Broken Strings

Four

Brock drummed his fingers on the table. "As for the second rumour, all of my staff who were loyal to me, I treated like family. But I had a personal assistant who was stealing things from my house when I was away and replacing items with cheap replicas. He thought that I wouldn't notice but I did. His girlfriend, who was Tallahassee's social media accounts manager at the time, was also in on it. We fought about it right before a performance in front of our entire production crew and I fired them both on the spot. It made the production crew a little nervous because they didn't know about what had gone on."

"You're not the only one who's been the victim of a poor personal assistant," Julio interjected. "It's more common than I bet you know."

"I haven't had a P.A. since. Don't want to trust someone that much again."

"Understandable," Cierra added. "And what about the third rumour?"

Brock felt his throat go dry, his tongue grow heavy in his mouth. He took a steadying breath. "This one is a little more complicated but like before, there's truth mixed in with the lies. Did I know that Trace was sleeping around with a lot of women?  Yes, I did. Did I know that he often met them while he was partying and they were both drunk or high?  Also yes. But if you're asking me if I knew that he was doping them to get them into bed with him, then the answer is no.

"The reason people – the media – might not buy that is because Trace and I lived together at the time. We grew up together after he moved from Tallahassee to L.A. He and I went to the same schools, had the same friends, and had an interest in music. In high school, we started the band and brought in Jeremiah and Grayson later when he and I were starting to get noticed. So we were always close but Trace's argument is that I knew what he was doing because the signs were in our condo and I must be lying when I say that I never saw them, but it's the damned truth."

Cierra cocked her head to the side and asked quietly, "What about the other part? Did you conspire with Trace Strickland to try and sabotage the career of Bailey Grant and her band, Chasing Mayflies, while you were in Tallahassee? He mentioned her name and your specific involvement in that magazine article."

It was hard to meet their gazes so he stared at the table when he answered her.

"Tallahassee's popularity had been declining for a little while. Frontier was pushing us in the wrong direction and it was showing. Our album sales were pitiful and we all knew that we were going to be released after our contract ended unless things turned around quickly.

"That's where the problems with Bailey Grant started. We met Chasing Mayflies at an award show and Trace – brilliant as he was – tried to repair our image by linking up with Bailey because he thought that she was our ticket to regaining popularity. Her band was doing well and we thought that ours would do better just by being associated with them. I was the one who encouraged Trace to get closer to Bailey."

"Bailey, specifically?" Julio clarified. "Why not Kyra Ward or Mae Lafferty, her bandmates?"

"Mae was in a long-term relationship and Kyra had a habit of being in the press just as much as we did but because of Bailey and Mae's low profiles, her exploits never had the same impact on their band as ours did," Brock said. "In our case, all four of us were known for getting a bit wild. Bailey was the easiest option to get close to and the one with the best public image."

Brock paused long enough to see David and Julio exchange a look with each other – lips pursed tight. There was a new tension in the room.

He released a shuddering breath and closed his eyes. The next part was more difficult to say. "I didn't know what he was planning on saying about her."