Crescendo

Chapter 1-Deal With the Devil

The girl on the small stage in front of me croons her heart out to the almost empty bar. It doesn't matter that it's a Tuesday at 1 PM. She sings with the same passion as she would if her audience was a sold-out stadium instead of three men with beer bellies drinking Bud Light, and me. A week ago, when I first arrived here I would have thought there was no way a girl with this much talent and passion for her music wasn't about to make it big. Now I've seen just how many girls and boys around here have talent and drive and desire to make it big, just like my sister.

The girl finishes up her song and smiles at the half-hearted claps that came from the Bud Light table. I swallow the rest of my diet coke in a swig and make my way up to her. I catch her eye and drop a twenty-dollar bill in her tip bucket. She beams when she looks at me.

"Hey, thanks hon," her accent is just over the top enough that I can tell she is putting on a little bit of a show. It has just enough of a Southern Twang to make a tourist girl like me feel like I'm experiencing something authentic. "You know I have a card right here. It has all my socials and a QR code that will bring you right to my Spotify here." She turns around to grab it. "I can sign it for you. What's your name?"

"Dru."

"Dru?" She pulls off a pen cap with her teeth and signs the back of her card. "I like that it's kind of 90's punk. You know I'm looking for a new stage name, I think. Aly just isn't going to cut it anymore. But Dru—"

"I actually had a question for you," I cut her off. As bad as I feel, I'm here for information, not entertainment. Aly cocks her head to one side.

"What is it?"

"My sister used to play around here. She played this bar actually. I haven't heard from her in a little over a month, and I think something terrible might have happened. Have you crossed paths with a girl named Ava Campbell?"

Aly's face sours. Probably in part because of the realization that I didn't drop a tip in her bucket because I thought she was too talented to be playing at a dive bar in the middle of the afternoon, but because I needed information.

"There are a lot of girls around here," she replies tightly. I notice her accent has dropped. "I can't expect to remember them all. And I don't make a habit of getting mixed up in people's personal lives. It's a good way to get yourself in trouble."

"This is her." I whip my phone out to show her a picture of Ava. It's actually the last picture I took of her before she left. Her light, blonde hair fell down the middle of her back. Her smile is so wide and bright. A pair of heart-shaped glasses perched on her nose. She looked beautiful and shiny. "Please," I say softly. "She's my sister. She is my twin sister, and my only family left."

Aly's face is still guarded, but she glances at the phone in my hand. "I can't say I know her personally— girls come and go so quickly around here—but she does kind of look she could be one of Beck's girls."

"Beck?"

"From Beckett's, on 44th Ave. It's more for locals than tourists, but it's very popular. He likes girls with that brand new Barbie-doll kind of look."

I haven't heard of Beckett's, but I've mostly looked around the tourist strips and places where girls like Ava— small-town girls with big dreams— got spit out at the end of their bus rides from the middle of bumfuck nowhere. It's where she ended up waitressing, probably begging for a chance to sing in one of these bars.

"Thank you," I close my eyes. "Thank you very much."

"No problem, hun," Her drawl is back. I look at her and notice her eyes are focused beyond me to one of the guys from the Bud Light table is approaching her with a bill in his hand. She smiles at him, encouragingly.