Rock Chick

Chapter Four Do I Need to Kiss You Again?

My reaction was immediate.

“I’m gonna kill you,” I told Ally.

She walked in and dropped an overnight bag on the floor, chuckling.

She set me up. She knew Lee was coming home last night. Crazy bitch.

“What’s going on here?” Kitty Sue asked hopefully, rooted to the spot and staring at us, not with disapproval at our carnal clinch, but with eyes filled with hopeful bliss.

Lee got his eyes from Kitty Sue, and all the kids got their long, lean body from her. Kitty Sue was always a bundle of energy, the kind of Mom who held down a full-time job, made dinner every night, had home-baked cookies in the cookie jar and, every year, sewed all her kids’ Halloween costumes from scratch.

Lee moved to the side then jumped up and sat on the counter beside me.

I hastily closed my legs.

“Anyone want coffee?” Lee asked courteously.

I jumped down and took a step forward, escape on my mind. It was pretty clear to me that I’d slid through a tear between the worlds and I had to find my way back to my home world pretty damn quick.

Further, now that the Lee of this world was no longer kissing me, I had to get away from him or I was going to wrap my hands around his neck and squeeze.

Lee leaned forward, caught me by the waistband of my jeans and hauled me back between his legs.

“What’s going on here?” Kitty Sue repeated, her eyes taking in the cozy scene.

Far too cozy. Far too fast. Far too weird.

Shit.

I opened my mouth to speak but Lee beat me to it.

“Indy and I are together now.”

My entire body froze in disbelief, my mouth still open.

“Oh my God. Oh my God,” Kitty Sue chanted.

“Righteous!” Ally exclaimed.

I twisted around and glared at Lee. “You said one night of sex!”

Lee’s eyes held mine. “I didn’t say one night. We’ve been waitin’ a long time, one night won’t do it.” Then he paused and said, “But, if you want, we can try.”

My breasts swelled at the idea of trying to fit years of sex into one night with Lee.

I ignored my breasts and paid attention to my temper.

I figured it would be bad form to smack Lee in front of his mother.

And definitely strangulation was out.

Kitty Sue was in her little slice of heaven, so much so, she missed my “one night of sex” comment and Lee’s response.

“I can’t wait to tell your father,” she told me, “and your father,” she told Lee.

“I wouldn’t do that,” I said, beginning to panic.

“Of course, we all shouldn’t get too excited. This is happening fast, though not that fast, if-you-know-what-I-mean,” Kitty Sue went on.

Fast? This wasn’t fast. This was warp speed

Kitty Sue was staring dreamily ahead, not focused on a thing and we’d all melted into the atmosphere. She was picking wedding colors, she was deciding china patterns, she was mentally knitting baby booties, she was planning her visit to my mother’s grave to impart the blissful news.

Shit.

I twisted back to Lee.

“Asshole,” I mouthed.

He was unfazed at my word though he seemed somewhat fascinated with watching my mouth form it.

“I brought you a change of clothes and some of your stuff,” Ally said, reaching behind us and grabbing the coffeepot. “Looks like I should have brought more.”

I moved my glare to her.

She was just as good at ignoring it as Lee, better, she’d had more practice.

“I’ll take some of that. Indy already has a cup,” Lee murmured.

“Not surprising,” Ally said, pouring coffee into three mugs.

They were acting like it was business as usual at Lee’s condo, just like it was any other day and I decided I was most definitely in an alternate universe because this was all just plain old nuts.

“Listen people!” I cried, trying to get everyone’s attention. “This is not what it seems.”

Ally looked at me.

Kitty Sue’s happily dazed eyes focused on me.

Lee’s hard thighs tightened on my sides and his forearm wrapped around my chest and neck. His chin dipped to the curve of my shoulder, his lips at my ear.

“Don’t spoil Mom’s moment,” he murmured there.

“What is it, then?” Kitty Sue asked.

