Fight for Her #4: MMA New Adult Contemporary Romantic Suspense (4 page)

I have no idea if she or anyone else is still threatening Maddie. Maddie won’t talk. It’s just hopeless. All of it.

I steady the pads so Hudson can aim. He’s quick even though he hasn’t filled out. Once he’s got some heft to him, he’ll be a real force to deal with. Already his punches on the pads make my arms burn as I brace against the blows.

I circle the cage, moving the pads, forcing Hudson to follow and recalibrate. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Jo come into the room and make Sammy and Cam head to the kettlebells.

We keep going until Hudson is too winded to get a clean shot. “Take five,” I tell him. “Get some water.”

When I come down, Jo is leaning against the platform to the cage. “What are you doing for Thanksgiving?” she asks. “Do you get to see your daughter?”

“No. I don’t have holidays in my agreement,” I tell her.

“You want Colt’s lawyer to take a look at it?”

I yank at the Velcro of the pads and toss them in a storage box. “Might eventually.”

“You’re still hoping Maddie will come around?”

“Yeah.” I pick up a towel and dry my hands, damp from holding the pads.

“But you’re spending the holiday with somebody, right?” she persists. “You have family?”

“Yeah. My parents live in LA.”

She relaxes. “Good. I just wanted to make sure.”

“I’m cool. You guys sticking around?”

Jo glances over at Hudson, who is running a towel over his head. “I think we’re going to Hawaii to see my mom.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I say.

“Family is important,” she says. “I’m glad you’ll get to be with yours.”

The clang of a kettlebell hitting the concrete floor draws our attention to the back. One of the new girls has tumbled with a weight that’s too heavy for her. Jo hurries over to check on her.

But Jo’s got me thinking. Maddie is probably planning to stay in New York for the holiday. But maybe I could get her to come to LA. Her mother’s here, although that’s probably not a big draw for her. They never got along.

But then there’s her dad. I wonder where he is. Still wandering the streets? At a shelter? If he was around, would she come see him?

And I decide right then and there, I have to find him.

* * *

The afternoon is bitterly cold for LA. I bundle up in a jacket and gloves to head out and search for Maddie’s father. I called all the nearby shelters, but most don’t allow people in until after five and nobody would tell me if he’s been there before. I figure I’ll just show up at them later and look around.

Until then I will go to some of the likely spots he’d hang out at, looking for booze. I wonder briefly if Jax’s crew keeps tabs on homeless people too. Maybe I’m being foolish for not asking for their help. But they didn’t solve my problem in Vegas.

The bar Maddie and I used to go to when she was underage has changed hands twice since then. I don’t bother to walk through, but go around to the back from the outside.

There’s a man in a ragged coat with a hood pulled up over his head. I’m hoping the world is finally going my way as I approach him.

“Tony?” I ask. “Tony Greco, is that you?”

The figure turns to me, exposing a red grizzled face surrounded with fluff from the old coat. “Who wants to know?” the man growls.

I can see it’s not Maddie’s dad.

“I do. Do you know him?”

“Ain’t seen him in a few weeks,” he says.

“Where does he hang out?”

The man turns back to the dumpster and lifts a bottle to examine it. “Dead soldier,” he says and chucks it back in.

I see why this bar is a popular spot for vagrants. The dumpster has a low opening where you can access the trash instead of having to crawl up on it. The man digs out another bottle.

I’m trying not to get impatient. I know if he finds something with booze in it, he’ll be happier. Or money will do it. I pull out my wallet.

This gets his attention.

I remove a twenty. “You got any idea where I could find Tony?” I hold the folded bill between my fingers.

The man licks his lips. “He got in a turf war with Big John. He has to stay south of Cesar Chavez now.”

“Where does he sleep?”

“Cemetery, mostly.”

“Evergreen?”

The man nods.

“He doesn’t go to the shelters when it’s cold like this?”

“He likes sleeping with the dead.”

I hand him the twenty. He opens the bill wide and stares at it like it’s a treasure map.

There’s plenty of bars near the cemetery. I’ll poke around those and think about whether or not I want to try wandering through the tombstones.

* * *

It’s fully dark by the time I give up on looking behind bars. I’ve already encountered two gangs of boys looking for a fight. The first I walked away from. The second had a boy who recognized me from the Vegas match. He wanted to hang out. It took ten minutes to shake them off.

