Country, Crimes & Second Chances (Southern Sinners #2)

Chapter 1 Tally

TALLY

‘Hi, I got a mangled body in the trunk’ isn’t the most elegant way to greet your estranged ex-husband, but it’ll skip over the awkward small talk.

And it beats the question burning on my tongue. It goes a lot like, ‘Why did you break up with me on the morning after our wedding?’ Now that would be an instant mood killer and as fate would have it, my ex is my only chance to escape a prison sentence.

How ironic.

My tired eyes strain to focus on faded road markings flying by, illuminated by my car’s headlights. Mountains loom over one side of the cracked asphalt like immovable wardens, the other side hemmed in by an impenetrable tree line with mist swirling around ancient trunks.

I pass a familiar metal sign leaning in tall weeds and my palms start to sweat.

Welcome to Redbird Creek.

I swore I’d never set foot in my Eastern Kentucky hometown again and I kept that oath like my life depended on it—until tonight.

Returning wasn’t much of a choice. I have nowhere else to go.

Killing somebody really shows you who your true friends are, and it turns out I have none.

The world would laugh at me if I admitted my loneliness out loud. ‘How can country star Tally Creed be lonely when she’s always surrounded by people?’ they’d ask.

But they don’t get that fame feels a lot like being trapped in a glass box. Everybody sees me, all the time, but they can never get close. I can’t let them.

Those folks are good enough to share drinks with, not troubles, and they sure aren’t the type to help with covering up a murder. They’d rather sell the story to the highest bidder.

Cameras rolling or not, everything in my life is a performance. Yeah, even my non-existent dating life and PR stunt relationships. Any moment of weakness could be used against me and soon I’d find my private business detailed in some trashy tabloid.

When I scrolled through my phone contacts, wondering who’d make the best accomplice for burying a body, I came up empty. Except for a tiny, hopeful, extraordinarily unwelcome, stupid voice in my head whispering the name I cursed a million times over:

Rustin McAllister. My ex-husband.

But in that moment, I didn’t remember the morning he broke my heart.

I remembered the boy who beat up the kids at school who made fun of my frizzy red mane. Back then, the curly girl method wasn’t a thing and my furious brushing only made things worse.

I remembered the boy who slept on the floor so I could have his bed when my Momma had one of her drunken hissy fits and locked me out of our trailer as punishment.

I remembered that he made me feel safe.

Because I didn’t just lose my husband. I lost my whole world.

Before Rust became my partner on stage, long before he became my boyfriend, he was my best friend.

After the annulment, I prayed every night that he’d call or write, begging me to take him back. But twelve years passed and he never called. He never wrote.

And I moved on long ago, because holding fast to my anger and grief would’ve killed me. I still had a dream to fulfill, even without him.

Music was all I had left.

I burned every picture of us—except the faded half of our wedding polaroid, that I carry in my wallet. But it’s not because I want to remember his warm brown eyes or his easy smile.

I keep it for the same reason Momma only kept Daddy’s old guitar and his mugshot when he went out to get cigarettes and never returned: As a warning.

Never fall in love again.

Unlike Momma, I wasn’t pregnant when I got dumped. I reckon I should call that a stroke of luck cause I saw what that betrayal did to her. It broke her. The only comfort she found was at the bottom of a bottle.

My daddy was dead to me since I understood what he did to Momma. I never bothered to find him.

Rust was dead to me since he left me in Vegas, but now it feels like he owes me a debt for my broken heart. I’m overdue to collect.

The least he can do is keep my ass from rotting behind bars. Besides, since he didn’t rat me out when I tried to steal his daddy’s horse as a kid, I figure my chances are pretty good he’ll keep my secret.

But Rust isn’t the only person from my past I’ll have to face. His parents were more of a family to me than my own mother ever was. For all I know, they hate me now. I’d understand if they did.

Then there’s Caleb Harper, my only other friend. His mom was a teacher at my school and she took pity on me when I was a little girl. The Harpers often invited me over for supper or took me out for excursions. Caleb and I hung out by proxy, like siblings.

The invitations stopped when I was around ten years old and Momma sent the sheriff to the Harper’s house, claiming I’d been kidnapped.

It was a huge scandal that put the whole town in a tizzy.

Caleb and I remained friends despite it, until Rust and I broke up and facing any part of my past became too painful. We haven’t spoken since then.

What would Caleb and his family say if I ran into them now?

I don’t know what to expect from my return and that uncertainty makes me sick to my stomach. My knuckles blanche as I grip the steering wheel like it’ll give me all the answers if I strangle it hard enough.

Over the years, I looked up Rust online a handful of times but couldn’t find much information. No website. No social media accounts. I dug up a single mention of his name as the owner of an auto repair shop in Redbird Creek. That’s my only lead.

Who knows what he looks like now, if he’s still got all his teeth or all his hair. And all his marbles. It’d be fucking satisfying to find out he turned into an ugly, crazy hillbilly.

I stretch my neck and roll my aching shoulders. Exhaustion weighs on my bones. I’ve only been driving for a few hours, but I feel like I ran headfirst into a brick wall.

In addition to the complicated feelings about my past and the people I left behind, being a first-time murderer is hard enough.

Accidental murderer, I correct myself.

Why did that drifter jump out of the tree line in front of my car? Everybody knows you shouldn’t cross the road right after a sharp turn! That’s basically suicide, though I doubt the law would agree.

After it happened, I expected a lot more panic, but I’m oddly calm. Probably in shock. And surprisingly, logistics were the real problem. Try stuffing a grown man into the tiny trunk of a Chevrolet Spark! Thank fuck my personal trainer included weightlifting sessions in my workouts.

