Page 118 of My UnTrue Love
Clem gave a dazed blink. In sticking up for her, Bill had unknowingly uncovered a far deeper problem in the music business. His photo was now in every feed too, as the herald of Johnny’s downfall.
Bill would hate all this publicity, if he ever logged onto the internet and noticed it. He liked his mischief-making to be more mysterious. Having his name front-and-center would take all the fun out of it for him. But then this wasn’t fun, at all. Not for anyone. This was beyond anything Bill could’ve ever imagined exposing.
“About a dozen of the girls decided to post some open letter and those pictures, a couple hours ago. They now feel ‘safecoming forward.’” Johnny was seething. “It’s going viral! I’m going to sue Mamie!”
“Mamie O’Rourke?” Clem clarified blankly.
“She wouldn’t put me onHome on the Range!” Johnny wailed. “She should have convinced her dad to give me a slot. I still had some pictures of her, from when we were dating. If Bill could use the tabloids to ruin me, I thought I could use them to threaten Mamie. Get an audition with…”
“Youwere the one blackmailing Mamie?” Clem interrupted, her sense of unreality deepening.
“It wasn’t blackmail! All she had to do was get me on that show! Instead, she hired some damn dragon to steal the photos and I guess he must have found some of my other pictures, as well. The next thing I know,Mamiehas them all. And she’s turned into this vengeful shrew, selling me out to the press.”
“Twelve women are accusing you of raping them.” Clem said slowly. So shereallyunderstood what was happening here.
“They can’t prove it!” He defended righteously. “The pictures could’ve been doctored. Nobody trusts dragons. Why does this Trevelyan guy care what happened to those whores, anyhow? And besides those photos weremine! Why would he give my personal property to Mamie? I’ll sue him, too!”
“Oh, Johnny…” She covered her eyes with the palm of her hand, knowing everything she’d ever seen in him was gone forever. “Howcouldyou?”
“It’s not my fault!” Johnny kept talking, too fast and too loud. “Rosalee should’ve handled this! She should’ve shut it down before it ever went this far. She tried to make it seem likeit was my fault. But she only quit, because sheknowshow badly she screwed this up.”
“I thought you said you fired Rosalee?”
“What difference does it make? Sheleft.Just like you did.” Johnny kicked one of the kitchen stools over, so it clattered to the ground.
Clementine winced as the wooden stool broke.
Johnny continued raging. “And now the record isfucked. Bowleg Bob has had to skip town. Somebody alerted his ex-wife that he was in Red River Valley. He owes like a decade of back child support. I’ll bet you Bill is the one who called that bitch, so she could come after him.”
Probably. Bowleg Bob hadn’t protested Clem’s firing. Bill didn’t appreciate that. And he would certainly want a single mom to get her money.
“Susannah Alabama’s suing me for sexual harassment. That PR team I pay won’t even take my calls. Some weirdo with a contagious skin condition is living in my guestroom. I don’t even know how he got a key.” Johnny ran a hand through his hair, leaving it sticking up in spikes. In his frustration, he was handling it so often that the styling products were clumping up the strands. “It’s not fair!” He screamed, the words echoing off the walls. “None of this is fair!”
A rapist was spiraling out of control and she was alone with him.
Clem carefully put the phone down, so it wouldn’t upset Johnny any further. It suddenly struck her as very important that she calm him down. “How did I not know about this side of you before?” She said as evenly as she could.
“I never wanted any of the partying near you.” His too-wild eyes met hers, his voice dropping in volume but not intensity. “You’re a sweet little rosebud, Clem. Not some cheap whore.” He reached out to touch her cheek. “You’re exactly what a man wants in his True Love. I probablyalwaysknew that, but Bill interfered before I could marry you. You get that, right?”
She shied away from his touch. “No. I don’t get that.”
His expression darkened. “The True Love bond doesn’t materialize for Good folks until they sleep together. That’s what we’re going to do, now.”
Clementine edged back a step, her pulse pounding. “No.”
“Yes! Then, you’ll see you belong to me. You’ll come back home and help me fix this mess and everything will be right again. Youalwaysknow how to make it right.” His hand whipped out, grabbing onto her arm. “It’s Johnny and Clementine,remember?”
Chapter Twenty-Four
The coyote raced to edge of wet,
So quickly had he come,
But there his heart broke with regret,
See what his greed had done.
Lyrics from the folk song “Crossroads Coyote”