I approach the walls of Evergreen Cemetery with trepidation. The front gates are closed by now, but along Cesar Chavez, a low chain-link fence is easy enough to scale. Probably there are gaps that people like Tony know about where they can squeeze in and find their spots inside. I wonder where they sleep. Inside the mausoleums with their concrete crypts? I shudder.

I’m not afraid of ghosts or dead people. Getting arrested for trespassing, though, that could be a pain in the neck with the match coming up. The league frowns on bad press, although they have plenty of it. My fight with Viper is all set up now, just two weeks away. I can’t jeopardize it with a high-profile arrest.

I don’t go in right away. I’m still hoping to find someone else who knows Tony. No doubt anybody inside the gates is bedded down and well hidden.

At the corner, there’s an Italian restaurant known for its meatballs. I have a hunch that Tony would find that place comforting. Maddie’s mother was always cooking her grandmother’s Italian food. I think about heading inside, but then I circle around to the back of the building.

A man in a white apron is sitting on the back step, smoking a cigarette. He tenses up as I approach, but I hold up my hands. “I’m just looking for somebody,” I say.

He’s got glossy black hair and olive skin. He squints up at me. “Somebody who works here?” His accent is definitely Italian. Might be a family business.

“Nah. Homeless guy. Probably hangs out by the dumpster.”

The guy tosses his cigarette on the ground. “Ain’t nothing good in there. But we feed a couple guys.” He thumbs at a metal table and a pair of chairs rusting by the wall. “Pops knows a couple of them.”

“Any of them Tony Greco?”

“I don’t know any of their names.”

“He’s not very tall.” I try to think of anything about Maddie’s dad that would stand out. “Bushy eyebrows. Real sad eyes.”

The guy shrugs. “That’s about all of ’em,” he says.

“This one sleeps at the cemetery,” I say.

“Huh,” he says. “One of ’em does mention that. Sleeps with the angels, he tells me most every time he comes by.” He opens the back door. “Yo, Pops, you seen that dude who sleeps at Evergreen?”

An older version of the man comes up to the door, drying his hands on a dish towel. “You mean Tones?”

“Tony?” I ask, feeling hopeful. “Tony Greco?”

“Maybe,” he says.

“Has he been around?” I ask. “I’m looking for him for his daughter. She wants to find him.”

“He mentioned a daughter,” the man says. “But he mighta died.”

“What?” I take a step forward. “Another guy just saw him a couple weeks ago.”

“Tones, he comes ’round every single Tuesday for potato gnocchi,” the man says. “Like clockwork. That man loves his gnocchi. I always save him a plate.”

It’s Wednesday.

“So he didn’t come yesterday?” I ask.

“Nope,” the man says. He looks over at his son. “Check on the ravioli, will you?” The young man heads inside. “Not last week either.”

“Why would that mean he died?”

“That man loves his gnocchi,” he says. “But he was looking pretty poorly.”

“Where would he go if he was sick?”

The man shrugs. “I guess White’s Hospital. It’s close. But if an ambulance comes, no telling.”

“Can I come by next Tuesday, see if he comes?” I ask.

“Sure. ’Round about five, I’d say. Before dark.”

“Thank you,” I tell him. “We’re hoping to find him before Thanksgiving.”

“That’s comin’ fast,” he says. “Maybe he’ll be here Tuesday, just in time.” But he looks doubtful.

The man goes back inside. I turn around. I’m not sure which way to take this. Go to the cemetery? Or call the hospitals?

A man bundled in a blanket shuffles toward the table. I watch him sit painfully in the chair. Damn. So much suffering in the world. I figure I might as well talk to him before I head out. I sit opposite him. “You know Tony Greco?” I ask.

“Who’s asking?” he says, his voice a growl.

Funny they all ask the same thing. I wonder what bullshit they have to go through day to day with people hassling them.

“My wife is his daughter,” I say. “She wants to find him for Thanksgiving.”

“Huh.” The guy huddles down in his blanket. “I think he’s probably dead.”

My throat gets tight. “You know what happened?”

“Just heard about it. He keeled over in front of Luceros.”

“The bakery?”

“Yeah. They would give him bread. They give us all bread.”

“Did they call an ambulance?”

“Lucero himself drove him somewhere.”

