Rock Chick

by Kristen Ashley

  “That old lady was my Gram. She left me the store when she died, I just added coffee,” I replied.

  “You thinkin’ of franchisin’?”

  “No way.” I threw up my hands for emphasis, just in case he had any doubts to my sincerity.

  He nodded. “Then you’re the little guy too. I’d come to support you, ‘cause I read a lot, but I don’t leave this block. Need to keep my eye on things.”

  “Sure,” I agreed.

  This guy was nuts, but I liked him anyway.

  Ally gave him our card and he put his hand in his shirt pocket and gave Ally one in return.

  All it said was, “Tex, Cat Sitter” and had his number.

  “You have a cat and go on vacation, you know who to call. Though, I warn you, I do both dry and wet food. I’m not into doin’ just wet or just dry, they need a treat but they need to keep their teeth clean. It’s important.”

  We nodded our agreement and then jogged down to see Mr. Kumar.

  “Me and Tex have been looking for your Rosie, but we haven’t found him,” he assured us when we got to the door.

  “Thanks Mr. Kumar,” I said.

  “No Tim either. Now I’m worried and I think Tex is getting worried too. Lots of people coming to knock on Tim’s door. He’s never been this popular.”

  “Rosie had a following, he makes good coffee and people miss him,” I told him.

  “I can see this,” Mr. Kumar said.

  I bought milk, corn chips, two diet pops and all the ingredients for the macaroni salad and brownies I needed to make for Dad’s barbeque. This cost me twice as much as it would if I’d just gone to King Soopers but Tex was right, we had to watch out for the little guy, especially me as I, too, was a little guy.

  Mr. Kumar’s eyes filled up with tears as I brought all my stuff the counter.

  “You are an angel from heaven,” he breathed.

  Chapter Seven

  B and E Darlin’

  Ally and I went to my house and unloaded the groceries then back to Fortnum’s where we sent Jane home and worked the last couple of hours before shutting down at six.

  Ally took her car and I walked the two blocks home, Matt following me at a crawl.

  On the walk home, I formed a plan. Rosie couldn’t go up in a puff of smoke and he wasn’t smart enough to hide so well, if Lee hadn’t found him, then something was up. If he got the diamonds and went to San Salvador, then where was Duke?

  Unless something had happened to Rosie and Duke (which I hoped it had not), or Rosie had gone off looking for Duke (which would be stupid therefore not unheard of), Rosie had to be hanging out, waiting for Duke. If he was camping out near Duke’s house, waiting, then there would have been a forest fire by now (I didn’t imagine Rosie paid a lot of attention to fire safety).

  Rosie was a bit of a loner, came to parties and went to concerts only when asked and without an entourage. I was certain Tim and The Kevster were his only friends.

  Except me.

  I boiled all these things down as best I could considering I was not a spy, a detective or a criminal mastermind.

  What I came up with was that Rosie had to be somewhere close. He had to be taking advantage of a friend’s kindness. And, to my mind, since he wasn’t with The Kevster, and Tim had also disappeared, then Rosie and Tim were holed up somewhere. Maybe at Tim’s house, in the basement, with copious amounts of cheese puffs, coming out only when the coast was clear (or to bake a frozen pizza).

  Or even if they’d stayed there for awhile and then cleared out, there may be evidence or a clue to where they went.

  I needed to establish a pattern of Rosie’s movements. His car wasn’t at his house and he’d been to Duke’s yesterday morning. These were the only things I knew.

  I decided I needed to search Tim’s house for clues. We were coming up with a big fat zero everywhere we went and I might as well.

  Since it was illegal, first, I didn’t want Ally involved, and second, I didn’t want to do it in broad daylight.

  I sent Matt a jaunty wave then I blew him a kiss for good measure before I went in the front of my house and closed the door behind me.

  I stood there in happy oblivion at being home for the first time in two days.

  I loved my duplex. Gram had died six years ago and it had taken me that long to make the place, which had been stuffed full of all her and Gramps’ crap (and there was a lot of it), my own.