Lee’s fingers dug into my shoulder and I could feel the muscles flexing in his forearm at my neck. I took one look in Kitty Sue’s eyes.

Damn it all to hell.

“We’re taking it slow,” I said for lack of anything else to say, like, the truth.

Wouldn’t sound so good to say, Your son is trying to extort sex from me. News at eleven.

Kitty Sue breathed a sigh of relief, sent us a dazzling smile and put sugar in her coffee.

Ally wandered into the living room.

Lee brushed my hair aside with his chin and softly kissed the spot where my shoulder met my neck.

I guessed that was his way of saying thank you.

It was a good way.

“Hey, where’s Rosie?” Ally asked.

I froze.

So did Lee.

We’d completely forgotten about Rosie.

“Fuck,” Lee said, moved me forward and jumped off the counter, prowling into the living room. I caught a good look both of his muscled back and his ass in his jeans and went a little weak in the knees.

“Liam Nightingale, that mouth!” Kitty Sue admonished.

I followed Lee, but he was already moving out of the living room and through the kitchen.

I looked at the quilt and pillow on the couch.

No Rosie.

“Fuck!” Lee said from somewhere else in the condo.

I ran to him.

The second bedroom door was closed, the bathroom door was open, with the bathroom empty. I walked into Lee’s room and he stalked out of his bathroom.

“That fucking twat,” Lee muttered.

“Mouth!” Super-power-Mom-eared Kitty Sue called from the kitchen.

Lee could always swear really, really well. He’d been doing it since I could remember.

Lee walked to the dresser and slid a drawer open. He pulled on a navy, long-sleeved t-shirt that fit super-snug to his chest and arms and grabbed a pair of socks. I watched as he sat on the bed to pull on the socks and a pair of black motorcycle boots with square toes and silver hoops at the sides.

Seriously kickass boots.

I shook my head to clear thoughts of Lee’s boots and started to worry about Rosie and why he would leave, what he was doing, where he was going and what was in that pot-addled brain of his.

Then something occurred to me as Lee got off the bed.

And for the first time that morning, I smiled.

If I found Rosie first, and got the diamonds back to their owner, then I wouldn’t owe Lee a thing.

Hee hee.

I was so happy with my thought, I had to share it.

“I guess this puts a crimp in your sex extortion plans.”

I’d timed my “nanny nanny foo foo” very poorly. Lee was close enough to hook me around the back of the neck with enough force to send me slamming into him. He gave my hair an erotically rough yank, tilting my head back.

Then he kissed me.

It was a hard, deep and serious kiss with a liberal dose of tongue.

My toes curled into the thick carpet.

When he lifted his head, he said, “I have plans for you. Don’t leave this apartment.”

I nodded.

I had every intention of leaving his apartment.

He watched me.

“Indy, you leave this apartment, I’ll come lookin’ for you.”

“Jeez, we haven’t even slept together and already you don’t trust me.”

“I’ve known you all your life not to mention the fact that my idiot sister is in the next room and when you two get together it’s like Laurel and Hardy do Denver.”

“It is not!”

“What about that time you bought scalped tickets to a Garth Brooks concert from Carmine Alfonzo?”

Carmine Alfonzo, better known as Uncle Carmine. We’d known him since we were seven, he used to ride the squad car with Dad.

“He was in disguise!” I defended myself.

“He was wearing a baseball hat,” Lee returned.

“Yes, but he’s a Cubs fan, he was wearing a Sox hat. His head should have been on fire.”

The sides of Lee’s eyes crinkled in a grin that didn’t involve his mouth but was nevertheless ultra-effective and let go of my hair.

“We aren’t finished yet,” he told me.

“Yes we are,” I retorted.

Lee’s crinkles disappeared and his face got serious.

“This is happening between you and me,” he threatened.

I wasn’t entirely sure what “this” meant since he announced to his mother and sister that we were “together”. Considering what I did know was that a goodly part of it involved us being naked, in his bed, participating in activities which required my avid participation, I wasn’t going to have any part of it.

