough so that he could talk in a lower pitched voice.

"You free?"

Tommy looked down at his watch and then nodded. "Yeah. Sure." He turned and walked into his office.

Lance stepped into the room, following Tommy, and shut the door behind them.

"What do you need, Lance?"

Lance sat down in one of the three chairs in the office. He took a deep, ragged breath.

"I’m sorry, Tom, but I’m going to have to let you go."

Tommy blinked. "What?"

"I’m going to have to let you go," Lance repeated. "I don’t need your services anymore."

"But." Tommy went pale. He was silent. "Why? Was I not keeping the books to your satisfaction?"

"I don’t have the money to keep you," Lance said. He crossed two fingers on his left hand lightly and hid them behind his crossed legs. "Lou’s causing me some problems right now, and I think I may have to dissolve the company and just pay him back what I can—"

"And I don’t fit into the company anymore," Tommy said.

Lance nodded. He pressed his two crossed fingers together and nearly bit down on his lip.

"Well, if that’s the way you feel." Tommy trailed off.

"It is." Lance stood up and stuck his hand out for Tommy to shake. "I’m sorry, Tom." There was only a hint of mocking malice in his voice when he said: "You’ve been an invaluable help."
--

(2000)

"What’re you doing?" Chris asked as he slid into the booth in the front of the bus. He looked across the table at Lance, and then, ignoring the fact that Lance was reading the book on the table between them, Chris lifted it up to read the cover. "Advanced Accounting?"

Lance nodded.

"Isn’t that what you have Tommy for?" Chris asked. "You’re the brains, he’s the money, right? That’s how your company works?"

Lance shrugged. "I fired him."

"What?" Chris shook his head, trying to clear it. "You fired him? He’s still your friend, right?"

Lance’s nod was only slightly jerky.

"I just." He paused. "I want to try doing the books myself for awhile. I think I need to figure out how to run all aspects of my business. By myself."

Chris looked at him, confused.

Lance looked back down at the book in front of him and kept reading.
--

Lance couldn’t mentally place the number on the caller ID screen of his cell phone, but it looked familiar, so he took the call anyway.

"Lance." The voice was raspy, thin.

It sent a shiver down Lance’s spine. He looked around the green room and saw that his band mates were congregated at the other end of the room.

"What do you want, Lou?"

"You have a choice, boy," Lou said. "I will let you guys go without too much of a fight if you give me back my money now. But if you don’t, I’ll put up a fight for you all, dragging you all so deep into legal troubles, you won’t know what hit you."

Lance turned so that he was facing the wall.

"I don’t have that sort of money."

"You could ask your mother," Lou said. "She did co-sign all of your contracts, after all. 200,000. That should be her house, right?"

"My mother’s not paying for my mistakes," Lance said.

"What would that mistake be?" Lou sounded amused.

"That mistake would be trusting you," Lance said. He nearly spat the words. He turned around briefly and saw Joey looking over at him. He turned back to the wall.

"Life is made up of lessons," Lou said. He breathed deeply twice and the sound echoed over the phone connection. "It’s your choice, Lance. The fate of the group rests in your hands. An easy departure or a continuation of your loan."

"You can’t do that," Lance said softly, harshly.

"Watch me," Lou said before he ended the phone connection.
--

The pen cap tapped against the desktop, the hard plastic bouncing. Then the pen was lifted and brought up and rested between two lips and a set of teeth. The jaw clamped down, cracking and flattening the blue plastic.

"Two options." Lance spoke around the intruder in his mouth to the otherwise empty room. "Liquidate and pay Lou off as much as I can now." He paused, chewing more frantically. "Or keep going and get the money some other way."

For a long time—several hours—Lance stared upwards, off into space.
--

Lance had fallen asleep on his desk, apparently, because he jerked awake when the phone beside his head started ringing.

He fumbled for the handset, knocking it off of its base. With sleep-swollen fingers, he picked the handset up, fumbling it slightly, and put it to his ear.

"Hello?" He rolled his jaw twice, trying to loosen it.

"Mr. Bass?"

Lance blinked widely, twice. "Yes?"

"My name is Paul Silver. I’m with Mercury Records, in Nashville?"

Lance sat up straight in his desk chair. His spine popped several times.

