Rock Chick Reckoning

by Kristen Ashley

  “But…” I started then stopped then started again, “but, Buzz said he thought she overdosed. How could –?”

  “Bullet to the forehead. No blood because she was moved from wherever they whacked her. She was put in bed, covers pulled up, fuck knows why. Her face, except for the bullet hole in her forehead, looks normal but the back of her head is gone.”

  I turned my eyes away from Mace, bile sliding up the back of my throat at the vision he created. I swallowed it down.

  I saw Luke standing across the yard still talking to Willie but my mind was elsewhere.

  It was on Lindsey, the sweet girl who came to one of our gigs two years ago and fell in love with Buzz on sight. She was plump and pretty and she loved rock ‘n’ roll. And because she was plump and pretty and sweet-as-hell, we all loved her.

  How she got caught up with heroin and that life no one knew, not even Buzz. Everyone tried to pull her out of it, the entire band, mostly Buzz and me and, for a short time, Mace. But she slid down into that world no matter how hard we tried to stop her. Buzz didn’t give up nor did I but I was losing patience. She was hanging with bad dudes, doing stuff that was not good, all to get her fix. She’d started to bring these bad dudes to gigs. That was where I drew the line.

  Now she was dead.

  “Linnie,” I whispered and Juno felt my mood and pushed my hand with her nose. I absentmindedly stroked her head as I heard Luke’s phone ring and watched, unfocused and not knowing what to feel (sad, definitely; angry, heck yeah), as Luke pulled his phone out of his black cargo pants.

  “Kitten.” I heard as if from far away, so far away it was like a dream.

  It was Mace’s voice calling me “Kitten” his nickname for me, a nickname I earned because he said I “purred” when I was content. Normally this purring happened post-orgasm but there were other times too. I was content a lot when I’d been with Mace. It was something I hadn’t heard in a year. It was one of the seven hundred and twenty-five thousand things I missed most about Mace.

  A touch, whisper-soft, slid across the small of my back and I shivered.

  “Linnie,” I whispered again.

  Then I watched in distracted fascination as whatever Luke heard over the phone changed his entire body. I was fascinated because I could swear Luke looked scared.

  Men like Luke didn’t get scared.

  I shook my head and jerked out of my daze.

  “I have to get to Buzz,” I said.

  “Stella.”

  I took off, walking swiftly across the yard.

  As I marched, I heard Luke shout, “Mace!” and Mace’s name came from Luke’s lips like a bark, sharp and ferocious.

  I didn’t let that register, my mind was centered on Buzz.

  Then gunshots rang out.

  Yes.

  Gunshots.

  There were shouts of surprise, rapid movement and I saw the dirt around me explode as the bullets pounded into it around my cowboy boots, one after the other after the other.

  For a second I stood frozen, not comprehending this drastic turn of events. Then I felt a stinging burn in my hip and cried out but for some reason my hands went to my head and, unfortunately belatedly, I started to run for my effing life.

  I ran two steps before I was picked up at the waist, shifted, thrown over Mace’s shoulder and he ran in a half crouch as the bullets whizzed around us.

  He stopped, wrenched open the backdoor to the Explorer and tossed me in. He made a quick whistling noise through his teeth and Juno jumped up with me jarring me, pain sliced through my hip and I cried out again.

  Mace slammed the door almost before Juno’s hind-end cleared it. He got in the passenger seat; Luke was already in at the driver’s side. My dog and I barely settled before we rocketed from the curb.

  I hadn’t even noticed Luke starting the truck; it was like he hit the ignition through a mind meld, one with the vehicle. None of that normal turn the key and go business for Super Cool Luke.

  Mace hit a button on the dash and the cab was filled with ringing.

  Juno woofed just to be part of the action, not wanting to do much of anything just not wanting anyone to forget she was around. This was her way.

  I put my hand to my hip. I felt something wet there and pulled my hand away.

  The wet on my hand was dark. Blood.

  I’d been shot. Effing hell, I’d been shot.

  With a bullet. An honest-to-goodness bullet.

  Jesus!

  “Um, Mace –” I started, trying not to sound panicky.

  “This is Jack.” A voice filled the cab.

  “One second,” Mace said to me in an undertone.