“No, it isn’t,” I snapped back.

“We’ll talk about it later.”

“No, we won’t.”

His eyes narrowed. “Do I need to kiss you again?”

I took a hasty step back and watched my toe draw a pattern in the carpet.

“No,” I muttered.

“Christ, I need to get my head examined.”

My head snapped up.

“What does that mean?” I asked angrily.

“Nothin’. Be here when I get back.”

“Sure.”

Not on his life.

Ally Nightingale had yet to decide on a career. Currently, she was on her one hundred and eleventh bartending job. She already had a Bachelor’s degree (majored in political science and squeaked by), was a certified radiology technician (a tough gig but she saw it through and worked the MRI machine at Swedish Medical Center for two months before quitting, Malcolm’s head nearly exploded after that one) as well as a certified nail technician.

Of all those things, Ally gave good nails but she found sitting in a chair all day filing, polishing and forming plastic glop into nail shapes was not compatible with her energetic personality.

Luckily, bartending left most of her days free and whenever she needed a bit of cash (which was often), she worked part-time for me at Fortnum’s.

Before coming over with Kitty Sue, Ally had gone to my house and chosen an Ally-outfit for me. If I was to choose a search-for-Rosie outfit or a night-after-Liam outfit it would have included Levi’s. But then most of my outfits included Levi’s unless I had a backstage pass.

Ally had chosen a denim skirt that was mini in the sense that it hit five inches above my knees (not mini in the way Ally wore them, which was five centimeters below her ass), my vintage Rolling Stones t-shirt (I wasn’t a Stones fan but the shirt was way cool), a wide, red belt with a big silver buckle with a delicate filigree-and-braided design and my red cowboy boots.

After Lee and Kitty Sue left, I filled Ally in on the whole Rosie Debacle and my plan to find him. She (not surprisingly) immediately volunteered her assistance and I (equally not surprisingly) took her up on it.

I showered and dressed while Ally tried (and failed) to call Duke.

Then we went to the bookstore to help Jane. With Duke and Rosie out, Jane was alone at the store and was in a tizzy because she was handling the espresso machine by herself and thus, actually had to speak to people. Jane was not good at speaking to people, she could shelve a mean book and was really good at tidying, vacuuming, updating our computer book inventory but customer relations was not her strong suit.

Ally and I worked alongside Jane until the morning crush was over. The regulars weren’t happy that Rosie wasn’t there but we’d all been working alongside Rosie enough to be able to do a fair imitation. Still, it wasn’t the same.

Then Ally swung by Rosie’s house on the off chance he was there. This was off-limits for me because Lee might have found out Rosie’s address using one of his mysterious “ways” and might be there and I didn’t want to bump into Lee just yet. Especially not searching for Rosie or the diamonds, he didn’t know my plan and I wasn’t about to let on.

And anyway, business on a weekday didn’t really die down until after the lunch hour and I couldn’t leave Jane on her own.

While Ally was doing the stop off at Rosie’s place, my cell rang.

It was Dad.

“Hey Daddy-o,” I said.

“What’s this about you hookin’ up with Lee?”

Shit.

Kitty Sue.

“We’re taking it slow.”

“Take it real slow,” Dad said. “That boy’s a tomcat. Jesus, why couldn’t you choose Hank? Hank’s a good guy, a solid cop, has a job where both of his feet are planted on the right side of the law.”

Yikes.

Dad went on. “Don’t get me wrong, Lee’s his own man, doesn’t take shit from anyone, gotta respect that but, hell. My daughter?”

I was silent and Dad was on a roll. You couldn’t really get much in when Dad was on a roll.

“Kitty Sue is beside herself. Your mother and her had some sort of blood pact where they stuck their thumbs with pins and put them together, silly girl crap, and they promised their kids would get married, have babies and that way, they’d be related.”

