Every Heart Sings (Serenity Island Series) (22 page)

Chapter 17

Locked and Loaded

When Josh finished his song, Jordan thought he’d come sit next to her, but instead, he went to stand sentinel between the media and the rest of the crowd. Apparently, he didn’t want any of them to slip the knot. She experienced a warm surge of affection that he’d go out of his way to protect her.

No one had ever really looked out for her that way before.

It was nice. And rather sexy. Because it brought to mind other ways he’d taken care of her the night before. All the sensuous, passionate, intimate ways he’d filled her needs and put her first. God she could get used to that man.

Too bad he wasn’t sticking around much longer.

A flutter of anxiety chased the lust away.

If she wasn’t careful, all she’d be left with was a huge chunk of her heart missing when he packed up and walked out of her life.

She sipped her tea. She refused to think about it now.

The performances ended. Taylor had been last on the docket. The room stood to applaud for all the acts as Josh called them back on stage and they took a final bow.

The crowd surged forward.

The paparazzi pressed toward the stage too.

Tony signed autographs. He took cards from the talent scouts, signed a few more napkins and papers shoved at him. Thank God none of the girls exposed their body parts for him to sign. Yet. It was only a matter of time. The kid was working on being a serious heartthrob in his own right. She held in a groan and made her way toward the dressing rooms, sure to give the cameras a wide berth. She’d duck inside Tony’s dressing room and wait for him. Out of sight of the paparazzi.

She wanted to congratulate him, but she also wanted to hide from the media. She’d finally gotten on board with the café and Josh’s vision for it. After seeing Tony and the others perform, she understood the need for this place. Josh’s desire to mentor others was a tangible, visible thing—and admirable, to say the least. Maybe it would bring him back often enough that they could forge a relationship over time.

Jordan ducked inside the room with the dark blue glittery star, the same room she’d seen Ben and Josh exit earlier. And sure enough, Tony’s guitar case sat on the leather couch and his gray sweatshirt hung over the back of the chair in front of a vanity. A tall mirror reached to the ceiling and lights ran on both sides of the mirror. A host of toiletries and men’s accessories sat on the counter.

She sank into the couch with a relieved thump. The force of her weight on the leather cushion sent the guitar case popping into the air and crashing onto the floor. When she picked up the case, the latch flipped open and the contents spilled out—extra guitar picks, a new set of strings still in the package, a capo, and several loose-leaf papers. She crouched to gather up the items, putting them back in the case. Finally, she straightened the papers into a neat pile and turned the stack over, face up.

She would have thought nothing of the random papers, if she hadn’t seen Tony’s signature, in blue ink, blaring like a neon light at her.

It looked like a contract. Her brow furrowed in concentration as she started to read. Hell, it was a contract. She read it carefully. Word for word. Her stomach dropping with each page, until she got to the last page—the signature page.

Three names.

Tony Alexander. Ben Johnson. And Josh Nicodemus.

What the fuck?

And the worse thing about it? The contract totally followed the wording of Luke’s contract from so many years ago . . . the thirty-five percent off the top went to the manager, in perpetuity—not just for the three or five years a normal contract allowed—and Ben was appointed legal emissary to collect and report all sales on behalf of his client, Tony Alexander.

Shit. This was bad. Just as bad as it had been for Luke.

What the hell was he thinking? And Josh had signed the contract as well. He knew better. The bastard. All along, he’d avowed Ben’s innocence in that first contract, when he’d known. Known how unethical Ben’s actions were and was part of the problem himself.

She grabbed the contract in her fist and marched out the door. Josh Nicodemus would answer for his actions now. By God he would. And she didn’t care if it was in front of a huge crowd of witnesses. The more the better, as far as she was concerned. She planned to let everyone in Serenity know what dicks he and his manager were.

Jordan spied Josh across the room, Tony at his side. He was shaking the hands of one of the talent scouts, the rest, along with Ben, were already heading out the front door. The crowd had lightened significantly.

Grace lingered, as well as a few regulars.

By the time Jordan got to Josh, the industry execs were gone and most of the media had departed with them. Although, one or two cameras lingered, snapping shots. Jordan didn’t care. She couldn’t. This was more important than her anonymity, by far.