I glance over my shoulder. The dark road is empty, though I can’t shake the feeling of being followed. It’s like there’s always somebody watching me, some paparazzi waiting to shove cameras in my face.

Life in the limelight has made me paranoid.

I turn on the radio, drumming an irregular beat on the steering wheel. The music fades into the radio announcer’s smooth voice.

“Breaking news! Fans are left disappointed as country star Tally Creed is said to have canceled her concert in Louisville less than twenty-four hours before kicking off her anticipated tour. Rumor has it that the trailer park bombshell has suddenly fallen ill, but an insider tells us she’s been struggling with mental health issues and writer’s block.

We wish Tally the best and keep her in our prayers.

To tide you over, here’s her hit single—”

I slap the off button.

Wishing me the best? As if. Fucking vultures.

Seems the anonymous tip I called in from a gas station phone got through. About time I made the old rumor mill work in my favor, but what was the bit about my mental health and writer’s block?

I rub a hand across my face. How the fuck did they hear about that?

There’s always some leak on my team and the paparazzi seem to know exactly where to find me to take a snapshot of my worst moments. You’d assume my manager would do something about it, but the sadistic prick enjoys seeing me in the crossfire of criticism.

Right now, I wish I could turn back time to this afternoon when my inability to write a goddamn song was my biggest worry.

In the rearview mirror, I catch a glance of my guitar case strapped in the backseat next to my travel bag. My heart pinches.

Sure, I can play and sing. But my inspiration, my spark?

It’s dead.

The music in me is gone.

My phone vibrates on the passenger seat. The name Rex Dalton appears on the screen and my eyes roll. I don’t need another lecture from my fucking manager. When the ringing stops, I call the voicemail number and put it on speaker.

“Who do you think you are, missy!” Rex’s voice bellows.

I flinch. It’s just a recording, but I can’t help the instinctual reaction. In my mind’s eye, I can see his sallow face turning red, thin lips stretching into a grimace.

I’d never have pulled a fast one like this on anybody else. But Rex has never shown me any respect, so he doesn’t deserve mine. If I tried to talk to him first, he would’ve never let me postpone even a single show and I can’t go on stage until I fix this corpse problem.

Lord knows how long that’ll take. I reckoned it was better to call off the whole tour. What if I have to flee the country?

Rex continues shouting, “You can’t cancel the tour!

And don’t deny it. I know it was you. Nobody else on the team would step out of line and call in bullshit fake news like that!

Now I gotta deal with the fallout. Do you know how much money you’re losing me?

I’m not responsible for cleaning up your messes! ”

“That’s exactly what I’m paying you for!” I yell at the phone.

If he was right here, I’d never talk back. I’d take his abuse and hate myself a little more for it.

Because Rex Dalton isn’t just any run-of-the-mill talent manager.

His roster includes the biggest female stars of the country scene and his contacts spread far beyond his Nashville office. He’s connected with every producer, record label, and agent across every state.

That’s exactly the problem.

When Rex took me under his wing, it felt like I struck gold. I had this crazy notion that once I got a manager and a record deal, all I had to worry about was writing good music. How naive. But the longer I worked with him, the more I learned that not all that glitters is gold.

Everything comes at a price in show business.

In my case, the price is being stuck in a predatory contract I signed before my frontal lobe had fully developed.

“Without me, you wouldn’t even have a career!” the recording of Rex continues. “If I hadn’t picked you up from that motel parking lot in Vegas where your husband dumped you, you’d be rotting in a trailer like your mother, spreading your legs for any man willing to stick it in you.”

Hollowness expands in my chest. I’m used to his insults, though they hit harder when he brings up Momma. To say we had a complicated relationship would be an understatement, but I still loved her, no matter how fucked up that might be.

Rex saves those jabs for special occasions when he wants to cause maximum emotional damage. I’d like nothing more than to fire his ass, but I’ve seen what happens to those who cross him.

One call from Rex Dalton is enough to sink any talent, even the biggest stars. And once you’re blacklisted in this industry, you’re finished. For good.

When I was a newcomer, another singer dared to stand up to his abuse. From one day to the next, she went from magazine interviews, talk show performances and award nominations to nothing. Zero.

Billboards with her face disappeared overnight.

Radio stations stopped playing her songs.

It was almost like she never existed. Nobody’s heard from her since. Rumor has it she now waits tables somewhere back in her hometown in rural Texas.

Rex huffs through the speakers like a raging bull. “You owe me, girl. You owe me everything and you better not forget that! Call me!”

The message cuts off and I hang up, choking down angry tears.

One day, he’ll get his comeuppance. I don’t know when and I don’t know how, but I must keep that hope alive to make it through. For now, the best I can do is to turn off my phone and ignore him until tomorrow morning.

Avoiding potholes like an obstacle course, I ease the car down Main Street—if you can call it that. When the coal mines were open, Redbird Creek was booming. Now most storefronts are boarded up.

A holler dollar has replaced the grocery store but the dairy bar is still there. When we were kids, Rust and I used to sit in that window booth on the left and share a milkshake, dreaming of the world.

The church tower on the corner leans more than I remember. Behind the building, rows of new gravestones stick out from the earth like blackened teeth. Clearly, the cemetery is the only growth this town has seen in a while.

I’m about to step on the gas when a vehicle pulls out of a dark side street behind me. Red and blue strobes paint the interior of my car like a disco show from my worst nightmare.

The cops.

It’s the damn cops.