  “Ava just called in, said someone opened fire on her, Daisy, Ally, Indy, Tod and Stevie. They were outside a gay club on Broadway. I lost contact with her in the middle of the call,” Luke informed Jack who I also knew from my days as Mace’s girlfriend. He was another Nightingale Man, built strong, tough, solid and scary.

  I gasped at this news. Ava and the girls had been shot at? What was going on?

  “Copy that. I’m on it,” Jack’s voice replied.

  “Someone just shot at Stella at the scene,” Mace added.

  They weren’t shooting at me, were they? My brain asked.

  Since I didn’t actually utter the words, no one answered.

  “Fuck,” Jack snapped.

  “Call Lee and check Roxie, Jules and Jet,” Luke ordered.

  “Copy,” Jack said.

  “Out,” Luke clipped and hit a button on the console while Jack repeated the same word.

  “I don’t fuckin’ like this,” Luke muttered and you could sense his fear, clear and edgy, filling the cab. He wasn’t even hiding it. His woman had been shot at and not only did he not like it, he was terrified that she was in danger. Mingled with the out-and-out panic I felt at the general situation, not to mention the fact I was bleeding from a gunshot wound, was a sense of beauty that Super Cool Luke cared about Ava enough to let his tough guy image take that kind of direct hit.

  Mace was silent but he leaned forward and pulled his cell out of his back pocket.

  “Um, Mace –” I started again, thinking now the time was ripe to share the fact I was bleeding.

  “Two seconds,” Mace replied.

  Apparently the time wasn’t ripe.

  I looked around the backseat for something to press against my wound. I was probably bleeding all over the seat. I saw a blanket on the floor opposite me, leaned over and grabbed it. I lifted a butt cheek, shoved it under, sat on it and pressed its edge to my hip. Why I cared about bloodstains on the seat of the Explorer, don’t ask me, but it was something to worry about that didn’t involve me and my friends getting shot at, at four o’clock early on a Wednesday morning. So I went with it.

  Mace hit some buttons on his cell but the phone rang in the cab before he connected.

  Luke hit a button on the console.

  “Stark,” he answered.

  “Luke, get to Jules. Now. She called in. Drive-by, AK-47. They shot out Nick and Jules’s windows,” Jack told us.

  “God damn it!” Luke clipped.

  “Sid,” Mace replied what I thought was nonsensically.

  “Call Vance. Call Lee. We need a rendez vous point,” Luke demanded to Jack. “Call Louie and find out what the fuck is goin’ on with Ava.”

  “Copy. Out,” Jack said.

  Disconnect.

  Luke took a turn without slowing, I went flying and so did Juno. My big dog and I became a tangle of furry limbs and not-furry-limbs. Once we were on the straight and narrow and my ass cheek was back on the blanket again, I thought it best to buckle in.

  Mace was looking around the seat at me, his eyes watched me click the buckle then without a word he turned back to the front.

  “Hang tight, Juno,” I whispered after I buckled in and I reached across myself with the hand that wasn’t bloody and stroked Juno’s head.

  Juno woofed a calm woof.

  Good to know my
dog was cool in a crisis. Though it would have been better if I’d never needed that knowledge.

  Mace was on the phone. “Ike,” he said. “Yeah. Call Matt and Bobby. Sid’s made a move. We need confirmation on Ava and the girls. Ava reported to Luke they were under fire and he lost contact. Louie’s with them. They were outside that gay club on Broadway.” Pause. “Yeah, out.”

  He flipped his phone shut as Luke took another turn without slowing and we all leaned with it.

  “Um, Mace –” I began yet again.

  “There.” Mace ignored me and pointed at a cherry-condition, red, circa 1980-something Camaro illuminated by the streetlights and headed our way.

  Luke hit the brakes, executed a swift, tight, three-point turn in the middle of the road (scaring the effing beejeezus out of me, by the way) and raced up behind the Camaro. Once there, he flashed his lights.

  Leaning to my side and looking between the seats, I saw the driver’s hand wave, the Camaro slowed and Luke shot round it. I looked behind us and the Camaro followed as I heard the bleeping sound of the phone being dialed on the dash. I turned back around to front, one ring and connect.

  “I’m okay,” a woman’s voice said.

  “Nick?” Mace asked.

  “He’s okay too.”

  “Have you contacted Vance?” Mace went on.