That sounded familiar.

Dad’s voice changed from frustrated to coaxing. “Hank’ll have a good pension.”

“Dad, I’d make Hank’s head explode, we’d last, like, a day.”

“Shee-it.”

Dad knew this was true.

He didn’t say much more before he rang off.

Guess Lee didn’t have the Dad Vote.

I shook off the call and mentally assigned Lee the duty of letting his mother down easy. He’d gotten us into this, he’d have to get us out.

I decided to call a couple of Rosie’s friends that he’d put down in his file as emergency contacts to see if Rosie was with them or if they’d seen him. I got no response from one, the other was home, sleeping it off, unhappy to be disturbed and had not heard from Rosie in a few days.

I called Duke again. Twice. No answer. No answering machine either. Duke really needed to get into the twenty-first century and I mentally added items onto my Christmas-present-buying list.

Then the door opened to the Marianne Meyer walked in.

Marianne Meyer lived next door to the Nightingale’s in Washington Park all the while we were growing up. She was between Lee and Ally and me in age and she was a good friend. She had been fettered by a scoliosis brace in junior high and orthodontics in high school. She married a jerk, got a divorce and moved back in with her parents a year ago. Marianne was taking her divorce hard and living with her parents at age thirty-one harder. She was five foot five and used to be cute as a button, but the divorce was taking its toll and she was drowning her sorrows in Oreos. She was a nurse at Pres-St. Luke’s, took the evening shifts so she’d have her days free and had made house-hunting a full-time hobby.

She rushed up to me at the espresso counter, her cheeks flushed.

“I heard you finally hooked up with Lee Nightingale,” she said.

Shit, shit, shit.

Marianne was intimately acquainted with my lifelong crush and had been recruited for some of my Lee Maneuvers in the past. She probably thought I was in seventh heaven and needed a friend to take me wedding-dress-shopping.

“We’re taking it slow,” I said.

“Have you… you know… done it yet?” Her eyes were beginning to glaze over at the very thought of doing it with the legendary Liam Nightingale.

“Nope.”

“What are you waiting for?” she nearly shouted and if she’d reached across the counter and grabbed me by my shirt and shook me, I wouldn’t have been surprised.

I took Marianne’s mind off Lee with a mocha, heavy on the chocolate syrup and whipped cream.

After Marianne left, making me promise to phone her the minute I did it with Lee and give her all the details (not gonna happen), I called Hank.

I did this because I thought maybe Rosie might do something stupid, like hock the diamonds and go to San Salvador. According to him, he was owed fifty dollars for some of the “primo” grass I never knew that he grew in his basement and the guy gave him a gazillion dollars worth of diamonds.

That was seriously fishy and Rosie was seriously stupid for taking the damn things.

Though, what did one do when presented with a fortune of diamonds? Say no?

I didn’t actually blame Rosie for wanting to cash in his windfall and skip town.

Personally, I wouldn’t have picked San Salvador though.

If Rosie successfully skipped, and Lee was right in what he said last night, this meant that Rosie would be in San Salvador and there was a good possibility that either Lee or I or both of us would be target practice (I really shouldn’t have mouthed off to those guys and I was in whole-hearted agreement with Lee, I’m sure he’d been shot at tons of times and if he didn’t like it, I’d never like it).

This would also mean I owed Lee big time for putting his life in danger. Not to mention my life would be in danger and I’d have a hard time talking myself out of having sex with Lee (at least once) before I died.

Further, I’d never replace Rosie at the espresso machine. He had a God-given talent, no joke. He was the Picasso of Coffee.

The first thing Hank said, “I hear you’ve finally hooked up with Lee.”

Shit.

Kitty Sue, the fastest dialing fingers in the West.

Something had to be done.

“Not exactly,” I responded.

“Yeah, takin’ it slow.”

“Something like that.” Really slow. Snail-with-a-hernia slow. “Listen, can I talk to you about something?”