"Yes, Mr. Silver. What can I do for you?"

"I just heard the demo tape for your client Meredith Edwards," Silver said. "I would like to bring her in for a more in depth appraisal."

As he was reaching for a pen to write down information, his hand brushed across the sheet of paper he’d fallen asleep on. He read the words that he’d circled. Liquidate the company.

With one swipe of the pen he crossed the circle out and circled the other option. Find some other way.

"Yes, Mr. Silver. When would be a good time for you?"
--

Meredith bounced in her seat on the entire flight back from Nashville to Jackson. Her eyes sparkled and her cheeks were pink.

"Oh, my gosh, Lance," she said as she clutched at his arm. "They really want me."

Lance nodded and patted her arm awkwardly.

"This’ll be the start for both of us," she said. "Me as a singer and you as a real, live manager."

"I manage Dominic, too, you know," Lance said. He smiled fondly at Meredith.

"But in music," Meredith said. "You told me you were just taking Dominic on for the money he could bring in."

Lance nodded. "And this’ll be the start for both of us."

Meredith had turned away already, her attention drawn back to the record contract sitting in her lap.
--

The five men were bouncing with excitement as they made their way back to the greenroom at the MTV studios.

JC slapped Lance’s back as he ran down the hall, Chris chasing after him. They were laughing, excited, like they always got after a performance.

Lance smiled to see that. He had already caused them enough pain by not being able to pay Lou off and thus, dragging them far into legal troubles.

Soon, hopefully, if he got the loan he wanted. Then he’d be able to get the money back to Lou.

When Lance got back to the greenroom, he had a message on his cell phone. Moving to a quiet corner of the room, he listened to it.

"Mr. Bass," the voice said. "We’re sorry, but we feel we must turn down your loan application. On top of the extreme outstanding status of your current loan, we here at First National Bank of Orlando don’t feel that you have enough assets to warrant our investment. We apologize and hope that you have a nice day."

Lance pinched the bridge of his nose and muttered a soft curse.
--

He was alone, finally, at his parents’ house in Mississippi. He had the first check—Meredith’s signing fee—an advance from her upcoming CD—sitting in front of him.

It would help pay off his debts to Lou, but it, in itself, was only 100,000 dollars. From that, legally, he was only entitled to 20,000. And 20,000 dollars wasn’t anywhere close to 200,000.

He had a sheet of paper in front of him with the amount of money he needed to come up with at the top. From that he subtracted 20,000 dollars. It was better, but not perfect.

The books that Tommy had so meticulously kept were also sitting in front of him. He opened them and began studying the loopholes that the other man had made. The proverbial wheels in his head started clicking.

Lance worked slowly, meticulously, creating new loopholes and adding the amount of money he’d be able to glean from them in the next month to the number on the sheet in front of him.

Finally, as a last resort, he created a fake client. One that he’d be able to "put money into." A client that symbolized his own pocket.

At the bottom of the page, Lance wrote a string of words: *Because Lou will not take money from my mother and he will not drag out our legal troubles and cause us anymore pain.*

There was only one last thing that he needed to do. He needed to find someone to lay the blame on if, by some freak chance, the missing money was ever discovered.

That one person was obvious in his mind: Tommy.

He picked up the phone on the desk beside him and dialed a number he hadn’t used in a very long time.

"Tommy Wright, please?" There was a pause, then Lance spoke again. "Tom, I don’t know if you heard or not, but Meredith got signed, and suddenly there’s more money coming in than I feel capable of handling. So, man, I was wondering if you wanted your job back."

Lance smiled slyly at the answer.
--

(2004)

Joey sat in the witness stand.

"You don’t believe that your friend, Mr. Bass, did this, do you?" the prosecutor asked.

Joey shook his head. He gripped the wooden edge of the stand tightly. The knuckles on his hand turned white. "He wouldn’t do such a thing."

"And how can you say that with so much certainty, Mr. Fatone?" The prosecutor turned on his heel pacing in front of the stand.

"I can say that because I know Lance." Joey looked over at Lance, but his friend wasn’t looking at him. "You should have seen him when we discovered that Lou wasn’t going to let us go without a fight. He ranted and raged. I’ve never seen so much hate against the act of another person. And then when he discovered that Tommy—"

"Tommy?"

