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“Thanks. Ladies.” He nodded to Ellie, Melody, and Roxy. “Hope to see you at the pub this weekend. I know you might be nervous about coming by after what happened, but I want everyone to know we’re taking steps to make sure nothing like that happens again.”
A flicker of relief danced inside Roxy. “West spoke to you?”
Earl nodded. “He did, but we were already of a mind. It’s a bar. Every once in a while, some fool gets over-served and we have a dustup, but that happens man to man, so to speak.” He turned to Ellie. “Right, Sparky? Remember the time Junior got Tyler in the crosshairs of his squirrel shooter and tried to make a hen out of that rooster?”
“What?” Roxy swiveled toward Ellie. “Junior shot at Tyler?”
“Got him, too. Right in the sitter, as I believe Sparky here can attest.”
“Earl, nobody calls me that anymore,” Ellie replied, with a roll of her big, brown eyes.
“Got that nickname on account of me, didn’t you? Sparky you were, and Sparky you’ll stay as far as this old man is concerned.”
“Wait. Wait. Wait,” Roxy interrupted, holding up a hand. The conversation was taking too many turns, and she wanted to stick with the first road they’d gone down. “When…no. Scratch that. Why did Junior shoot Tyler?”
“Boy got skunk drunk and convinced himself Tyler made a move on Lou Ann when fact is, Lou Ann made the move to pry a ring out of Junior. Which it did.” Earl nodded thanks to Addy when she placed a mug of coffee in front of him. “And that butt-shot gave Tyler a reason to call on Spar…the doc here, so all’s well that ends well, I guess.”
“I guess,” Roxy repeated weakly. “And people call me reckless. How did I not know this?”
“It happened a while ago,” Ellie said. “Before their prefrontal cortexes fully developed. The process takes longer for some men, but eventually, executive functions emerged.”
“Well now, the ladies aren’t above a little pushy-shovey, either. Take that time Lena Nixon went swinging a pool cue at Gabby Hill for cozying up with Trey before the ink dried on their divorce papers.”
“Oh, geez.” Melody squinted and tapped her chin with her index finger. “I remember that night. Lena was out for blood.”
“They damn near tore the place up, and Elton—rest his soul—had to come up with five hundred bucks to compensate me for the damage his ‘baby girl’ did to my bar. But my point is, we see some stupid shit…uh…how do them experts put it?”
“Interpersonal problems?” Melody suggested.
Earl snapped his fingers and pointed at Melody. “’That’s it. ‘Interpersonal problems.’ We see them now and again at the pub, but we know the people, we know the motives, and we know those folks are gonna have some accounting to do when they sober up and settle down. What happened Wednesday night wasn’t an ‘interpersonal problem.’ That was some asshole nobody knows getting up to no good on my property—and knocking my employee around when she tried to shut him down. I won’t stand for it. So, West gave me the name of a guy he worked with in the SEALs, and that guy’s putting in some lights, and some fancy motion-detector cameras, and a few other surprises for the next asshole who tries to treat my place of business like a back alley.”
Roxy wanted to hug him, but given his arthritis and his general disposition, she settled for a sincere, “Thank you, Earl.”
“Thank me by coming back to work soon. Most of the time Jeb’s ideas on how to ‘take Rawley’s to the next level,’ as he puts it, are pure shit, but he hit on something when he hired you. I was skeptical, to put it bluntly, but you turned Wednesday nights into a moneymaker—folks stick around past happy hour to see the shows—and the place is packed on Fridays. Come back next week and I’ll pay you for your missed days plus bump you an extra twenty-five bucks a night.”
A raise from Earl Rawley? West really had worked a miracle. “You’ve got yourself a de…” Well, wait. If she didn’t have medical clearance, West would probably have something to say about the deal. She glanced at Ellie, who nodded. Confident she’d covered her bases, she held out her hand. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”
Earl shook it. “Good.” He eased off his stool and reached into the back pocket of his jeans for his wallet. “Glad that’s settled.” He pulled out three dollars and placed them on the counter. “Thanks for the coffee, Addy. Keep the change.”
“Thanks.” Addy sent the faintest of grins to Roxy. Coffee was bottomless at $2.99, and Earl was back on brand with his “tip.” He paused as he slipped his wallet back into his pocket. “Oh, almost forgot.” This time he withdrew a folded scrap of paper and handed it to Roxy. “This fellow called the pub, looking for you.”
Roxy’s heart froze and fell heavily into her boots. “W-who?” Her suddenly numb fingers refused to unfold the paper.
Earl shrugged. “Don’t know.
Callie took the message. Said he’s a record producer out in L.A., Hollywood or some such place.”
“Looking for me?” Her voice shook. Had Randy tracked her down somehow? Or worse, Uncle Billy? Why would either of them leave her a message to tip her off? Surely Uncle Billy’s MO would be to show up and collect his money in person, perhaps add a bruise of his own to her forehead to really get his point across?
“Yeah. See, another one of Jeb’s big ideas was to give Rawley’s something he referred to as an ‘online presence.’ He set us up on the FaceTube or Twit-book or whatever the hell it was last year, and he posted a couple of videos of you singing at the pub for publicity. This fellow saw one and wants to talk to you about buying one of your songs.” He gestured to the note still clutched in Roxy’s stiff fingers. “I don’t know if he’s legit or not, but it doesn’t cost much to call and speak to the man.”
Heart pounding, Roxy unfolded the note. It read “J.T. Turner” and included a number with a 310 area code, which Roxy recognized as Los Angeles.
“Oh my God.” Addy bounced to her tiptoes and clapped her hands. “This is amaaayzing! Call him. Right now.”
“Here.” Ellie rifled through her purse. “You can use my phone.”
“I…um.” Dazed, she continued to blink at the note, as if staring at it would give her some deeper sense of the potential contained in the half-dozen words. “I have a phone,” she said lamely. And videos online pinpointing for anyone who might run a search just exactly where I can be found. But she couldn’t think about that right now, because Addy, Ellie, and Melody were looking at her like she’d just won the lottery, and it would seem strange if she didn’t share in the excitement. A show of nerves? Sure. That would be understandable. Behaving like someone whose witness protection identity had just been compromised? That would raise questions she didn’t want to answer. She dug for her phone.