“Anything.”

“Can you step out of your cop shoes for five minutes?”

Silence.

Hank wasn’t very fond of me asking that question, which I did, over the years, a lot.

“Shit. You and Ally haven’t stolen candy from Walgreen’s again, have you?”

“We didn’t steal it! We were just buying a bunch and didn’t know what we could carry so we started putting it in our pockets early to see how much we could pack in.”

“They have bags at Walgreen’s, you know.”

“Those plastic bags clog the landfills and choke the environment.”

Or something.

“Jesus, a politically-correct Indy. God save us.”

“Smartass,” I said on a smile.

“What did you wanna talk about?”

Big breath.

“How would I go about finding a missing person?”

Hank became all business, I couldn’t see him but I heard it, for sure.

“Who is it?”

“You don’t know him.” Well, Hank did know Rosie but only to buy coffee from when he came to Fortnum’s.

“How long have they been missing?”

I tried to calculate it. “About ten hours.”

“Sorry, Indy. Not missing yet.”

“What if they actually are?”

“Who is it?” he repeated.

“An employee of mine, he’s a steady guy.” That was a lie, Rosie was anything but steady. But Rosie never missed a chance to make coffee. He worked seven days a week and never complained. “He didn’t show up for work today, his name is Ambrose Coltrane.”

Best not use his alias, just in case Lee called in a favor.

“The same Ambrose Coltrane that Lee’s lookin’ for?”

Say what?

“Lee only knows him as Rosie!”

Hesitation.

“Lee has ways.”

Grr.

Everybody was always saying this. Lee had ways of getting into girls’ panties. Lee had ways of getting parts for his car when he didn’t have a job. Lee had ways of finding choice parking spots wherever he went. Lee had ways of getting out of being grounded on average one hour after the grounding (when Ally and I would usually have to do the whole week or month or whatever our transgression had bought).

Hank didn’t read my frustration.

“Starting with his PI databases. He can tap into a lot of things. Lee called in a couple hours ago. Asked me to let him know if Coltrane surfaces. He doin’ this favor for you?”

Pause for answer.

I kept my mouth shut.

“What’s goin’ on?” Hank was losing his good-natured, business-like voice and was lapsing into his stern-older-brother voice. “Why are you and Lee looking for the same guy?”

Rule Number One in the India Savage Life Code: When in doubt or possible trouble, lie.

“Don’t know. Listen, Hank, can you call me first if you hear anything about Rosie? And then forget about it for about an hour or two or twenty before calling Lee?”

“Not if you don’t tell me what this is about.”

Like brother, like brother. Stubborn to the last.

“Forget it. See you Saturday at Dad’s barbeque.”

“You comin’ with Lee?’

“No, I’m not coming with Lee. I’m pretty sure we’ll be broken up by then. Later.”

I hung up and opened the phone book on my cell. I scrolled down to Lee, took a big breath and punched the button that would call Lee, a button I’d never punched before in my life.

He answered after one ring. “Yeah?”

“Lee? It’s Indy.”

A customer walked up and asked for a double espresso and I gave him a one minute finger and Jane started banging the portafilter against the sink to loosen the last pot of grounds.

“Where are you?” he asked.

“Fortnum’s.”

“I thought I told you to stay at the condo.”

As if I ever did what I was told.

“I have a business and I’m down two employees. I had to come to work.”

“Less than twenty-four hours ago, people were shootin’ at you.”

Hmm, he sounded pissed off.

“Jane can’t handle the store in the morning all alone, she’ll go meltdown.”

Why was I explaining myself to him?

“Listen, you have to stop Kitty Sue, she’s telling everyone we’re together.”

“We are together.”

“We’re not together.”

“Who has she told?”

“Dad, Marianne Meyer, Hank, God knows who else. This is getting out of hand. It has to stop.”

“Mom didn’t tell Hank, I told Hank.”