"Tom Wright," Joey said. "Lance’s accountant. When he discovered that Tommy was taking money, he came into our suite, yelling and ranting. Tears were streaming down his face. Why would he do something that’s caused him so much pain in the past?"

"The evidence points to him, Mr. Fatone," the prosecutor said.

"Tommy Wright is a devious character," Joey said. "He must have altered the books to make it look as if Lance had tried to blame it on him."

"Do you think you could do that, Mr. Fatone?"

"I’m not a business man." Joey shook his head. "But I don’t believe that Lance did what you say he did, either."
--

(2000)

The office was cluttered, stacked with books and papers. It looked used. Outside the birds were quiet, a departure from their normal chirped excitement.

Lance looked at the final check, addressed to Lou. The last of the money. It completely wiped out his checking account, all of the money that he’d taken from FreeLance. He was home free, but his business was simply a mask for illegal activity, because Tommy had resumed using the loopholes he’d so carefully created.

Eventually the business would fail, Lance was sure of it. And he had nothing. No money to call his own. Nothing to show for the years that he’d spent cultivating Meredith.

With a sigh, he signed off on the paper to release his fake client from his contract, sighting differences in professional objectives. He faked the client’s signature.

This was probably the end and he had nothing. Lance bit at his lip. He stared at Meredith’s first photo shoot picture at the corner of his desk. She was the only reason to stick with it—to make sure that she lived her dream. It was the objective he’d started with, after all.

On the large, two year calendar against his wall, he looked at Meredith’s CD release date. 2001. He could stick with the business until then, just to get her a head start.

He looked down at the papers in front of him, specifying the loopholes through which it looked as if Tommy had been taking money. He could keep them open until Meredith’s CD came out and make a little money off of the whole business venture. It wasn’t as if he didn’t deserve the money.

Slowly, Lance shut the books, unaltered, and set them carefully in the top drawer of his desk.

He didn’t have to take the money if he didn’t need it, it just never hurt to be prepared.
--

(2004)

The courtroom was bright, filled with white light, and a should-have-been happy feeling. It was nearly silent, though. Not jubilant at all. The only sounds were the tension-induced rustles of people shifting on the benches.

The tension was high and with every second of silence, every muffled sniffle or cough from the gallery of people watching the proceedings, it grew higher.

Lance sat behind the table used by his attorney. His back was stiff and he sat straight up. There wasn’t a wrinkle in his Armani suit. His face was devoid of any expression: calm and pale.

Suddenly, breaking the silence, the judge rapped his gavel three times. Everyone except Lance, turned to face the door that the jury would enter from.

It opened and the first person walked in. Then the next. And the next. All of their faces were serious.

When all twelve members had sat in their chairs, the judge turned to juror number one.

"Madam foreperson, have you reached a decision?"

"We have, your honor." The woman nodded and handed the piece of paper that detailed their decision to the court clerk.

The judge had just taken the paper when the large, heavy double doors of the courtroom opened.

"Stop," a voice said loudly.

The entire courtroom turned around, breaking into excited chatter.

Lance turned around. He saw Tommy.

"Stop," Tommy said again, just as loudly. "He didn’t do it."

Detective Simon stood up. He took a step towards Tommy, but the younger man kept walking forwards, farther into the courtroom.

Lance’s eyes were focused on Tommy. He blinked when Tommy turned to look at him.

"I’m sorry, Lance," Tommy said. His face was pale and he swallowed convulsively two times. "I couldn’t let you take the fall for this. I thought I could, but I couldn’t."

Police officers moved, hemming Tommy in on all sides.

"You did this, Mr. Wright?" Detective Simon asked. He was close enough to grip Tommy’s arm if he should decide to suddenly bolt.

Tommy nodded. "I took the money. I made it look as if Lance took it, but I did. I can show you how. He knew nothing. He was just trying to run his business."

"You took the two million dollars?" Detective Simon asked again.

Tommy’s eyes widened. He looked at Lance.

Lance, in turn, stared back. His face was stony. He didn’t blink. He merely stared.

Finally, after seconds that seemed like an eternity, Tommy looked forward again—staring straight at Detective Simon. "I took the money." He paused. "All two million dollars of it."

