Rock Chick 03 Redemption (23 page)

We turned in the P-Q-R-S section and I noticed Al y, Indy and Jet had fol owed us.

“So, you’re back with Hank,” Indy was smiling.

“I’m leaving town as soon as I can get my car,” I told her.

Her smile faded.

“Where’s your car?” Jet asked.

“Hank had it impounded,” I answered.

Indy’s smile came back.

“He doesn’t want me to leave,” I explained unnecessarily.

“You are so not gonna leave,” Al y said, she was smiling too.

I looked at her. “I’m gonna leave,” I said it and meant it.

“You are so not gonna leave,” Al y repeated.

Indy came closer to me. “Roxie, you should know, once, when Hank wanted a motorcycle, and his Dad told him he’d have to buy it with his own money, Hank got, like ten jobs.

He worked himself to the bone, getting up early, working late nights. He even did it and went to footbal practice and games. In the end, he got that motorcycle.”

“Hank drives a motorcycle?” I asked.

Al y ignored my question and shared her own story.

“Yeah, I remember when Hank decided he was going to buy a house in Bonnie Brae. He wanted to be close to where he grew up and have a place in a neighborhood where he could teach his kids how to ride their bikes on the sidewalks without fear of a drive-by. Property values were out the roof; no way to buy there on a cop’s salary.

Everyone expected he’d give it up. When he found his place, it was a total dump. No one wanted it except to buy it for the lot and scrape it. Hank paid more than it was worth and fixed it up himself.”

I was kind of lost in thoughts of Hank teaching his kids to ride their bikes when Daisy said, “Earth to Roxie.”

“What?” I said.

“Why do you want to leave?” Daisy asked.

“It’s too complicated to explain,” I told her.

They al looked at each other then looked at me.

“It is!” I cried.

“Whatever,” Al y said, dismissing my life’s complications with a single word. “Are you gonna go to Frightmare with us tomorrow night?”

Good God.

“Frightmare?” I asked.

“Yeah, the Haunted House in Thornton. It is
the shit
,” Al y said.

“I’m not good at doing scary,” I replied, thinking I’d had enough of scary in the last week, thank you very much.

“Oh, it’s al in fun,” Indy coaxed.

I turned to Indy. “Hank told me you went berserk and broke through hay bales and they had to cal the cops. That doesn’t sound like fun.”

Al y and Indy looked at each other, then burst out laughing. They were doing it so hard they doubled over with it.

Jet, Daisy and I watched them.

They final y sobered and straightened. Al y wiped a tear from her eye and muttered, “I remember that year. Good times.”

“You’re al nuts,” I told them.

“You got that right, sister,” Jet mumbled.

“Wel , I’m going. It sounds like a hoot and you could use a few giggles, am I right, Sugar?” Daisy asked, looking at me.

She was right. Too right. Scary right.

“Okay, fine,” I gave in. “My friends Annette and Jason are in town. Can they come?”

“The more, the merrier,” Al y, clearly the Haunted House ringleader, said.

Again, I knew I was in trouble but this was a different kind of trouble.

A tal , very thin woman turned the corner at the back of the shelves, carrying an armload of books. She jerked to a halt when she saw us, obviously she’d been in her own world.

“Hi,” she said, surprise at the existence of other human beings on the earth stil on her face.

“Hi,” we al said back.

She waited a beat and then said to me, “Glad you’re okay.”

I blinked at her. I had no idea who this woman was.

“Thanks,” I said.

She shelved a book and wandered away.

“Who was that?” I asked Indy.

“That’s Jane, she’s worked here for years. She’s kind of… odd,” Indy replied.

Uncle Tex had told me about Jane. Quiet, addicted to romance and detective novels. Her life was devoted to Fortnum’s, reading, writing her own novels that were never published and not much else.

Daisy grabbed my hand, taking my mind off Jane.

“How’s everything else? You hangin’ in there?” Her cornflower blue eyes were kind but sharp. I knew from just her look she didn’t miss a trick.

I told them about seeing the vision of Bil y in Hank’s bedroom that morning. I finished with, “Hank said it was a flashback.”

Jet, Al y and Indy watched me, al smiles gone; they were looking concerned.