When Josh first saw her coming, he smiled. But as he watched her, the smile took on a frozen quality and his eyes turned a little less warm and a lot more wary.

Did he know what she held in her hands?

Damn it.

“Do you want to explain this?” Jordan shoved the contract at him. She worked hard to keep her voice low, so the remaining paparazzi wouldn’t hear their conversation, but her tone was clipped as she bit off the words.

“What’s this?” Josh looked down, his brows drawn in confusion.

“Don’t play me. Your signature is on it. You bastard.”

“Hold up. What are you talking about?” He lifted his hands to ward her off. “I never signed anything.”

“This is a contract I found in Tony’s things. A contract between Tony and Ben.” She shoved it into his hands and yanked out the last page. “Your name is on it, too. Want to tell me again you didn’t sign this?”

“I’ve never seen this before. I swear.”

“Tony signed a contract and you endorsed it. I told you I didn’t trust Ben. I told you I didn’t want Tony anywhere near that scumbag. And you blew it off. You blew me off. Brushing aside my concerns like I was a silly girl who didn’t know anything. Now I see why. You were in on it.”

Josh stilled, his narrowed glare could have shot slivers of ice, his look so cold. “You really think I could do something like this to you? To Tony? To anyone I cared about?”

“I don’t want to believe it. No. But the signature speaks plain as day. You did the same thing to Luke, didn’t you? You sold him out the same way? What? Do you get a cut of the proceeds Ben collects? Need a little more wealth to line your pockets?”

“I didn’t do this, Jordan. I swear.” He reached out to her and she jerked away from him. “You need to believe me.”

“I don’t need to do any such thing.” She was fuming mad. How could he do this to Tony? To her? Tears welled in her eyes at the betrayal. The hurt that knifed her heart.

“Shit.” He turned in a half-circle, clenching and unclenching his right hand. He paced. Then he turned back, stalking straight up to Jordan. “You honestly—I can’t believe you, woman. After all we’ve shared. I thought you knew me. Me.” He thumped his chest. “Apparently I was wrong as well.”

“Yeah, I thought I knew you, too. Looks like we were both wrong.”

Hurt flashed in his eyes. He dropped his hands to his sides, defeated. He shook his head. “I swear, Jordan. That’s not my signature. I would never sign on behalf of Tony’s guardian.” He turned to Tony. “Tony, dude, what is this? Did you sign a contract with Ben?”

Tony looked down at his shoes, his shoulders slumped. When he looked up again, his big brown eyes looked sullen and a little sad, he nodded, his chin dipping infinitesimally.

“Tony?” Grace said, placing her hand on his shoulder.

“Ben’s been good for Josh,” Tony rushed to defend himself. “I figured if Josh was on board, then it was okay. Ben said Josh had given his consent.”

Anger flashed in Josh’s eyes. His jaw snapped shut, then he asked, “He said that? Word for word?”

Tony shrugged and nodded. “Yeah.”

Jordan moved in on Josh, toe-to-toe. “There is nothing ethical about this contract and you know it. That last page, alone, shouts corruption. I don’t know why you did this, but you need to fix it. Now.”

Josh skimmed the contract, holding it in two hands, he looked at Tony. “Tony, dude, don’t ever take someone’s word without seeing all the parties sign the agreement. I didn’t sign this. Ben lied. And at your age, you never sign anything without your legal guardian present. Got it?”

Tony nodded, looking like the weight of Atlas sat on his shoulders. “Yeah,” he mumbled.

Josh ran a hand over his jaw and through his hair. “When did you sign this?”

“Right before the performance.”

“Shit. That’s why you asked me about Ben and if he was a good manager.”

Tony nodded despondently again.

“You told him this was okay? You told him Ben was okay when we had questions about his ethics?” Jordan jabbed her finger at the contract, not even trying to contain her anger now. “Ben collects all money and reports all sales. And his cut of the royalties doesn’t end. Period. In perpetuity. Just like Luke’s contract.”

“You’ve seen Luke’s contract?”

“Yes. I did. Caitlin sent me a copy a few hours ago. Looks like Ben’s been doing this for a long time. Question is, how long have you been in on it?”

