Fractured Beat (Meltdown Book 1)

by RB Hilliard

  Please let me be wrong.

  With shaking fingers I closed the pictures app, opened my mail and scrolled down to the sent folder. My finger hovered over the icon. Please let me be wrong. I opened it and slowly began scrolling through my sent mail. There had to be over a hundred sent emails in the folder. I scrolled back over the past two weeks and let out a huge breath of relief when I discovered no emails had been sent from my phone with those pictures attached. Thank God. Before closing out of my mail folder I made sure to erase my sent items as well as clean out my junk mail and empty the trash folder. As I lay there listening to the music, I had a second horrible thought. My text messages. And I knew, just like I knew when my manager was about to sell me out to the press or when Mr. Eckleston told me he was going to the drug store and I intercepted him at the liquor store. I knew I would find it there.

  “Please, please, please let me be wrong,” I whispered, as I opened my text messages. I was not much of a texter. In fact, the only two people I ever texted were CiCilia and my mother, and that was only because they insisted on texting me first. I had three missed text messages, two from CiCilia, and one from a number I’d never seen before. My stomach dropped as I pressed the number I’d never seen before and the thread of pictures popped up. The attached message read,

  I thot you might want to see this. This certanly makes my job much harder dont you think?

  I didn’t know what made me most angry, the fact that someone stole my phone, took incriminating pictures, and then pretended they were me as they sent them off to a complete stranger, or the fact they couldn’t spell worth a damn. Someone wanted to get me in trouble. I started to call the number, but realized I wouldn’t be able to hear them over the music. Being stuck on a bus in such close quarters had its definite disadvantages.

  I must have drifted off to sleep because the next thing I knew Grant was in my face breathing his minty fresh breath all over me. “Wake up sleepy head. You sleep like the dead.” I blinked up at him and tried to process what he was saying. “We’re in Atlanta and it’s time for our morning run.” Pretending I didn’t hear him I rolled over. A loud thunking noise echoed through the bus, followed by complete silence. By the time I realized the sound was my phone hitting the floor it was too late.

  “What the ever loving fuck?” he hissed. I flipped over and tried to snatch my phone back. He easily dodged my hand and continued to stare down at my text messages with a shocked expression on his face. Why didn’t I password my phone last night?

  “Grant,” I called out. His eyes lifted to mine and my heart hitched at what I saw on his face. Hurt and betrayal were followed closely by anger and finally hatred.

  “I was half kidding when I accused you of snitching to Kirkland. I should have known better.”

  “Grant, please listen to me,” I tried again.

  “If you knew how to do your job, which clearly you don’t, you would’ve figured out by now that I’m not a fucking addict and this,” he swept his hand across the bus, “is all bullshit and lies.” He tossed my phone at me and then turned and strode toward the front of the bus. I knew if I let him go without saying something I’d regret it.

  “I didn’t take those pictures and I didn’t have a clue as to whose number that was until you just told me. If you don’t believe me ask Hank or Marcel. I went back to the hotel early that night, but I left my purse in the locker. Hank brought it to me later. Ask him.”

  Right before exiting the bus I heard him growl, “Fuck off Mallory.”

  The curtain next to me opened and Nash’s head appeared. He stared at me for what seemed like forever before closing it again. I didn’t know whether to get up and go after Grant or to stay put. In the end I decided to stay.

  If Grant didn’t hate me before this, he certainly did now.

  Chapter Eleven

  Dead Or Alive?

  Grant

  I fucking knew it! Traitorous bitch! Hank greeted me with a smile at the bottom of the steps of the bus. When he saw the pissed off look on my face he instantly sobered and asked if I was okay. With a snarl I brushed past him and took off in a fast paced run. Fuck no I wasn’t okay. How could I be such a poor judge of character?