  The living room and dining room were one huge room though it looked like at one time it was two. The kitchen was in the back, obviously added on sometime after the house was originally built.

  I’d painted everything a soft peach, I had chartreuse arm chairs and an electric blue sofa with clean lines and a kickass dining room table that could fold out to seat twelve people (though in a little bit of a crush). All of this gave off a feel of light, airy, modern and uncluttered. The floors were new hardwood and gleaming and I wanted to throw myself on them and kiss them.

  Instead I ran to the phone and grabbed it. Lee would be at my place soon and I didn’t have a lot of time. I was sacrificing Barolo Grill for this, not to mention what was to be my first-ever “date” with Lee. If I didn’t hurry, I’d lose control and give in, give up and go with Lee.

  Then something occurred to me and I put the phone down and stared at it.

  If Lee and his boys could disable the alarm, get into my store, wire it, install cameras and re-enable the alarm, then they could bug my phones too.

  Crap.

  I looked out the window and saw Matt sitting in his SUV. He wasn’t leaving.

  Crap again.

  Maybe I was being paranoid but I wasn’t going to take any chances.

  I ran upstairs. Two bedrooms separated by a bath, my bedroom in back had a door to a balcony that was half the roof of my kitchen, half overhanging my brick-paved backyard. The front room was the TV room and where I kept my desk.

  I wrote a note for Lee and ran downstairs and put it on the ottoman that sat between my sofa and chairs and served as a coffee table.

  The note said, “Something came up. Rain check?”

  I had no idea if he’d come into my house, but if he did, he’d see it. If he didn’t, I wasn’t going to put the note on the door for Matt to see it now. Lee would just have to think he was stood up. I’d explain later (or find a believable lie).

  I ran back upstairs, went out to the balcony and jumped the small railing to my neighbor’s balcony and then banged on their outside bedroom door.

  Tod and Stevie lived next door. They were both flight attendants. They had a chow dog named Chowleena who gave more attitude than either Tod or Stevie, and as Tod was the top drag queen in Denver, this meant Chowleena threw a lot of ‘tude. I watched Chowleena when they were both on flights and I loved that dog, I understood attitude, admired it, respected it and encouraged it. Her two Dads were of her ilk. Stevie made eggs benedict from scratch and always smiled and kissed your cheek when he saw you. Tod could lip sync to “Time and Tide” like nobody’s business, could make me laugh so hard tears rolled down my cheeks and we shared the same dress size. They kept the yard tidy and were quiet. They were the best neighbors ever.

  Tod opened the door and stared at me.

  “Girlie, what in the hell are you doing? And what happened to your face?”

  I pushed into their bedroom, shut the door behind me and ran it down for him.

  I told him about the shooting, diamonds, coffee guy, stun-gunning, kidnapping, Lee’s sex extortion plans and the love-of-my-life business and even Tex with the goggles. I explained I needed to hang out at their house until Lee came and went or I’d likely be charmed out of my panties and have my heart broken by seven o’clock Monday morning.

  Tod blinked.

  Then he said, as he linked arms with me and walked me out of his room, “Stevie’s barbequing chops. I’m sure we have extra.”

  They always had extra and not much fazed Tod. We’d been living next to each other for years, he was
used to my escapades, not to mention he was a drag queen. I’d have to add murder and perhaps an international incident involving royalty to faze Tod.

  * * * * *

  At eleven o’clock, I jumped the railing back to my house.

  Stevie had interrupted our Yahtzee marathon, played nosy neighbor and saw Lee come and go. Somehow, Lee had gone into my house, opened the door with what Stevie said appeared to be a key, and left with the note in his hand.

  “Uh-oh, gorgeous hunk is unhappy,” Stevie said.

  My stomach lurched.

  I decided I’d worry about that later.

  While Stevie was still looking out the window, he asked, “Tell me again why you don’t want him in your panties?”

  Jeez.

  For my evening’s activities, I pulled my hair back at my nape in a ponytail and put on a black turtleneck, black jeans, black cowboy boots and my black belt with the tiny rhinestones in the buckle (because if I was gonna get arrested, I was gonna go in looking good, regardless of my shiner).

