Page 44 of Not the Punk

“Who wants me dead? I don’t know you, so someone must have put you up to it. Don’t go down for this asshole.”

“You can make me a deal?”

“No. I’d like to tell you otherwise, but I can’t. I’m a firefighter, not a cop.”

“Then why should I tell you shit?”

“Because if you don’t.” I shook my head ominously. “You’ll be facing harder charges. Attempted murder on top of arson. That’s not a petty crime, man. You have to know that.”

He nodded and looked down at his hands. Sweat beaded up along his forehead. “Fine. It’s this guy, Trent. Don’t know his last name. He was pretty slick but scary.”

“Tell me…”

Trent had confronted him, threatened him. “I don’t know about fire, but he insisted that was the only way to get to you. I do know about construction. And deconstruction.” Turned out he used to work with stunt teams, setting up stunts very similar to how that building came down. He’d rigged it to fall, but he’d been watching to make sure it fell on me, which is ultimately how he got caught. You can’t hide from cameras anymore—they’re everywhere.

I showed him a picture of Trent that Joe had sent me. “That him?”

He nodded. “Yep. He’s older than that pic, but that’s him.”

Gotcha. That fucker was going down for attempted murder and murder-for-hire charges if I had anything to say about it. I spent about twenty minutes talking to the FBI agent after that, making sure he had all the information he needed. More importantly, now I could get the hell out of there and see my Little-rocker. He needed me, and that was where I needed to be.

Chapter twenty-one

Joe Writing Music

Jacksonville, FL

We were sitting around Kay’s hotel room, playing cards and waiting for dinner to be delivered. We didn’t have anything to do until mid-morning, but even though the day would be filled with interviews and shit, the concert wasn’t until the following day. That gave us a few nights in the hotel, and I had my own room, but I wasn’t staying in it unless Daddy Colten showed up.

“Got any threes?” Kay asked.

I looked through my hand. “Go fish.”

“Rats.” He drew a card, huffed and stuck it in his hand. “Go, Donny.”

“Uh…Kay, got any queens?”

He looked through his hand, and I exhaled. It was the most relaxed I’d been since the tour started. I hadn’t had any weird calls or texts, or any other Trent-cidents, and Daddy would be here in the morning, hopefully. I was with my best friends in the whole world, and two security guards were stationed outside our door.

I was still sad about Telly’s death, and it turned out he died of a heart attack, and I missed his funeral, but I couldn’t do anything about it. I sent his family a sympathy card and flowers, along with a donation in his name to Sweet Relief Musicians Fund. Plus, I made a note to donate to them annually, feeling like Telly would have loved me paying it forward. He had helped me so much that it was the least I could do to pay him back in some small way. Having made that decision, I felt settled.

“Joe.” Don shoved my shoulder. “Joe.”

“What? Sorry?”

“Got any Jacks.”

“Oh, yeah. I have one.” I handed him the card. “Hey, Kay? Got a notebook?”

“Duh…” He set his cards on the table and padded into the bedroom area of the suite, returning with a notebook.

“Thanks. Can we take five?”

“Getting words?” Don asked.

“Yep.”

“Well, go do your thing. We’ll split your hand.” He picked up my cards and dealt them out between them, but I stopped paying attention after that. I moved to the desk and started jotting down the words, trying to capture the flow.