Hillbilly Rockstar (Blacktop Cowboys 6)

She followed the sound, stopping when the noise became sporadic and she couldn’t tell where it was coming from.

Then she heard it again.

Sounded like someone was smacking a heavy bag with a baseball bat.

She picked her way along the back wall of the event center, lured by grunts and low-pitched male voices. She paused in front of a concrete loading bay and scanned the area. Pale yellow light from the lone lightbulb shone ten feet above the ground by the loading dock’s back door.

In the corner were two figures, and one guy was whaling on the other.

Silently creeping along the concrete wall into the loading bay, she kept her hand close to her gun.

“Stop.” The guy on the ground wheezed. “I’ll get the money. I promise.”

“Heard that one before. Carny ain’t happy. Been six months that you owed him, JT.”

She froze. JT?

“Chumley f**ked me up bad in Kansas City. I was outta work for three months! You gotta cut me some slack. I said I was working on it. Alls I got on me is five grand. I swear I got something goin’ on that’ll pay Carny in full.”

Jesus, what the hell was JT into?

Right then she decided not to get involved. But she couldn’t take a chance they’d see her, so she pressed her body against the wall where the shadows were the deepest.

“Gimme the f**kin’ money. And I’m keeping half of it as personal compensation for havin’ to track you f**kin’ down again.”

“But—”

The standing guy smacked JT across the shoulders with some kind of club.

JT yelled in pain.

“Shut the f**k up. Anyone comes running and I bust you in the face, understand?”

All she heard was a whimper.

“Good. Now get your flabby ass off the ground and gimme the money.”

JT rolled to all fours and pushed upright with no help from the thug. Then he stood and dug his hand into his jacket pocket and passed over a thick wad of bills. “That’s all I got. That don’t even leave me money to eat.”

“Boo-fuckin’-hoo. I saw you stuffing your face in that room with all the tables of fancy food. You don’t look like you’re starving anyway, lard ass.” The thug swung the club and laughed when JT leaped back. He started to walk backward out of the docking bay. “Stay right there until I’m gone. One week, motherfucker.”

Liberty’s heart raced when the thug passed by her. But he was too busy watching JT to see if he attacked him to notice her. After the guy cleared the area, she counted. She hit one hundred and twenty when she heard an engine start and tires peel away.

“Fuck! Fuck, f**k, f**k.” JT wiped his face on the sleeve of his jacket and took out his phone. He started to pace. “I need to talk to Waverly O’Brien. No, you can’t tell him who’s calling. Just tell him it’s about some pictures he’d be interested in.”

Waverly O’Brien. Why was that name familiar?

Then it clicked. The reporter from the religious magazine Song of Solomon who wrote the nasty article about Devin turning his back on his core audience by performing “What Love Isn’t.” So why was JT contacting him? And what pictures was he talking about?

Son of a f**king bitch.

Of course JT would have pictures of Devin and his groupies since he’d been Devin’s bus driver for a few years. Given the fact she’d just heard he owed someone money, the bastard planned to sell them to get himself out of debt.

Or maybe, all those feelings of being watched meant that JT had been snapping pictures of Devin and her. But why? She was nobody.

But Devin isn’t. His love life had been reported on for years.

“No, I won’t hold,” JT snapped. “I’ll leave a message. You tell him to expect a call from me tomorrow or I’ll find another magazine to publish these pictures of Devin McClain and he’ll lose out.”

JT hung up, muttering to himself.

No way was she letting this piece of shit hand-grenade Devin’s career. No. Way.

When he started to shuffle up the ramp, Liberty stepped out of the shadows. “Hey, JT.”

The man jumped about a foot. “Oh, uh, hey, Liberty. What’re you doin’ out here?”

“Getting some fresh air. But it’s funny. Something out here smells rotten. Like really rotten. Rotten to the core.”

JT froze about fifteen feet from her, his hand in his pocket. “Did you follow me?”

“I figured what goes around comes around. You’ve been following Devin and me everywhere.”

“Lady, you’re whacked.”

“So you don’t plan on selling the pictures you’ve taken of us to settle a debt?”

“I have no idea what the f**k you’re talking about.”

“Don’t lie. I heard your phone conversation. And I heard you whining to that enforcer. That attack on Devin’s tour bus never was about him, was it? It was all about you. You’ve been f**king him over since the second you started working for him.”

The shift from clueless bus driver to slimeball was instantaneous. “You think you’re so f**kin’ smart. But you ain’t the first bitch to suck Devin’s c**k and you ain’t gonna be the last. So why don’t you just go and get back on your knees where you belong and keep your mouth shut unless you’re blowing him?”

Liberty laughed. “You are such a pig. But you’re smart enough to keep Devin and the tour company snowed. You stole his guitars and hocked them, didn’t you?”