  A few months after Happenstance signed Meltdown we launched our first album. Once that happened we were on the grid with our asses swinging in the wind. With notoriety came all kinds of shit, both good and bad. You’d be surprised the damage a bunch of women could cause, especially when drunk. Thankfully my dad knew a guy whose son was in the security business. His name was Hank Brown and he was very well regarded. At my dad’s suggestion I passed Hank’s contact information on to Blane and a week later he and his crew were hired as Meltdown’s security team. Hank and I instantly bonded, partly because he didn’t put up with any bullshit on his watch, and partly because he was an all-around cool guy who I trusted to keep our asses safe. To this day Blane thinks Hank reports to Happenstance, but Hank and I both know better.

  “Talk to me,” Hank said when he caught up to me. It took me a few minutes to get a grip on my anger. Women didn’t do this to me, ever. Yet, here I was all tied up in knots and all I could think was she played me. Why the hell did it bother me so much? It wasn’t as if she was mine. Hell, I didn’t even like her. Okay, that was a lie. I liked her.

  Before I addressed the Mallory issue I needed to handle business. “I take it there were no cameras on the bus?”

  “No, we scrubbed it thoroughly and found nothing.”

  “What else?”

  “I have the names of everyone who was there before the show the night you were drugged. We’ll need to go over the list and see if anything jumps out at you.”

  “Done. What about the Oxy and coke? Did you get the fingerprint results back?”

  “Yes, and they’re also a no go. The only prints found on the bottles were Blane and Nash’s. There was a third partial print on the vial of cocaine but it wasn’t large enough to run.”

  “Damn. I’m fucking sick of dead ends.” We pounded the pavement in silence while I tried to get over my disappointment. I’d really hoped the bottles were going to give me some answers. Once again we needed to go back to the drawing board.

  After another half mile I was ready to talk about Mallory. “I asked Blane to check into Mallory for me. He avoided me for most of the week before getting back to me with some lame ass excuse about employee confidentiality.”

  We slowed down in order to cross the street. As we turned back toward the bus, Hank responded, “You think she’s not legit?” He sounded surprised and I wondered if he knew something I didn’t.

  “She’s Kirkland’s fucking puppet.” I glanced over at him. “Why? You think she is?”

  “I do.”

  His emphatic tone made me pause, and suddenly I had to know. “Why?”

  “You should have heard her the day Blane and I picked her up at the airport. Typical Blane tried to railroad her into reporting your every move back to him.” Hank huffed out a laugh. “He kept interrupting her and finally she put her hand in his face and said “‘Don’t.’” I’ve never seen someone shut him down like that. It was awesome. Anyway, she was angry for you. She accused Blane of not supporting you and then asked if she was being hired to spy on you or rehab you. She told him she wanted a clause added to her contract stating that if management interfered she could walk and still get paid for the hours she’d worked. Of course Blane blew her off, but you should have seen the look of surprise on his face. If you ask me Mallory Scott is a total badass, and one hundred percent in your corner.”

  Huh. This was the last thing I expected him to say. Not sure if I approved of his obvious affection for Mallory, I decided to give him shit about it. “You sound pussy whipped.”

  “No, just impressed. I like a woman with grit.”

  Another half mile passed before I got up enough nerve to ask the question that had been bothering me since I’d walked out on Mallory earlier. “The first night of the Houston concert, did Mallory go
back to the hotel early?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “Did you take her?”

  “No, Marcel did, but I was there when they left, why?” he asked again.

  “Did she leave her purse in the locker?”

  “Yes, but I took it to her after I brought you back to the hotel. Did something happen to her purse?”

  My mind was racing. That was the night I ended up in bed with Becki with an i, the star of those pictures, and giant pain in my ass. If Mallory didn’t take those pictures then who did? Other than Nash, Luke, and Chaz, who were all in different stages of pissed off at me, Hank was the only person I could completely trust. “Someone took pictures of me that night and texted them to Kirkland.”

  A confused look appeared on his face. “Why the hell would they do that?”

  “And, they used Mallory’s phone,” I added.

