Colorado 03 Lady Luck (44 page)

Money and jewelry still there.

“Fuck,” he whispered to the safe. Then he
slammed the door shut using all his strength, it flew back open,
hit the back of its hinges and swung shut again.

He surged to his feet and barked,
“
Fuck!
”

He prowled back downstairs to his workout
bag, bent to it, dug through it and found his phone. He
straightened as his thumb moved on the keys, taking him to her
number.

He clenched his teeth as it rang.

He got voicemail. No surprise.

“This is Lexie. Busy right now, leave a
message.”

He clenched his teeth harder at the sound of
her voice.

Then he heard the beep. “Don’t be stupid.
Come back, get your cash and diamonds. You need me gone, I’ll be
gone. Just get them.”

Then he flipped his phone shut.

Then he stood by his bag and stared at the
snow globe in the kitchen windowsill and his eyes lifted.

The petal heart was still there.

Except that picture of them at The Rooster,
she left everything that was them.

Everything.

He turned his head away.

Then he sucked in breath through his nose
and walked into the kitchen to blend a shake.

* * * * *

Five days later…

His cell ringing woke him up.

He rolled, tagged it off the nightstand,
looked at the display and it said, “Unknown caller”.

Considering his business and the ball Julius
got rolling, it could be anyone.

His eyes slid to his alarm clock.

Anyone, even at one thirty in the fucking
morning.

He sat up, flipped his phone open, put it to
his ear and growled, “What?”

“She’s with Shift right now,” he heard a
woman say and he knew that woman.

It was Bessie.

But he couldn’t think of Bessie because he’d
stopped breathing.

Bessie kept talking.

“
Motherfucker finds out shit, found out she
was home, was all over her. And now, way she is, no job, no money,
no schoolin’, no fight left in her, no nothin’, that asshole is
gonna be
all
over her.
But you knew
that, didn’t you? You just didn’t fuckin’ care.”

She didn’t wait for him to respond. She got
finished saying what she had to say and gave him dead air.

But Walker was still fighting for
breath.

When he got enough in, he shifted to sitting
on the side of the bed and stared at his display in the dark as his
thumb moved over the keypad, finding Lexie’s number.

He hit go and put it to his ear.

Two rings then, “We’re sorry. This number is
no longer in service…”

“
Fuck!
” Walker snarled as he shot out of bed.

He flipped the phone closed then back open
as he turned on the light and then prowled to the closet. He found
the number he needed and put the phone to his ear as he turned on
the closet light and headed to his bag.

Three rings then Tate saying, “Ty, this
better be good.”

“I need you to fire up your computer right
now. I need addresses for Ella Rodriguez, Bessie Rodriguez and
Duane Martinez.”

Silence then, “What?”

He tagged his bag and started back to the
bedroom. “Bess called. Shift’s got Lexie.”

“Shift?”

“Martinez.”

He dropped his bag on the bed and moved to
the dresser.

“Fuck,” Tate whispered.

“Tate, don’t got a lot of time.”

“Ty, you are not allowed to leave the
state.”

“That’s why I don’t got a lot of time. I
need you to give me those addresses so I can get there, get shit
done and get home without anyone knowin’.”

“Ty, you fuck up –”

Walker stopped dead and barked into the
phone, “
Quit
wastin’ my fuckin’ time!
You gonna get me those addresses or you gonna fuck
me?”

“Let me go after her.”

“No.”

“Ty, I’ll get the addresses, leave
tonight.”

“No.”

“Why no?”

“She isn’t your wife, Tate, she’s mine.”

Silence.

“You’re wastin’ my time,” Walker warned.

“You bringin’ her back?” Jackson sounded
disbelieving.

“Yeah,” Walker replied instantly.

“Brother –” Tate started.

“Did you not fuckin’ hear me? Martinez has
got her.” Walker’s voice was low and tight with anger and
impatience.

“I get you. I get what you’re feelin’ but
you gotta listen to me a second, Ty. You did not see her. She
stayed with Dominic but I saw her, Laurie saw her. The state you
left her in, you cannot waltz into Dallas and bring that woman
home.”