“You’re wrong, Jordan. I didn’t have a clue. And you’re going to eat those words. I will fix this, not because I had anything to do with it, but because it’s the right thing to do. And Ben, obviously, needs to be stopped.” He sucked in a harsh breath. “If he did this.”

“Of course you’re still defending that dirt bag. You’re his partner in this scheme.”

“I didn’t do this, Jordan. You need to trust me.”

“That’s a little hard for me to do.”

He backed away, and tossed the contract on the table. The pages skittered across the top and landed on the floor at her feet. “Your loss then.”

He turned and walked out of the café.

“Good riddance.” Jordan didn’t want to have anything more to do with Josh or Ben. She knew Josh had been too good to be true. If she’d had her preference, she’d never step foot inside The Down Dog Café again. Or at least she’d wait until Josh left the island. And for her, that couldn’t be soon enough.

Damn if her traitorous heart didn’t just crack in half at Josh’s betrayal.

Even believing that Josh had somehow been involved in this huge clusterfuck, she didn’t want it to be true. She wanted to believe in him. She wanted to trust that there was one good man out there who loved her and who wouldn’t screw her over like everyone else in her life had done.

She picked up the contract and handed it to Tony, who took it reluctantly.

“Sorry. I didn’t know . . .” He scuffed the toe of his shoe on the floor.

“Let’s hope Josh can make this right and get you out of that contract, kiddo. Get Ben to nullify it. That is . . . if he wasn’t involved in this snafu. If he was, you might be screwed. Just in case, to cover your ass, I’m calling Caitlin.”

Josh headed straight to Ben’s mobile office. If Ben was dealing illegal contracts, there would only be one place he’d keep them. Under lock and key. Close to him. In the Winnebago.

Ben and the other industry execs had plans to share celebratory drinks at Bottoms Up—the one bar in the village. Josh knew how those drinking sessions went. They were Intel gathering events. Everyone tried to out-drink the other, trying to see who’d spill important industry information that the other could use. Ben would be out for hours yet. And almost certainly because he thought he really had something to celebrate—the signing of one amazingly talented kid.

Josh started to hoof it to the campground several miles away, on the south side of the island because he’d allowed Ben and the industry execs to use the café’s golf cart. Someone beeped, a tinny sounding honk of a horn. Josh turned and walked backward as he watched Salty approach on his tricked out golf cart. It matched his Harley. Black canopy, black body paint, with red and orange flames emblazoned on the side.

Salty pulled alongside him. “Where you headed?”

“The campground.” Josh kept walking backward as Salty trolled beside him.

Salty’s eyebrows winged up. “Ben’s camper?”

Josh pursed his lips and nodded. “Need to poke through some files in his office. If he did this, I need to know.”

“You think you’ll find proof?”

“Yeah, Ben’s not that smart.”

“Smart enough to embezzle hundreds of thousands of dollars from Luke’s estate. I’d say that’s smart enough.”

Josh stopped. “Shit.” He dropped his chin to his chest, his hands on his hips. “I had no idea.”

“I know,” Salty said. “I believe you. Jordan was hard on you in there.” He hooked his thumb over his shoulder to indicate The Down Dog Café.

“No, I get it. She’s been burned one too many times, and by people close to her. She has trust issues. And this looks bad. Ben set it up to look like I was complicit.”

“Caitlin just called. Jordan had asked her to look into Luke’s contract and sales. She found pretty strong corroborating evidence that Ben embezzled money. She pulled the accounting records submitted by Ben and then called the different venues where Luke had performed. The sales numbers didn’t add up. So, while Luke was alive, he’d been skimming off the top and reporting lower numbers. Once Luke died, he did the same thing with the royalties. He’s been reporting zero royalties for years. Caitlin checked with the record execs and Apple. The sales were not wonderful, but there was a steady income from his music. An income Grace and Tony could comfortably live on.”

“Fuck.” Josh felt like a fool. One hundred percent dumb ass. How could he let this happen? To people he cared about? “How could I be so blind?” he asked out loud.

He blew out a breath, the weight of ten tons sitting on his shoulders. He had to make this right. Fix it. Whatever it took. A business manager couldn’t get away with this, riding on the back of talented musicians, taking advantage of their naiveté.