“Why would you tell Hank?” This was said in a near shout and the customer took a step back.

Lee was silent for a second, thinking thoughts I could not fathom, then he changed the subject. “When do you close?”

“Six.”

“Don’t leave the store. I’ll come by tonight at six to pick you up.”

“Lee…”

“See you at six.”

Then he hung up.

Rat bastard.

Ally came back to get me with news of no Rosie at Rosie’s house.

I asked if there was any Lee at Rosie’s house and that was a negatory too.

We took off to go see Rosie’s friend, emergency contact numero uno. He had a house in the Highlands area. Great old houses and bungalows, though Rosie’s friend didn’t live in one that had been renovated. For that matter, he didn’t live in a block that had a single house that had been renovated. Or in a block that had a single house with more than a dozen blades of genuine grass growing in their yards or decent curtains in their windows. It was semi-wasteland.

We knocked to no answer.

We sat in my car and called the house number on my cell phone, no answer.

We scanned the neighborhood and Ally pointed to the end of the block.

We got out of the car and walked to the corner Stop & Stab which had surprisingly not been crushed by the overabundance of Denver’s convenience stores. A guy of Arab descent stood behind the counter.

We walked up to him and he smiled.

“You want gum?” he asked.

“No, we’re…” I started to say.

“Cigarettes? They’re bad for you but I have to sell them or I’ll go bust. Everyone in this neighborhood smokes cigarettes.”

I shook my head and then wondered briefly why Lee smelled like tobacco, I hadn’t seen him smoke since he enlisted.

I noticed Ally staring at me like, “Hello?” and I shook out of my Lee Reverie.

“You know Rosie Coltrane?”

“You’re not buying goods?” the counter man asked, looking both disappointed and defeated.

I couldn’t help myself, he immediately made me sad.

“Yes, mints,” I grabbed a pack of mints and put it on the counter.

He stared at the mints.

I stared at the mints.

Ally stared at the mints.

The mints seemed lonely and the purchase of the mints was not going to do anything to help feed this man’s family.

I put another pack of mints on the counter, followed it with two candy bars and then walked over to the fridge and grabbed two bottles of water and two diet pops.

On the way back to the counter, I grabbed a box of cream-filled, prepackaged cupcakes. I hadn’t had a cupcake in ages.

He happily started ringing up my purchases. “Who are you looking for again?”

“Rosie Coltrane. He works for me and didn’t come into work today and I’m worried,” I lied.

I was a good liar, I’d been doing it since Lee, Ally and I were caught behind the garage trying to smoke leaves when Ally and I were eight and Lee was eleven. I came up with the imaginative excuse that we were thinking about roasting marshmallows but didn’t know how. Malcolm bought it, kids, marshmallows, my cute, angelic smile. It all seemed benign and plausible.

After we got off with just a lecture about fire safety and the danger of matches, Lee tousled my hair.

Happy memories.

“I do not know a man named Rosie. What kind of man has a name like Rosie?”

“Rosey Grier?” Ally tried.

“I don’t know a Rosey Grier either,” the counter man said.

“Football player? Helped catch Sirhan Sirhan?” Ally prompted.

“I don’t follow American football. I know no Sirhan Sirhan. Is he a football player too?”

“No, he assassinated Bobby Kennedy,” Ally explained.

“Oh my gracious! I certainly don’t know of him!” the counter man exclaimed, horrified.

I decided to cut into the history lesson. “Our Rosie doesn’t live around here but his friend does, down and across the street about four houses. His name is Tim Shubert.”

“I know Tim, he buys lots of cheese puffs and frozen pizzas.”

If Tim was a stoner the caliber of Rosie, I had no doubt he bought a lot of cheese puffs and pizzas.

“Rosie’s thin, about five foot six, dirty blond hair, looks a bit like Kurt Cobain but his face isn’t as pointy,” Ally put in.

“I know no Kurt Cobain but I have seen a man of this description with Tim. Is his name really Rosie?”

