Karen Kingsbury - Fifteen Minutes

Chandra blocked him from her Facebook page and filed a report with the Birmingham police.

“The guy’s annoying,” the Birmingham officer told her. “But anyone can make a Facebook page. We can’t even prove he’s a guy or that he lives in Alabama. People like this are rarely serious.” The officer added that there wouldn’t be enough hours in the day to investigate every crazy threat made against a celebrity. “It comes with the territory.”

Yes. It came with the territory. Another aspect of being in the public eye. Chandra tried to believe the officer’s words. The threat was nothing. Her concert schedule rolled on, and Chandra talked to her mother every night before she took the stage, same as always. Once she even shared her fears about the guy.

“I should get you a bodyguard, Mama. I have one.”

“Don’t be silly.” Her mama’s calm never wavered. “God’s in control, baby. Me and your daddy are fine.”

“I wish you were with me.” Fear made the drafty wings of the arena colder than usual. “You and Daddy could come out on the road.”

“Aww, Chandra.” Her mom’s smile rang through her words. “When we retire we’ll be front row at every show.”

Chandra had two minutes before her first song. “I love you.”

“I love you, too. Do me a favor, baby.”

“What?”

“Out there tonight, picture me and your daddy in the front row. We’re with you, baby girl. We’re always with you.” Her emotion got ahead of her. “I’m so proud of you, Chandra.”

Her mama’s confidence kept Chandra sane, helped her forget the stalker’s awful comment. But one warm night later that week, her parents pulled into their driveway after a church service and climbed out of their car. One of the neighbors was outside getting her mail and saw everything. Chandra’s parents were laughing and talking, full of life. Her father had just taken her mother’s hand when a spray of bullets exploded from the front porch, ripping through their bodies and dropping them to the ground. They were dead before the neighbor could call for help.

The man turned out to be certifiably insane, an escaped patient from a mental hospital. He waited on the Olsons’ front porch until the police arrived, at which point he handed himself over and readily admitted to the killings. “I wanted Chandra’s attention,” he told police.

It worked.

Life would forever be measured as before and after the shootings. No question, a part of Chandra was buried right here with her parents. In the wake of their murders, she took two months off and became a recluse, handling her parents’ affairs, afraid to leave their house. Eventually she hired two additional bodyguards and returned to the limelight.

She had no choice. The stage owned her now. It was where she belonged.

Questions plagued her then the way they did four years later, here at the cemetery. What was the point of fame and celebrity? All the record sales and accolades and awards? The money and houses and vacations? None of it could take her back to that moment, her mother’s hands on her cheeks.

Her parents’ faith had been strong and foundational, a key to Chandra’s life before Fifteen Minutes . Now only one Bible character allowed Chandra a sense of understanding, a point of relating.

Solomon.

The king who had everything but finished his days believing the most desperate of thoughts—that all of life was meaningless. A chasing after the wind. Chandra had read the book of Ecclesiastes again on her Bible app during the flight here, and once more she had found her life verse, the only one that applied, Ecclesiastes 2:17, a nugget of sad truth tucked in the mix of a host of depressing Scriptures. She remembered the verse word for word.

So I hated my life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

Her newest album was number one on iTunes, and she’d been asked back to Fifteen Minutes. This time as a judge. She had ten million Twitter followers and daily requests for movie and book deals. But here, in the warmth and quiet of the cemetery, she could only agree with King Solomon. Where were the real winners? Life was meaningless . . . a chasing after the wind.

All of it.

She opened her journal and began to write. The lyrics came easily, pouring from the gaping holes in her heart. It would be a hit, she was sure. Even that was meaningless. Only one thing kept Chandra going, kept her engaged in the daily trap of celebrity and fame, through concerts and autograph seekers and handlers and bodyguards. It wasn’t her new role as judge on Fifteen Minutes or the countless hopefuls heading out to audition this week.

It was the twenty finalists.

The ones whose lives were about to change forever. The unsuspecting contestants who would never be the same, who could never go back to life the way it had been. Just maybe among them was a singer like she used to be, someone with faith and family and a quiet, happy life.

If she could warn just one about the false illusion and prison of fame, she would do it. In the process she might find something she’d lost four years ago with the death of her parents. The one thing celebrity could never give her. The one thing worth chasing.

Meaning.

Zack Dylan held a steaming mug of black coffee in one hand and his Bible in the other. He stood on the wraparound wooden porch of his parents’ farmhouse and watched a pair of Arabian horses run through the Kentucky bluegrass. The hundred-acre horse farm had been in the family for six generations.

He breathed deep the sweet July air and set his things down on the old wooden table. Four metal-back chairs made up the seating. Zack took the one with a view of the horses. This had been his routine lately. Taking his coffee out here and reading his Bible. He loved Jesus more than his next breath. He could feel Him close as skin. But these days he needed all the wisdom he could get. His girlfriend, Reese Weatherly, would be here in half an hour.

Their last chance to hang out before he left for Atlanta.

The Arabians stopped as if they could sense something changing, something big about to happen. Then like the wind they took off again, flying through the grass, a song in motion. Zack leaned his forearms on the old table and watched them run. His great-great-grandfather had raised thoroughbreds and in 1934 the Dylans’ horse farm had produced the winner of the Kentucky Derby. A sketch of the champion with a bouquet of roses formed the farm’s logo.

Dylan Champion Horse Farm.

A farm doomed to foreclosure if something didn’t change.

Zack let the history hit him again. Sometime in the 1950s the family stopped raising costly thoroughbreds and switched to Arabians. Now dressage riders boarded their horses here and rented time in one of the three arenas. Faith, family, and Southern horse farming. Danville, Kentucky, born and bred. The problem wasn’t the business. It was the tornado that had come through and damaged the barns and stables in January.

The damage didn’t touch the house, but the insurance didn’t cover the barns and stables. Liability, yes. Storm damage, no. The operation was too tight to justify that sort of insurance. Especially when six years ago a different tornado had done similar damage. Back then the family’s insurance had been comprehensive. After the claim, covering the outbuildings against storms wasn’t possible.

From the moment the storm passed, Zack and Duke, his fifteen-year-old brother, had worked alongside their dad to fix the damage. They needed additional lumber to replace the roofs on the outbuildings. Tens of thousands of dollars in supplies. Without that, the buildings had stayed in disrepair and most people had moved their horses to other facilities. The Dylans spent more money than they made and the tension around the kitchen table grew every day.