Chapter Four
Beau
“Hey,” the cowboy said mildly. “Is that any way to talk to your hero?”
Beau gripped one of the cold iron bars with his undamaged hand, mostly to keep himself upright and less for dramatic effect. His ankle hurt like hell and his headache protested the quick movement by blurring his vision. “Come a little closer so I can thank you properly.”
The lovely but irritatingly timid Doctor Belle hovered nearby, anxiously twitching her skirt. “Careful,” she warned him. “You’re going to hurt yourself again.”
She sounded truly concerned, although it was a hard thing to fact-check when her face refused to stay focused.
But no way could he let that comment pass. “Hurt myself? I didn’t do any of this to me. That bastard right there did it.”
His name was Adam if Beau recalled correctly. Adam Caldwell. He’d made him drink orange juice that he hadn’t wanted. Maybe he was some hitman Leon had hired. Beau had signed a lot of insurance forms without reading the fine print. Who knew who the beneficiaries might be?
Adam sauntered farther into the jail. Heavy work boots clanked against the pine boards, one more so than the other.
He had bowlegs and a slight limp. “Watch your language in front of a lady.”
Beau wasn’t much into foul language, but another day was off to a bad start, making this the third or fourth in a row, and being chastised by a kidnapper for swearing was too much to take.
He let loose with a few choice phrases that expressed his opinion of the cowboy, the horse he rode in on, and the state of Montana in general.
Oddly, swearing made him feel a lot better. More in control.
“I’ll go check on breakfast and let you men talk,” Belle said, cheeks red. She fled.
Beau still couldn’t figure out what was up with her clothes. Maybe she was Amish or something.
Adam frowned. “Now you did it. You’ve upset Belle. Are you proud of yourself?”
“I don’t know what’s going on here,” Beau said, letting that question pass because deep down he wasn’t. “But if you think you can get ransom money by holding me hostage, you don’t know my agent.”
“You aren’t a hostage, so quit saying that.
You got violent at the airport. Probably from food poisoning but, more likely, from you being crazy.
We had to restrain you. The FAA thanked us for it, too.
We put you in here for your own good, and so Belle, our doctor, could monitor you without us having to worry for her safety, what with your mental health issues and all. ”
This was such bullshit. “I want to talk to Leon Schmidt. My agent.”
“Okay.”
Beau hadn’t expected Adam to agree.
“Just as soon as Benny goes over the terms of your contract with you,” Adam added. “Here he is now.”
The oldest man Beau had ever seen outside of a museum display hobbled into the jail.
He wore gray woolen pants, hiked up to his armpits by a pair of buttoned-on leather suspenders, and a red-checked flannel shirt.
He carried a zipped black leather notepad case.
He was skinny, without an ounce of muscle under his wrinkled, saggy skin to help hold his bones together.
They rattled, like glass marbles in a bag.
Liver spots checkered his paper-thin flesh.
If not for the bright, lively blue of his eyes, Beau might have believed they’d dug up a corpse and animated it using some sort of voodoo.
Because that was exactly how surreal this whole setup felt.
“How’s our patient?” the old man boomed in a startlingly strong voice, as if a bullhorn might be behind it.
Or a demon.
“Ungrateful,” Adam replied, sending a stink eye Beau’s way. “He upset Belle, too. The boy’s got a real potty mouth on him.”
“Now hold on a second,” Beau protested.
“Did you swear at Belle?” Outrage sharpened the old fellow’s eyes. “How on earth could any self-respecting man swear at that sweet little girl? You should be ashamed. Mr. Schmidt is going to hear about this.”
Beau’s headache ratcheted up a few notches. “I’m so ashamed. Let’s call Leon right now and tell him about it.”
“Okay.” The old man dug a cell phone from somewhere deep inside his wool trousers. He checked the screen. “No service.”
Wasn’t that too convenient? “I don’t believe you.”
The old man’s eyebrows rose, and his lips flattened, letting it be known that he didn’t like to be questioned.
He held out the phone. “Go ahead. See for yourself.”
Beau wasn’t touching that phone. He couldn’t say for sure where it had been or what it had been pressed up against. “I’ll take your word for it.”
“Head injury,” Adam said to the old man. “It’s made him unpredictable.”
He was dead and this had to be hell. And there was nothing worse than entering hell and getting on Satan’s bad side straight out of the gate.