Daisy, on the other hand, nodded.

“Yeah, I got those after I was raped,” she replied.

My hand clenched in hers.

“You were raped?” I whispered.

“Long time ago. Flashbacks lasted awhile but they went away. The mind heals just like the body, but it takes its time.

It’s good you got a decent man to see you through it.

Helped me that, during that time, I found my Marcus.” I sighed.

No one believed me when I said I was leaving town and I knew they wouldn’t believe me when I told them Hank wasn’t my man, so I stayed silent.

Then we heard a shout from the front of the store.

“Jumpin’ Jehosafats! This place is fuckin’
great!
” That would be Annette.

Al the girls’ faces were frozen with incredulity at the yel .

“That’s my friend, Annette,” I told them, broke away and walked to the front.

Annette and Jason were standing a few feet inside the door. Jason was Annette’s partner, same height as Annette, light brown hair and dark brown eyes. He always smiled like he meant it and was never in a bad mood.

Annette and Jason looked at me when I arrived and I realized Jason could have bad moods under extreme circumstances because the minute he saw me, his face went hard.

Annette stared.

“Hey,” I said, smiling at them.

Annette looked at Jason, then turned on her heel and walked out the door.

On the sidewalk outside, hands clenched and arms straight, she threw her head back and screamed at the top of her lungs. Then she started kicking the sidewalk like she was kicking dirt and punching the air like she was hitting a punching bag, al the while emitting loud, nonsensical,
angry
mutterings.

I turned to al the folks in Fortnum’s.

“She’s a little crazy,” I said.

No one said a word, they were al staring out the door.

Annette walked back in.

“I’m gonna
kill
that motherfucker,” she announced.

“I think that’s the consensus,” I told her.

“No, no, no. I’m gonna rip his dick off and shove it up his nose and parade him through the streets naked and dickless and then cut his head off.”

The entire store was silent.

“Annette, honey, I thought you were a pacifist,” I reminded her in a placating voice.

“Have you
seen
your face?”

“Um… yeah. It’s already a lot better.”

At my words, her eyes bugged out.

Holy cow.

Wrong thing to say.

Quickly, I said, “Let me introduce you to everybody.” I did the introductions. Annette gave Uncle Tex a big, old hug and when I finished with Hank, she looked him up and down, turned to me and nodded while she said, “Nice.” Hank’s arm slid along my shoulders and he pul ed me into his side.

Annette and Jason took this in and Annette smiled huge.

Then she said, “
Very
nice.”

I looked up at Hank and his lips were twitching.

Shit.

Then, Jason came forward, took my hand and said, “Do you mind?” to Hank. He pul ed me away from Hank’s arm and into both of his own. Then he gave me a tight hug, shoving his face in my neck.

The room, having recovered from Annette’s outburst, went silent again.

I felt the tears hit the backs of my eyes and slid my arms around him.

“Jason, I’m okay,” I whispered. “I’m fine, I’m here. It’s over.”

He didn’t let me go. I heard Annette give a loud, hiccoughing sob (Annette was a crier, just like me) then her arms came around both of us.

We stood like that for a while and then I heard Hank say softly, “Jason, Roxie’s got three cracked ribs.” Jason’s arms loosened and he and Annette stepped away. Immediately, Hank slid his arm across my shoulders again and pul ed me tight to his side.

“Annette tel s me you’re a cop,” Jason said, looking at Hank.

Hank nodded.

“You’l get him?” Jason asked.

Hank nodded again.

Jason looked at him for a few beats, then he nodded too and I watched the tension ebb from his body.

Everyone was quiet after that.

“Al righty then!” Indy said into the ensuing silence, “Why don’t we al get lunch?”

“That sounds great, I could eat a horse but gotta unload the car first. We got a boatload of your shit,” Annette said to me. “The old Subaru is draggin’.”

“You can take it to my place,” Hank told her.

I froze.

No. No way in hell.
I thought.

“No,” I said out loud.

“Cool,” Annette ignored me. “Should we fol ow you

“Cool,” Annette ignored me. “Should we fol ow you there?”

“We’l al go,” Al y, al of a sudden, was there. “Many hands make light work.”