“Nickname,” I said, “his name is Ambrose.”

“Ambrose is a perfectly fine name. Why does he not call himself Ambrose?”

Ally looked at me.

I decided to ignore that one. Any answer would have to span a generation and a culture gap. I didn’t have it in me today, in less than twenty-four hours, I’d been shot at, physically dragged out of bed and kissed by Lee Nightingale three and a half times (yes, I was counting and the half was the kiss he planted on my neck).

I was a woman on a mission and I didn’t have time to explain a dud name like Ambrose.

“Have you seen him lately, like say, today?” I asked as I paid for my purchase.

“No, not today.”

“Tim?” Ally asked.

“Not Tim either.”

He handed me the bag and I took it, at a loss for what to do next.

“Jeez, Indy. Don’t you read detective novels? You own a bookstore for God’s sake,” Ally hissed and then turned to the store owner.

The counter man smiled huge. “You own a bookstore? I love books. What bookstore do you own?”

“Fortnum’s, on the corner of Bayaud and Broadway,” I answered.

“I know that. My wife goes there. Books are cheap there and then you can sell them back and get cash money.”

“Yep, that’s it.” I nodded and smiled, happy to meet a customer-by-proxy.

Ally was busy scribbling my name and numbers on a piece a paper she found in her purse and when she was done, she handed him the paper. “Maybe you could give us a call if you see Rosie or Tim. Would you do that?”

“Of course. I’m an employer, only my wife works for me but I understand how important it is to trust your hired help. I will call you.”

“Thanks.”

We went out and sat in my car and stared at Tim’s house while we thought about what to do next. We both were new at this. Neither of us had tracked down a stoner-on-the-run before. We’d stalked plenty of guys, but we’d known where to find them.

We both ate a cupcake to get the brain juices flowing.

“That was a nice guy,” I said through yellow cake and cream.

“Yep,” Ally replied, her mouth equally full.

Someone tapped on Ally’s window and we both jumped and swiveled our heads to the side.

I nearly spewed better-living-through-chemistry cream on my windshield at what I saw.

It was Grizzly Adams, but the serial killer version. He was enormous, had lots of wild, blond hair, a thick, seriously overlong (we’re talking ZZ Top here) russet beard and was wearing a flannel shirt even though it had to be nearly ninety degrees.

He was also carrying a shotgun and had some kind of freaky-ass goggle apparatus on the top of his head.

“You want somethin’?” he growled.

“We’re looking for Tim Shubert,” Ally replied calmly.

“He’s not here,” Grizzly said, “move along.”

“Yep, yep. Going!” I shouted and started the car, put it into gear and took off.

“Where are we going?” Ally asked.

“Hell if I know.”

“We should have asked him some questions,” Ally said, completely at ease

“Right. No. We’re trying to avoid me getting dead. Definitely you getting dead. I don’t talk to people who carry shotguns around in broad daylight.”

“He looked interesting,” Ally said contemplatively.

Shit.

It was just after four.

After our introduction to Grizzly, we’d swung back by Fortnum’s to help out Jane for awhile and ask if she’d heard from Duke (answer: no).

Now, Ally and I were in my dark blue VW Beetle, windows down, sunroof back, sitting outside Rosie’s house sipping leftover water and waiting.

My Beetle wasn’t exactly a rock ‘n’ roll-mobile but it was cute. It had cream leather seats that were great in the winter because they heated up. Now that it was summer, the seats stuck to your legs and every time you got out, it felt like three layers of skin tore off (another reason to wear jeans).

Denver had killer weather, as in nearly perfect. Summers were hot but usually at night it cooled off enough to sleep under a cover. Spring and Fall were volatile and allowed for variety in wardrobe. Winter was never too cold because there was no moisture in the air. The occasional blizzard was a bummer and sometimes there were snowstorms in July but nearly every day was sunny and the blue skies of Denver could not be beat.

