Hillbilly Rockstar (Blacktop Cowboys 6)

“What happened?”

“Someone shot the hell out of your tour bus. And when we couldn’t find you . . . we thought maybe you’d been kidnapped. Especially since there was no sign of Liberty either. And once we got on the bus, it looked like you’d left abruptly. Both your cell phones were on board, as well as Liberty’s purse. She’d left her laptop on and your TV was blaring in your bedroom. So where were you?”

“I rented a car and we drove down to Galveston.”

“Be nice if you f**king told someone and didn’t just go off and do your own damn thing, boss.” Crash stomped away.

Devin glanced over to see Liberty in conversation with a cop in plainclothes. He headed toward her.

“. . . inside. Different story on the outside.”

“Can you tell me what’s goin’ on?” he asked the guy, not Liberty.

“Someone shot up your bus tonight, Mr. McClain.”

“Was anyone hurt?”

“There wasn’t anyone on the bus, which was a good thing. Your band had taken their bus to run errands and grab some dinner, was my understanding. Half the road crew went along with them. The rest of the road crew was inside setting up.”

“Thank God for that. Did they catch who did it?” Please say yes. Please say it was some crankhead shooting stuff up on a dare and this wasn’t directed at me.

“No, sir, we don’t have any suspects. We don’t have any witnesses either.”

“So this could’ve been random.” Devin noticed the guy wore a detective badge around his neck.

The detective rubbed the skin between his eyes. “It could’ve been. Or the shooter knew this was your bus and, for whatever reason, emptied twenty rounds into it, hoping one of those rounds hit you.”

Jesus.

Then the detective turned so no one could see what they were discussing. “Your security specialist has informed me because of previous incidents you’ve been assigned a full-time bodyguard?”

“That is correct.”

“Well, you’d better give her a big raise because keeping you away from the arena tonight might’ve saved your life. You’re a lucky man.”

Chapter Twenty-one

Lucky.

Yeah, right.

Liberty wanted to throw up. She’d gotten so f**king cocky the last week. Believing that the worst had passed because the protesting had stopped.

But this? Shooting up the tour bus? This was worse than everything else that had happened during the tour combined.

She listened with barely controlled skepticism as the detective in charge and the cops discussed the ballistics pattern, which they were very careful to point out didn’t denote intent. The shooter sprayed a wide arc to hit as much surface area as possible. Didn’t mean the shooter knew the rear of the bus contained the master bedroom.

She called bullshit on that. If it was random vandalism, why not go for maximum damage and shoot out the windows in the front?

Without any witnesses, chances were good the shooter had left the area undetected. They were waiting for footage from the security cameras scattered throughout the event center’s parking lot, but they couldn’t access it until tomorrow.

So while she knew the cops were only doing their job, keeping things vague until they had some real answers, it pissed her the f**k off. Especially when the lead detective asked if Crash knew if the venue had sold out for the performance. Like the shooting had been some sort of publicity stunt to sell more tickets. Then he asked if any of the media outlets had been contacted.

That’s when Liberty had lost her cool. She pointed out that the dozen cop cars with flashing lights and a police barricade with two dozen cops milling about would clue in the media that something was going on a helluva lot faster than a phone call.

Devin wasn’t around for what happened after that, since the detective thought it wise to separate them.

He took her inside the bus and tested her hands for gunpowder residue. He asked to see her weapons. He asked to see her permit to carry concealed. The whole time he was checking to see if her guns had been fired, he gave her a running commentary on how convenient it was that no one was around when the shots were fired. And how convenient that she and Devin were mysteriously gone and no one could get in touch with them. And since they hadn’t bought anything in Galveston, wasn’t it convenient that they didn’t have a receipt to show they’d been ninety miles away on the beach.

That’s when she knew that they’d file this as a public nuisance case.

Her fury threatened to consume her. How many more dangerous situations was Devin going to deal with before actual harm came to him? Would something be done about it only when he’d taken a bullet or been beat to shit? Devin’s safety had been compromised and no one gave a damn.

The detective’s disbelieving look about her being Devin’s bodyguard had burned her ass. As had his raised eyebrows and smarmy grin when he was asked to keep her position classified. The sexual innuendo hadn’t been spoken, but it had sure as hell had been implied.

She hated that the dismissive attitude of the cops was affecting her confidence. And it didn’t help that they were directing all their questions to Crash, not to her. Because he had a dick? Because he wasn’t sleeping with Devin McClain?

Liberty snapped out of her fog of anger when her name was called. “Yes, Detective?”

“We’ve decided to impound the bus until we can access the security tapes.”

“Everything we need on tour is on that bus.”