That thing pierced his chest again but the
feeling was different. Savage. Brutal. Inflicting damage.

He powered through it.

“I’ll deal when I get there.”

“Let me go and talk to her. I’ll leave Jonas
with Pop, take Laurie with me.”

“This isn’t junior high, Tate.”

“You do not know what you’re dealin’ with,
Ty.”

“This is wastin’ my fuckin’ time,” he said
low.

Silence then, “I’ll get the addresses, I’ll
come over and I’ll go with you.”

“Suit yourself. But be here soon. You got
half an hour. You aren’t here, brother, I’ll head to Dallas and
find her myself.”

“Fuck, Ty, it takes twenty minutes just to
drive to your place.”

“Then you better drive fast.”

Then Ty flipped his phone shut, tossed it on
the bed and turned back to the dresser.

Tate Jackson drove fast.

* * * * *

Seventeen hours later…

“Do you get me?” Walker asked and Shift,
prone on the floor in front of him spit out a mouthful of
blood.

“Yeah,” he grunted.

“
Just to be sure,” Walker went on. “You
lose her number, you lose her fuckin’
memory
, you don’t, your next visit will be from Julius
Champion. Now, let’s confirm. Do you get me?”

“Yeah!” Shift snapped, sliding angry eyes up
high to Walker.

“Good,” Walker muttered, his eyes moved to
Tate who was staring with distaste at the floor.

Tate felt his gaze; he looked to Walker,
tipped up his chin and followed Walker out, both of them stepping
over one of the two prone enforcers that Walker laid out before he
turned to Shift.

* * * * *

An hour later…

The door to the tidy but tiny house opened
the minute Walker and Jackson hit the end of the front walk. The
screen door opened after it. The house door closed instantly and
the screen door banged behind Ella Rodriguez who stood on her front
stoop, arms crossed on her chest, eyes glaring down at the
advancing men.

“You are not here,” she announced when they
were four feet away.

Walker kept moving and stopped at the bottom
of the two steps of her stoop.

“She’s in there, Ella, I advise you let me
by,” Walker said quietly.

“She’s gone.”

“She was with Shift not twenty-four hours
ago,” Walker returned.

“She was, Bessie got her; they’re gone.”

“Where?”

Her eyebrows shot to her hairline and her
voice pitched four octaves higher when she asked, “Boy, you think
I’m gonna tell you that?”

“I need to talk to her.”

“
Yeah,” she nodded her head once. “I see
that. But what you
really
needed to
do was take her Momma’s advice those weeks ago when she laid it all
out for you.”

“Ella –”

Her eyes narrowed, her face twisted, she
leaned forward and the shutters flew up on her eyes, exposing her
pain.

“
Told you,” she said quietly, her voice
trembling, “you had her in your hands and
I told you,
you weren’t careful, you’d destroy her. I’m not
wrong often and again, I… was…
not
… wrong.”

There it was again. That thing piercing his
chest. More pain. More damage.

Ty Walker stood at the bottom of a stoop of
a tiny, tidy house in a not great, not bad area of Dallas and
engaged in a stare down with a protective, loyal, loving black
woman, a stare down he had no hope in fuck of winning.

“Ty, let’s go,” Jackson said quietly from
his side.

“You do her no favors, keepin’ me from her,”
Walker said softly.

“Way I see it, ain’t no single body on this
earth ever did Alexa Berry no favors,” Ella returned.

“Walker,” Walker corrected and Ella’s back
shot straight.

“Not anymore,” she aimed and fired her kill
shot, it penetrated its target, leaving devastation in its wake
then she turned and slammed into her house without looking
back.

Walker turned on his boot and prowled down
the walk to Tate’s SUV. Tate bleeped the locks before he made it
and he didn’t hesitate to swing in.

Tate swung behind the wheel. Then he turned
to Walker.

“What now?” he asked.

“We find a place to sleep, we sleep, we go
home,” Walker answered the windshield.

“Home?” The word was low, angry and
unbelieving and, slowly, Walker turned his eyes to his friend.