  He stopped dead in his tracks and I shot past him. “What do you mean they used her phone?”

  I jogged back to him and explained, “Pictures of me from that night were texted to Kirkland from Mallory’s phone.”

  “Hold up a second. You’re telling me that someone snatched Mallory’s phone from the locker, took pictures of you and sent them to Kirkland?” Here I was sweating my balls off and practically stroking out and the fucker was barely breathing heavy. “Is that why you were calling her a narc?” he asked.

  “You were at the meeting where Kirkland cut off the parties. Blane said he went home early that night. I knew security hadn’t snitched. That left Mallory. You have to admit, it makes sense.” I dropped my hands to my knees in order to catch my breath or throw up, whichever came first.

  “There were at least thirty other people there that night. Kirkland could have paid any one of them to spy on you.”

  “I went to wake up Mallory this morning and her phone literally landed at my feet. When I picked it up to hand it back, her text messages were open and front and center was a picture of me sucking Becki with an i’s tit. Below it was a message talking about how my actions were making it difficult for her to do her job. It was definitely Kirkland’s phone number.”

  “Becki with a what?” Hank asked.

  Ignoring his question, I continued explaining, “I confronted Mallory, she denied it and I didn’t believe her. On my way out the door she claimed she wasn’t even there and to ask you about it.”

  “She’s telling the truth. Like I said before, Marcel took her back to the hotel early that night, which means she couldn’t have taken those pictures.”

  Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse it had. I felt bad for being such a dick to Mallory, but in all fairness, the evidence was damning. For the rest of the run we discussed our next move. Hank wanted a copy of the text sent to Kirkland from Mallory’s phone. We weren’t sure if it was the same person who drugged me but suspected it was. Hank was also going to check if we had a list of names from the night the pictures were taken. I had one thing on my to-do list and that was to apologize to Mallory.

  As we neared the bus, Hank let out a chuckle. I glanced over to see what was so funny and he nodded his head in the direction of the bus. Standing at the foot of the bus with her arms crossed and her foot tapping furiously on the gravel was a very unhappy looking Mallory. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. Wearing a form fitted t-shirt and a skirt that only someone in the seventies would wear, she reminded me of a young Joni Mitchell. I couldn’t help but let out a bark of laughter, which of course only added fuel to the already blazing fire. With her fancy braided hair swinging back and forth to the rhythm of her tapping foot, she was a sight to see, a breath of fresh air, an absolute vision. Hank and I cautiously approached her, or should I say I cautiously approached her and the song Hard Headed Woman popped into my head. Her eyes narrowed and I realized I was smiling like a goof. Yes, I think I might have found my very own hard headed woman.

  “Morning Mallory,” Hank said. She stopped glaring at me long enough to throw him a blindingly beautiful smile.

  “Morning Hank, did you have a good run?”

  “I did, thanks for asking.”

  A confused look appeared on her face. “Uh, where did you roll in from?” Hank pointed to a black Jeep parked behind the bus and her eyes lit up. “Oh, I like it. Does the top come off?”

  A giant grin spread across Hank’s face. “Yes Ma’am.” I fought back a growl of disgust. Both sets of eyes turned to me, his with humor and hers with anger.

  After a few seconds of staring me down, she focused back on Hank. “And the doors?” she sweetly asked.

  “The doors too,” he confirmed.

  “Can I ride in it sometime?”

  If he smiled any wider his face would split in half. “Anytime you like,” he answered. I let out a snort and Mallory gave me an eat shit look. Hank laughed and I rolled my eyes at him. Mallory busted me mid-eye roll.

  “You’re being rude,” she chastised, “and what are you humming? It sounds like Cat Stevens.”

  I didn’t even realize I was humming but that didn’t matter because I knew right then and there that I was standing in the presence of my dream woman. “You know Cat Stevens?” I asked her.

  “Yes, I dated him before he died,” she sarcastically replied.