I jump from the chair. “Thank you.” I’m about to run off, then I remember who I’m talking to. I pull out another twenty and lay it on the table. “Take care of yourself.”

A hand snakes out from the blanket. His arm is bare. Shit, he doesn’t even have a coat. I strip mine off. “Here,” I say. “I got others.”

He lets the blanket fall and takes the coat. He’s just got a T-shirt on beneath.

I walk away, not even feeling the cold. Damn this shit world. Not a thing I could really do about it. Not enough shelters could be built to help everybody. Guys like that probably don’t trust shelters anyway. Sounds like Tony doesn’t.

I take off in a light jog toward Luceros. It might already be locked up by now. I feel close to finding out what happened, and I hope for Maddie’s sake that Tony hasn’t died on the streets.

The glass doors look modern on the crumbling yellow facade of the pasteleria. As I approach, a woman comes outside and locks the door. I run toward her full-out, hoping to catch her before she gets in a car.

But she doesn’t. She heads toward a bus stop, a giant bag under her arm. She stops in front of anyone she sees sitting on a curb or a bench and hands them a loaf of bread.

I reach her and touch her arm.

She turns away from the man who is tucking the bread under his jacket. She is very tiny, about fifty years old, her black hair twisted in a tight knot. Her eyes are kind.

“It’s cold to be out without a coat,” she says. She reaches in her bag for a loaf of bread.

She thinks I’m homeless. I hold up my hands. “I gave my coat to someone a few blocks back,” I say. “I need to know about the man who collapsed in front of the bakery. A homeless man.”

She pauses. “Tony? He loves my rosemary bread.”

“Is he okay?”

“My husband took him to White Memorial Hospital.” She motions up the street. “It’s about a mile or so that way. He was okay last I heard. I think David saw him yesterday. This has been a busy week with Thanksgiving coming.”

I rush out a long breath of relief. “Thank you. I’m looking for him. He’s my wife’s father.”

She reaches out a hand and squeezes my forearm. “I think he will still be there. It was something with his lungs, but nothing too terrible.”

“Thank you, thank you,” I say and start another low-intensity jog. A mile is nothing. And running it will keep me warm.

Chapter 8: Maddie

I lied about my phone. Parker has been so good about waiting for Lily to call him on Thursdays that I unblocked his number.

I should probably go back to my old phone plan and not the one Parker pays for, but right now it seems like too much trouble. I’ve been working extra hours for Anton. Ever since he made the secret mother-of-the-bride dress for some royal wedding, allowing me to choose the fabric, he’s been calling me in for new projects.

I’m on my way to moving up.

But that’s why when Parker calls me on a Wednesday, I see it come through. Lily is just getting out of her bath and I am toweling her down. My phone sits on the counter. Lily glances over at it and sees the picture of Parker.

“It’s Daddy! Can we video chat?”

I frown. Parker obviously thinks that since some time has passed, it’s okay to break the rules. I click the “Ignore Call” button and start combing out Lily’s hair.

Lily’s face crumples into a pout. “Why can’t I talk to Daddy?”

“We’re getting you ready for bed right now,” I say.

“But then I’ll be asleep!” she argues.

The landline rings in the kitchen. I hear Delores walk through the house to check it. Most of those calls are her old friends who don’t like cell phones. I tug Lily’s nightgown over her head. “You’ll talk to him tomorrow for sure. How about we do a video chat then?”

“But I want one now!”

The phone is still ringing, which means Delores isn’t going to answer it. Now I have a feeling it might be Parker, switching to that number since I didn’t answer mine. This fills me with unease. Why would he need me so badly?

The landline is tied to an old-fashioned voice recorder that Delores still keeps. I pick Lily up and rest her on my hip as I walk down the hall.

Delores is staring at the voice recorder, waiting for it to pick up. She sees me in the doorway, and her eyes shift to Lily.

The machine clicks as it takes over the call and starts recording. Parker’s voice comes on the line. “Maddie, it’s Parker. I need to talk to you. I am at White Memorial Hospital. It’s your dad. You need to come to LA right away. Please call me.”

I let Lily slide to the floor, my heart in my throat.

“I’ll call him,” Delores says. “I’ll find out what is going on.”

I try to speak, but my voice won’t come out. Lily takes my hand, seeming to understand something bad is happening.