  I grabbed my bag and keys and jumped the railing again. In an effort to avoid a tail, I made a deal to trade car keys with Stevie and Tod for the night, so I took off in their CR-V.

  The whole way, I checked for a tail, spending more time looking in my mirrors than at the road. I was looking for any car that might be following me but looking especially for Lee’s Crossfire, a motorcycle that looked like it was being driven by an unhappy hunk or an SUV. Since nearly every car in Denver was an SUV, I was panicked throughout the drive to Tim’s but I couldn’t see anyone following me.

  By the time I turned down Tim’s block, no one was behind me, not for blocks.

  I didn’t waste any time. I wanted to be in and out of there as fast as I could. I had no idea what I’d find, but I hoped it would be Rosie hiding in the basement and this whole mess would be over.

  I got out of the car and walked right up to the house.

  No lights on at Tim’s, no lights on at the neighbors. It was nearing midnight and even though the next day was a Saturday, it seemed like no one was keeping a late night.

  I knocked on the door, waited for an answer, listened for any sound at all to come from the house.

  Nothing.

  “It’s Indy Savage, if Rosie’s in there, I’m just here to help. I swear,” I whispered as loud as I dared.

  Still nothing.

  I tried the door and it was locked.

  I did the same with the backdoor and then I went around the house, trying to look in the windows and checking to see if they’d slide up. I couldn’t see much and every single window was either painted shut or locked.

  “Fuck!” I hissed, under my breath, standing next to a window at the east side of the house.

  Then something settled on my shoulder.

  I gave a little screech and whirled, not knowing who I’d see. It could be Lee, Wilcox’s goons, the shooters, a police officer or Dracula.

  Instead, it was Tex standing there with the goggles no longer on the top of his head, but over his eyes.

  He put his finger to his lips, then, a scant second later, put his fist through the window.

  I stared at the window, then back at Tex, then back at the window.

  “What are you doing?” I whispered.

  “B and E, darlin’,” he answered casually. He was wearing a flannel shirt and work gloves and pushing all the glass away from the window pane.

  “You can’t break someone’s window! We should have tried to jimmy one open.”

  “Quit your squawkin’ and get in there.” Then he grabbed me by the waist, picked me up and threw me through the window like I weighed no more than a bag of flour.

  “Careful of the glass,” he called.

  Too late, I’d landed on the glass and rolled away, hoping nothing cut me but I was too wired to feel a thing. I got to my feet and looked around in the darkness a little hysterically. Something smelled seriously funky and not in a good way.

  Tex heaved himself in behind me and I spun around to glare at his hulking shadow.

  “Are you crazy?” I asked a crazy man. “You just threw me through a window.”

  “You looked like you were gettin’ second thoughts.”

  “It’s dark, you can’t see me.”

  He tapped his goggles. “Night vision.”

  Shit.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  “Don’t like that smell,” Tex remarked, and I could hear him sniffing the air because I couldn’t see a thing. “That’s not a good smell.”

  He was right, it was a terrible smell.

  “You stay here, I’ll have a look around.” Then I saw his shadow move off.

  “Don’t leave me here!”

  “Don’t be such a girl,” he returned, already somewhere else in the house and I found it odd such a big man could walk on such quiet feet. He barely made a sound.

  I stood in the dark, thinking we’d probably made an awful lot of noise breaking the window and I listened for the sirens that would mean my doom. Dad would be seriously hacked off and Malcolm would make sure Kitty Sue didn’t invite me to the Fourth of July barbeque. I didn’t even want to think what Hank would say.

  Then I wondered if one of the other teams in the Rosie Hunt would have the same and come, say tonight, say at that exact time. Say that team was the shooters, say it was the shooters with guns drawn.

  “Tex, where are you?” I whispered. Loudly.

  I started to make my way through the shadowy rooms and the further I got into the house, the funkier the smell was.