  “Well, being that he’s still alive I find that hard to believe.”

  She looked at me as if I’d lost my mind. “Cat Stevens is dead,” she repeated.

  Yep, I’d most certainly found my hard headed woman.

  I glanced over at Hank, who was shaking his head slowly back and forth at Mallory, and asked, “Care to weigh in on this before it gets to the betting stage?” No one and I mean no one could best me when it came to music trivia. I was the king, the master, the numero uno aficionado and anyone who knew me also knew this.

  “Cat Stevens is still alive,” Hank informed her.

  “No he’s not,” Mallory insisted, “He died like ten years ago.” Hank shook his head again, and I laughed.

  “Bet you he’s still alive,” I challenged.

  “Fine, what are we betting?” she shot back at me. Her blue eyes were full of piss and vinegar and I couldn’t wait to strip her down and learn all of her dirty little secrets.

  “If I prove that Cat Stevens is in fact still alive, you will answer the questions you so craftily avoided when your boss called last night. In detail,” I added.

  She physically paled and I almost took it back but then she quickly recovered and said, “Fine, and if you lose then you have to answer any question I ask, in detail.”

  “You have yourself a deal, sweetheart.” She held her hand out to shake, and I fought the urge to yank her in and lick the sass from her lips. Instead I clasped her hand in mine. Our eyes connected and held. The image of her hand firmly wrapped around my cock slithered through my head and the subject of my fantasies began to swell. I could tell this was going nowhere fast.

  “I’ll just leave you two to work this out,” Hank murmured, and disappeared up the bus steps.

  As soon as the coast was clear Mallory said, “Cat Stevens is dead and I swear I didn’t take those pictures.”

  “He’s alive and I know you didn’t. I’m sorry for not hearing you out and jumping to conclusions.”

  “Why would someone set me up like that?” I could tell by the look on her face that her feelings were hurt.

  Welcome to my fucked up existence. “I don’t know. Maybe it wasn’t you they were trying to set up?” I countered. “Hank will need a copy of the pictures and the text when you get a chance.”

  A frown appeared on her face. “Shouldn’t I call Kirkland and try to explain? I mean, it was my phone.”

  I considered what to tell her and decided to stick with Hank’s plan. “Before you do anything, why don’t we see what Hank comes up with? If he comes up empty handed then that might not be a bad idea.”

  “I’m here to help, Grant, and not only because I’m being paid to, but because I genuinely want to help you figure this mess out. In or
der to do that, though, I need to know what’s going on.” Her blue eyes shimmered in the morning sunlight and she smelled like honey. All she had to do was look down and she would bust me popping a major chubby in my running shorts. The worst part wasn’t that I was sporting a hard on while wearing running shorts, it was that my dick was slowly getting caught in the netting. I looked like I had a case of elephantitis of the nuts. As if sensing something happening down there Mallory’s eyes dropped to my lips and then my chin. When they hit my chest, I gave her hand a tight squeeze and they snapped back to my face.

  “After I take a quick shower,” and get rid of my very uncomfortable boner, “we can talk,” I told her.

  She graced me with a huge smile and I tried not to wince as pain sliced through my balls. My boys were literally being strangled to death. Before she could ask what was wrong I turned and hauled ass up the bus steps. Hank was still in the shower so I made a b-line for the back bedroom. The second I got the door shut I shoved both hands down my shorts in effort to release my cock and balls from the confines of my fucking shorts. After a minute or so I got impatient and just ripped the entire crotch out. While rubbing the pain away I let out a huge sigh of relief.

  “Please tell me you’re not doing what I think you are,” Chaz said from the bed. His eyes nervously darted around the room and I could practically taste the stench of his discomfort. I’d forgotten what a homophobe he was. The first time he walked in on a chick sucking me off while Nash plowed her from behind I thought he was going to lose his mind.

  Continuing to stroke my cock, I lowered my voice and said, “Hank’s in the bathroom.”