“No,” I repeated, slightly louder this time.

“Let’s go, I’m starved. The sooner we get this done, the sooner I can eat,” Eddie said as he and Jet walked up to us. He had Jet in a hold much like the one Hank was using on me.

“No,” I said again, even louder.

“Where are we going to lunch? I vote Las Delicias,” Indy put in.

“We had that yesterday,” Lee said.

“Every day is Las Delicias day,” Indy smiled to him.

“No!” I said for the fourth time and it was nearly a shout.

Daisy linked her arm in mine, pul ing me away from Hank. “You can ride with me, Sugar. We got shit we haven’t talked about yet.”

It was Hank’s turn to freeze.

“Don’t worry, Hunkalicious, we’l be right on your tail,” Daisy told him and guided me to the door.

“Don’t mind Tex, Jane and me, we’l just stay here and work!” Duke shouted to us as we walked out the door.

“Thanks, you’re a dol ,” Indy shouted back.

I looked back in dread at Uncle Tex but he was grinning.

Daisy took me to her Mercedes, which was parked in the back while everyone scattered to their own vehicles.

I sat in the car, staring unseeing out the window while she started the car.

“Sugar, you look scared as a jackrabbit,” Daisy said.

“Sugar, you look scared as a jackrabbit,” Daisy said.

“I am scared. My car has been impounded and I can’t get home. I can’t get anywhere. Now my friends are essential y moving my shit into the house of a man I’ve known for a week. It’s official. As of today, I met him a week ago.”

“Seems longer,” Daisy muttered.

She wasn’t wrong.

“Relax,” Daisy said. “One thing I learned, this life is a wild ride and you got to just go with it.”

I turned to her. “I need a moment to think. I need a moment to plan. I need a moment to myself.”

“That’s just when it al goes wrong, when you have time to think. And you got an eternity of lyin’ alone in your coffin.

Now you best be spendin’ your time with good folk and a handsome man. Come when you’re eighty and wonderin’

where your life went, you won’t thank yourself for cuttin’

loose and leavin’ a good thing behind, comprende?” I opened my mouth to say something but Daisy didn’t let me.

“Trust me Sugar, I –” then she stopped talking, her eyes got big and she looked beyond me, out the side window.

I turned to see what she was looking at and in my window was a man, bent over and looking in.

Not just any man, one of the men who took Bil y.

He tapped on the window with a gun.

“Get out of the car,” he said, looking at me.

“Please tel me that’s a flashback,” I whispered.

“That ain’t no fuckin’ flashback,” Daisy replied. Then she slammed the car in reverse and sped backwards on a vicious tug of the wheel, curling sideways. The bad guy jumped out of the way of the bumper and Daisy nearly rammed into Eddie’s truck, which was pul ing down the al ey behind us.

The man with the gun ran to a car on Bayaud and got in as Daisy took the turn onto Bayaud. The other man who’d come to take Bil y, the one who tied me to the sink, was driving the car. They shot away from the curb after us.

“Oh no. No, no, no.
Shit!
” I shouted.

I looked behind and saw that they fol owed and Eddie turned in behind them.

“You know these boys?” Daisy asked.

“They’re the ones who took Bil y.”

“Mm hmm,” she mumbled, shifting up and staring in the rearview mirror as she ran the red and turned onto Broadway.

Cars honked and swerved as we cut into traffic. I held onto the dash with one hand, the ceiling with my other and braced my body as best I could. When we were rocketing down Broadway, I chanced another glance behind and saw that the two guys and Eddie had taken the red too. To my further despair, I saw a Subaru pul ing up the rear, it’s end dragging under a load and two mountain bikes were strapped to its roof.

Shit.

Cars were swerving everywhere, honking and I could see angry faces through windows.

A Crossfire and Hank’s 4Runner both zoomed out of parking spots at the front of Fortnum’s and joined the parking spots at the front of Fortnum’s and joined the chase.

Then, the bad guy in the passenger seat leaned out the window and aimed the gun at us.

“Holy cow! He’s gonna shoot!” I yel ed just as we heard gunshots and a “ping, ping, ping” as the bul ets hit the trunk of our car.