Sighs of relief echoed around the room as handcuffs were snapped on Tommy’s wrists.

Justin, Joey, JC, and Chris all leapt from their seats and ran to wrap their arms around Lance. They whispered things like, "oh, thank god," and "our lives can go back to normal now," and "I knew you didn’t do it, dude."

Lance only smiled twice. Once when Tommy was led out of the courtroom. And then again when the television cameras were focused on him as he walked down the steps of the courthouse and his lawyer made a speech about how wonderful a day it was when justice was served.
--

(2003)

The glow of the computer screen filled the room with a blue light, but the electric hum filled Lance’s ears. When he clicked on the mouse, the small, sharp sound, was nearly a shock to his system.

The web page loaded slowly, filling the screen.

He read the foreign words, translating them in his mind: The Bank of Switzerland.

On a different screen, he had the electronic check from his bank in Orlando—the account no one but him knew existed. He saw his signature. And the typed letters, making that screen worth 25,000 dollars.

With one click of the mouse, he transferred all of the money left in the Orlando account to Switzerland. With another click, he checked to make sure that the money had arrived in his Swiss account. And, with two more clicks, he closed both of the windows, leaving the transaction simply a memory in his mind.
--

(2004)

It was odd to Lance, to be back in his own house. He turned around once, in the empty rooms. The air was stale.

Without turning on the lights, he walked over to the phone and dialed a number he knew far too well.

"Tommy Wright, please," he said to the prison official that answered the phone.

It was several minutes before Tommy came to the phone. The time was filled by the crackle of static over the prison line.

"Yeah," Tommy said gruffly.

"Why’d you do it?" Lance asked simply.

Again, more silence. More crackles of static. Lance could hear other prisoners talking in the background.

"Because you’re my friend," Tommy said softly. "And I—"

Lance hung up the phone, cutting off whatever the next words would have been.
--

The phone rang once, twice. The answering machine picked up before the third ring. Lance stood in the doorway of his kitchen, staring at the small machine resting on the beige tiled counter.

"Lance, man." Joey’s voice was happy, excited, relieved, and relaxed. "So, Johnny just called and we have studio time scheduled for Friday, so like, two days from now. I didn’t know if you’d already gotten your ticket back here or not, so." He stopped talking. "I’m so glad it’s all over, man. We can all go on with our lives now." There was a short bark of laughter. "So, I’ll talk to you later, I guess."

There was the sound of a dial tone, then the answering machine beeped five times. There was a repetitive clicking sound and then there was silence.

Lance turned away from the kitchen doorway and walked back into the depths of his house.
--

Yellow light gently illuminated the study of Lance’s house. There was a stack of white paper on the desk in front of him and balls of crumpled paper littering the floor around his chair.

The only sounds in the room were his slow, shallow breathing and the scratch of the pen he held across the sheets of paper.

Lance sat back and lifted the piece of paper up off of the desk. He read over the words in their entirety twice, barely mouthing them, and finally nodded. He folded the paper into thirds and stuck it in a business size envelope.

On the front he wrote a single word: Joey.

He balanced the envelope in the ridges between the buttons on his keyboard. He placed it so that it would be easily visible. Then he turned off the desk lamp, plunging the room into dusky gray.

Pushing his chair backwards, he stood up carefully before bending down and gathering up all of the crumpled balls of paper. He walked out to the living room of the house—over to the fireplace—and spread his arms, letting all of the paper fall on top of the logs.

With one deft movement, he flipped a light switch on the wall, and watched, satisfied, as the paper went up in flames. When there wasn’t even a single white ash left, he flipped the switch again, and the flames instantaneously died.

He looked around the living room one last time—memorizing it, because it was his dream house, after all—and walked over to the entryway. There he had two bags: a suitcase and a black leather briefcase.

He opened the front door of the house and picked both bags up, one in each hand. He stepped over the threshold, set the suitcase down on the front stoop, and closed the door behind him.

He locked it and heard the clicks as each bolt flipped into place. Then he bounced the keys gently in his hand, judging their weight, almost, before he tossed them into the bushes.

Using his free hand, Lance checked the piece of paper with his flight information that was sitting in his coat pocket. Then he turned around one final time and walked away from the house.

He didn’t even say goodbye.