Page 111 of Bonding the Band

Get your asses down here

I bet she would talk to Hen if he showed up

He sent a location pin.

Hendrix was a nervous wreck on the way over, but he held it together better than I expected, after everything he had been through. Beckett met us at the entrance, and thank god I had cleared up things about the kiss because, instead of punching him in the face, Beckett pulled Hendrix into a hug.

One of the officers approached us, his lips pressed into a grim line. “Do you think you can get her to talk?”

“If she’ll see me,” said Hendrix.

“Oh, she’ll see you. I told her you were on the way and she started crying. Come on.”

We followed him, the officer depositing me and Beckett behind a two-way mirror and going in with Hendrix. Ellie looked rough, barely anything like I remembered.

“Hendrix,” she gasped.

“I need you to tell them what you did.”

Her lip wobbled.

“Ellie, this is important. If you cooperate, it’ll be better for you.”

It didn’t take much for her to crack and spill to the officer that she had been drugging Meadow and Hendrix.

“Why?” Hendrix asked, his voice cracking.

“It was all Gary!” she shrieked. “He promised you would love me if I helped him get Meadow to leave the tour, so you could forget about her. She wasn’t supposed to have what we gave you. I was just giving her a sedative, so she’d be fucking miserable and want to go home.”

“You do realize how fucked up that is, don’t you?”

“It’s not my fault! I believed him. I was only fucking that asshole to get close to you. He promised it wouldn’t hurt you.”

“Whoa,” I whispered.

“Where is Gary now?” Hendrix asked.

“He has a house in Malibu under a fake name. Reggie Thomas.” Ellie rattled off the address. “He told me to go there if things went south. I assume he’s still there.”

I was already on my phone, looking up the address. “I’ll be back.”

“Where are you going?” Beckett hissed.

“I’ll be back,” I said again. “Don’t leave Hen here.”

I slipped away and got in my car for a brisk drive to Malibu. When I reached the address Ellie had provided, I walked around to the beach, seeing Gary standing in the sand barefoot, watching the ocean like he didn’t have a worry in the world.

It took a lot to push me to the edge, but listening to Ellie sing like a canary about all of his evil and duplicity had silent rage sinking into my bones.

I crept up quietly behind him. “Don’t move,” I ordered.

Gary jolted and took off sprinting, racing up the wooden steps of his deck. I followed, grabbing him by the shirt and wrenching backward with all of my strength at the same time I leapt over the railing. The sand cushioned my landing, but Gary hit the stairs hard, tumbling ass over feet to sprawl, panting, in the sand below.

“The police are already on their way here,” I told him.

Gary swallowed hard, staring up at me with frightened eyes, groaning when he tried to move. “Then why are you here?”

“Because whatever justice you face will never be enough suffering for what you did to Meadow and Hendrix, and, fuck it, to the rest of us too, with all of your goddamn bullshit over the years. You’re a fucking worm, Gary. You deserve to rot in the ground, in an unmarked grave, getting pissed on by the animals who eat you.”

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