“
Home. Where your computer is. Where your
database is. Where you start to do what you do. They’ll leave a
trail or they’ll surface, you’ll find them, you’ll tell me where
the fuck they are and then I’ll fucking go get my fucking
wife.
”

Tate stared at him a second.

Then he grinned.

Then he turned to face forward, switched the
ignition and guided the SUV to the nearest hotel.

* * * * *

Lexie

Two weeks later…

Panama City Beach, Florida

I liked this time of night at the beach.
Dinnertime. When most everyone was eating, a breeze came off the
Gulf, the air was still warm but cool and the beach was nearly
deserted.

There were a couple of kids playing Frisbee
some ways a way. A man running with his yellow lab at the water’s
edge, this taking awhile because the dog kept bouncing into the
waves and he’d have to turn around, jog backward, call, the dog
would ignore him, he’d run forward, the dog would leap out of the
water in great bounds then the guy would turn back around and run
some more only for the dog to bounce right back into the surf. A
bit down the beach there were combers walking with heads bowed,
toeing things in the sand, bending sometimes to pick them up,
getting close to the water’s edge to wait for a wave to clean the
sand off what they found so they could get a better look.

But that was it. Mostly just me sitting on
my ass, the sand and the waves, all I could see, all I could
hear.

It didn’t make me feel at peace but, these
days, it was the best I got.

I sighed and dropped my chin to my jeans
clad knees that were bent to my chest, my arms around them and I
watched the waves.

I could do this for hours and I did.

I heard the footsteps in the sand behind me
but didn’t turn. Someone coming from our motel. Definitely a motel.
The Beacon. I suspected it was built during the late fifties, early
sixties and since then they’d changed not one thing. Not even the
curtains or the bedspreads.

It was clean, it was seriously freaking
cheap, they gave you a discount if you bought a week in advance and
it was right on the beach. But those were all it had going for
it.

It was certainly nowhere near what Ty gave
me in Vegas.

Not even close.

But it was on the beach so people stayed
there. Like Bessie and me.

And whoever was making their way to the
water.

I put the footsteps out of my mind and
stared at the sea.

Then it hit me the footsteps stopped.

Then I felt him behind me.

Then I tensed as I felt him move.

Then I closed my eyes tight when all that
was him, and damn, there was a lot of him, surrounded me.

He sat behind me, right at my back, his long
legs on either side, knees bent, insides pressed to the outsides of
mine. His long arms circling me. His massive front pressing into my
back. His jaw pressing into the side of my hair.

And there he whispered, “Mama.”

That one word tore through me like a
blade.

I opened my eyes and saw sea.

“How did you find me?” I asked the waves and
the minute I started speaking, his arms convulsed.

“Tate,” he answered.

Right. Of course. His bounty hunter
friend.

Scratch Tate off my Christmas list.

“We gotta talk,” he said gently.

“Nothing to talk about,” I replied.

“You know there is, baby.” He was still
talking gently. It was nice. I’d heard him be gentle. I’d heard him
be soft. I’d heard him be sweet. I’d heard him be quiet. But none
of them were as gentle, soft, sweet and quiet as the way he was
now.

But it didn’t matter.

Nothing mattered anymore. When shit
mattered, it could hurt you.

So nothing mattered anymore and I was
determined to keep it that way.

“No, there isn’t,” I told him.

His arms gave me another squeeze, “Lexie
–”

I cut him off. “Unless you brought the
divorce papers. You said you’d deal and all I had to do is sign. Is
that why you’re here?”

His arms tightened on the words “divorce
papers” but they didn’t loosen even after I was done speaking.

And his answer was instantaneous.

“No it fuckin’ is not.”

“Then you wasted a trip.”

“Lexie, baby, listen to me.”

“Think you said enough.”

His tight arms gave me a gentle shake. “I
was pissed –”

“Yeah, I got that.”

“Babe,” another gentle shake, “listen to
me.”

I fell silent. The sooner he did what he had
to do the better. Then he would be gone and it would just be me and
the sea.

He waited a second then he went on, “You
know why I was pissed.”