Time to try a different approach. “We’ve gotten off on the wrong foot. Let’s start over and set the misunderstandings aside. My name’s Beau Jones. And you are…”
“Benny Jenkins. This here is Adam Caldwell.” Benny jerked a crooked, arthritic thumb in Adam’s direction.
“Well, Benny. Adam.” He nodded to each man in turn. “My agent arranged for me to work on the Ride No More Ranch for a few weeks as a ranch hand. Unfortunately, due to extenuating circumstances”—he indicated his finger and swollen ankle as visual proof—“I can’t fulfill the terms of our agreement.”
Nothing fazed Benny, however. “According to the terms of our agreement, we became responsible for you as soon as you entered Montana. You’re ours until the fifth of August. We’ll find something for you to do.”
Which didn’t sound ominous at all. Icy claws raked down his spine. Two months. What would he do here for two months?
Benny unzipped his binder and extracted a sheaf of paper.
“Mr. Schmidt warned me that you had commitment issues, so I brought a copy of our contract for you to review.” He shuffled the pages, holding them as far from his face as his bony arms could reach.
He extracted a sheet and waved it at Beau.
“That’s your signature right there on page ten, isn’t it?
” He stacked the signature page on top of the contract and passed the papers to Beau through the cell bars.
Beau grabbed them, then limped to the bed so he could sit down to read. He squinted in the faint light and stared at the top page. That was his signature, all right.
He flipped through the rest of the pages, taking his time while Benny and Adam patiently waited.
The tightening knot in his stomach threatened to strangle his intestines.
It was all there, in black and white. The network had agreed to his taking time away from his music so he could improve his brand for promotional purposes.
Benny Jenkins had agreed to take on brand management for the network.
And Beau had agreed to it all. How could this have happened? How could Leon have done this to him?
The better question might be, how could he have signed a contract without reading it first, knowing Leon as well as he did?
“Could I have my pants?” he asked.
“Right away. And don’t worry, we’ll find something to keep you occupied until you feel more like yourself. You’ve got your guitar. We can rig up a sound studio for you, if you want to work on new songs.”
Beau’s spirits lifted a little. This might work out after all. He could pretend to cooperate and work on his music while he planned his escape. He’d get through his contract with the network somehow. He’d fire Leon.
Then, he’d switch back to rock.
*
Belle
“We can’t keep him locked up for two months.”
Belle couldn’t believe it had to be said. She was in Benny’s office, which was attached to the town hall, which doubled as a church, and which was where their communications officer liaised with international clients while teaching Burning Scrub’s kids on the side.
Benny, Mavis, and Adam were with Belle. She’d run straight from the jail to find Mavis, with high hopes of her seeing reason, but Mavis, who shared a gene pool with Benny, had a mercenary streak that came out sometimes.
This was one of those times.
“Of course not. It’s only for a few days, until we’re sure he intends to honor the terms of his contract.
We’ve got a lot of money riding on him. Besides, it’s for his own protection.
It would be a terrible thing if he tried to slip away and got lost. According to his agent, he’s a city boy to the core.
He couldn’t find his way out of a barn, let alone these mountains.
” Mavis’s knitting needles clicked with an implacable lack of concern.
“We’re being very generous, all things considered,” Benny said. “We only need him for that one performance. Adam’s got the hardest job—brand management. He’s supposed to teach him how to be a cowboy. Give him some swagger.”
Adam held up a file folder an inch thick. “There’s not a whole lot here for me to work with. He should be paying us, not the other way round.”
Making Burning Scrub the real victim in this.
Belle pressed her palm to her cheek and tried to sift through the facts.
No one could prove they’d kidnapped Beau Jones.
Rohypnol residuals were difficult to detect and cleared the system within seventy-two hours.
Adam swore any airport security footage would back up their story—they’d helped Beau into the van after his little tumble, then brought him to the place he was contractually obligated to be—so where was any proof of a crime?
“How do you plan to get him to sing if he doesn’t want to?” she asked.
They all looked at her.
It took her a second to figure it out. “Me? You want me to persuade him? That’s a terrible plan.”
Benny pointed toward the file folder in Adam’s hand. “It says in there that he’s got a weakness for ladies, and you’re the prettiest lady we’ve got.”
Which wasn’t offensive at all. She’d signed on as the town doctor, not its professional escort. She needed a good excuse not to do this and grabbed the best she could think of, because it was true.