  “You don’t wanna come in here.” I heard Tex say when it seemed I’d hit ground zero on the smell.

  I put my hand over my nose and mouth. “What is it?”

  His shadow was still as a statue and the way he was holding himself scared me.

  “Is it Rosie?” I asked, looking around the dark room which I could tell was a kitchen but not much else.

  Tex moved, he took off the goggles and then settled them on my face. My hand fell away from my mouth and everything went green. I could see much better, but unfortunately this included the body of a man, his butt on the floor, back to the cupboards, legs splayed out in front. He had dark stains on his face, the origin of which came from what appeared to be a hole in his forehead.

  “Oh. My. God,” I breathed and then everything went bright, so bright it blinded me and I cried out in surprise.

  A hand came over my mouth and the goggles were torn from my head.

  “Keep quiet, for fuck’s sake.”

  It was Lee. He’d turned on the kitchen light and when he was certain I wouldn’t yell again, he took his hand from my mouth.

  I turned and looked at him and he was staring down at the body, his face tight.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “Yeah? What’re we? Havin’ a party?” Tex asked.

  Lee turned cold eyes to Tex and Tex said no more.

  Then Lee turned to me.

  “I followed you.”

  “No one followed me, I kept checking.”

  He gave me a look.

  Fucking Lee.

  “You with her?” Tex ventured.

  “Yeah,” Lee answered.

  I wanted to scream I was not with Lee and he was not with me, but the situation kept my mouth shut. Instead, I turned back to the body and there he was, in the not-eerie-green-night-vision but lit up and easy to see not only him, but all the blood and gunk that had come out of the back of his head to splatter all over the kitchen wall.

  Not Rosie.

  It was disgusting. I’d never seen anything so foul. It was a nasty, awful, horrible, smelly, sad death.

  I gulped, almost sure I was going to hurl. Lee heard it, grabbed my arm and pulled me through the house and out the backdoor.

  “Lean over. Deep breaths,” he ordered.

  We were standing in the backyard and he pressed his hand to the back of my neck to force me over. I put my hands on my knees and gulped deep breaths of f
resh air, leaving the Death Air behind. With some effort, I fought back the nausea and stood up straight.

  Tex had followed us out.

  “Was that Tim?” I asked Tex.

  “Yep.”

  “Ohmigod.”

  “Please tell me you didn’t touch anything in there,” Lee said to me.

  I shook my head.

  “Please tell me you didn’t break that window,” Lee went on.

  “I did the breakin’ and the enterin’ for both of us. After I did the breakin’, I threw her through the window,” Tex offered this information and Lee’s eyes cut to Tex.

  “I’m sorry?” Lee asked and his voice was scary.

  Tex seemed not to notice it. “She was gettin’ second thoughts.”

  Lee stared at Tex for a beat.

  “Jesus,” he muttered then he pointed at me. “Stay here. Don’t move.” His finger moved to Tex. “You come with me.”

  Lee tossed the goggles to Tex and they re-entered the house. I was a little surprised that Tex followed Lee’s command but then again, Lee was using that “brook no argument” tone again.

  I sat down on the grass, too freaked out to stand any longer and I put my forehead on my knees.

  I feared this did not bode well for Rosie and I feared more that this did not bode well for Duke.

  They came back out, Lee closed the door, fiddled with the handle and then walked toward me, removing surgical gloves.

  “No Rosie,” he told me.

  “Thank God,” I said on a whoosh and didn’t realize I was holding my breath.

  He put a hand on my upper arm and hauled me up.

  “I’m callin’ Hank in on this one.”

  My eyes nearly popped out of my head.

  “You can’t! He’s gonna freak that I’m here!”

  “You weren’t here, Tex was here. Tex, the concerned neighbor,” Lee replied.

  “That’s me. Everyone around here knows I’m a concerned neighbor. Gotta go make a call.” Tex put his big hand on top of my head. “You did good, for a girl, didn’t puke or nothin’.”

  “Thanks Tex,” I said on a shaky smile not quite sure that was a compliment but willing to accept it as one all the same.