We’d already called Duke, like, a gazillion times. Duke and Dolores were visiting Dolores’s parents in Pagosa Springs and they were supposed to be home in the morning but had still not arrived. I didn’t know Dolores’s parents’ number or her maiden name. We were stuck on that score.

I found Duke’s disappearance curious and a little scary. Though Duke had been known to go walkabout, except it was walkabout on a Harley.

Duke didn’t do cell phones and I was loath to go to Evergreen. Although Rosie would likely be there or go there, at least eventually as that was where the diamonds were, so might Lee and I had decided I was definitely back to avoiding Lee.

I had not come to terms with this abrupt about-face and needed time to process it.

Who was I kidding?

There was no processing going on.

Lee and I were not gonna happen.

I hated to break Ally and Kitty Sue’s hearts but I’d seen Lee tear through a variety of women’s lives and I wasn’t going to be one of them.

These days, he was never home.

I had no idea what he did for a living but I was pretty sure it was dangerous.

And he was way too damn cocky.

Ally and I were both staring at Rosie’s house and I was trying to pluck up the courage to drive to Evergreen and maybe have a scary faceoff with Lee that I had to have the cojones to win when someone tapped on the back passenger window.

“Shit!” I jumped and shouted.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.”

In Ally’s window was a nice-looking man, though a wee-bit steroid ridden and overdeveloped in the chest area but he had a good haircut, shirt, tie, slacks.

“We’re a bit jumpy. We’ve had kind of a rough day,” Ally explained, smiling her flirty smile.

Conversely, although Ally could head bang with the best, she was a White Hat type of gal. She liked the good boys. She liked preppies and corporate types and definitely men in uniform. She understood a good guitar riff but she liked her men clean-cut and ties and uniforms drove her wild.

“You lookin’ for Rosie?” the man asked.

I blinked.

Were we that obvious?

“Uh, yeah,” I replied.

He nodded. “I live over there.”

He pointed in the vague direction of “over there” and both Ally and I followed his finger, not sure precisely which house “over there” was his then looked back to him.

“Is Rosie in trouble?” the guy asked.

“Does Rosie get in trouble, do you know?” I asked in return.

The guy shook his head. “Not that I know of. Quiet guy. Killer coffee.”

We all nodded.

“I’m Gary,” he said.

Ally extended her hand. “Ally,” she said and then she pointed to me, “and this is India.”

Upon hearing my name, he turned and looked over his shoulder and gave a nod.

Ally and I turned and looked over our shoulders too.

Too late.

Before I could react to the two men running toward our car, my door was wrenched open, I was dragged out and I let out a howl when the backs of my legs were ripped from the hot leather seats.

I stopped my howl midway with an “oof” because I hadn’t taken my seat belt off and when the guy yanked me out, my belt jerked me back.

“Jesus, Teddy. Release the belt,” another man said.

I took this opportunity to scream.

Teddy dropped me, I hit the side of the seat and I used the steering wheel to pull myself back into it.

Ally had already been hauled out the other side, she wasn’t screaming and that scared the shit out of me.

I had no time to look for Ally as Teddy’s hands came around to undo the belt and I bent forward and bit his arm.

“Fuck!” He reared back and punched me in the cheekbone.

Hard.

I have never, in my life, been hit by a man.

I got in a bitch slapping catfight at a Public Image Limited – Big Audio Dynamite double bill but we were in a mosh pit gone bad. It was punk, it was expected.

Getting hit by a man hurt.

A fucking lot.

So much, I quit screaming and concentrated on the burning hurt that was radiating out of my cheekbone into my entire face.

“Teddy, for Christ sake. Are you nuts? She’s Nightingale’s. He’s gonna rip your dick off. This is supposed to go smooth.”

I opened my mouth to scream again and started back with the struggling.

Then Teddy was pulled away, someone touched me with something and after that, I didn’t remember a thing.