  “Yeah, he’s heading back from Albuquerque now,” the woman said and I knew this was Jules, a more recent friend of mine. I’d met her a few months ago when she’d come with some of my friends to a gig. She was married to one of the Nightingale Men, Vance Crowe. In fact, they were just back from their honeymoon.

  For your information, it was just my bad luck that after one of the Nightingale Men broke up with me, one of my closest friends hooked up with the Nightingale Man, Lee Nightingale. Her name was India “Indy” Savage. I’d known her for years. Now she and her best friend Ally (a Nightingale herself, Lee’s sister), both close friends of mine, were mixed up with the Nightingale posse. This meant for almost a year I hadn’t had a lot to do with my friends. They knew about me and Mace because they guessed but they also didn’t know because I didn’t share details, not during our five month relationship and not after it ended. It was too precious to share, not even with Ally, whose brother was my now-ex-boyfriend’s employer, and it had never gotten to the point where it wasn’t. When it was over I just got busy. But then again they were all busy too. As the months passed Indy and Ally added Rock Chicks to the club and all of them were claimed by Nightingale Men along the way.

  As I said, it was bad luck, what I didn’t say was it was super shitty bad luck.

  Also for your information, I was the Queen of Super Shitty Bad Luck and getting shot was only the most recent example of that fact.

  “Follow us,” Luke told Jules.

  “Gotcha,” Jules replied.

  Disconnect.

  The dash phone started ringing immediately and Luke pressed a button.

  Without a greeting, Jack informed the cab, “Ava’s fine.”

  I expelled a breath I didn’t know I was holding. Luke’s fear disappeared.

  “Louie returned fire, got the girls and boys in Daisy’s limo. Everyone’s safe, no one was hit. They’re headed to The Castle. Lee says that’s the rendez vous.”

  “Copy that. The others?” Luke asked.

  “Soon to be in transit but not good. Both Eddie and Hank got callouts. Both houses were hit by drive-bys after they were gone. AK-47s again. Roxie and Jet were sleeping. They’re okay. Lee’s just been in to get a vehicle. He’s picking them up and heading toward The Castle.”

  To keep you up to date, Eddie was Lee’s best friend, Jet was his fiancée. Hank was Lee’s brother, Roxie was living with him.

  See how this all came around and went around? Sucks for me because I lost Mace, though the girls were happy as clams, getting married, having babies (Jules was pregnant), living the good life of being a Hot Guy’s Woman. The life I tasted and loved but lost and would never have again.

  “Fuckin’ Sid,” Luke clipped, breaking into my thoughts.

  “Fuckin’ Sid,” Jack agreed.

  “Ike’s mobilizing Matt and Bobby,” Mace put in. “He was looking for Ava. Now he needs an alternate assignment.”

  “Copy that. I’ll call him,” Jack responded.

  “Out,” Luke said and hit a button.

  Silence.

  “War,” Mace declared.

  “Fuck yeah,” Luke replied.

  I didn’t know what they meant but I didn’t like the sound of it.

  Effing hell.

  Chapter Two

  Hunky Dory

  Stella

  When they referred to “The Castle”, they meant an actual castle. I didn’t know Denver had a castle but there it was, right in front of us.

  We’d driven to the ritzy part of Englewood, down a winding lane in a heavily wooded area and, all lit up with a shitload of lights that would make even your average environmentalist shudder, was a stone castle, complete with turrets and a moat.

  During the drive I decided that it was evident that I was not going to die of my wound.

  I also decided I did not want Mace to know I was injured. If he knew I was injured, it might mean I’d have to spend more time in his presence. The last time I’d spent more than a few minutes in his presence was when he’d come to a gig with the Rock Chicks. I ended up singing Hank Williams’s “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” directly to him. I had no control over it. It just happened. Even the band was taken aback. I did not want a repeat of that moment of weakness.

  Unh-unh.

  No effing way.

  I had a plan. I’d slip into a bathroom, clean up, maybe confiscate a washcloth then I’d call Floyd to come get me. This was a totally stupid plan but I wasn’t thinking clearly.

  Floyd was my pianist, older than anyone else in the band by a decade and a half. Floyd was married to Emily, had a steady day job, two kids in college and could play and sing Billy Joel’s “And So It Goes” so beautifully that if you didn’t at least tear up, you had to be made of stone.

  His lead on our rendition of “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant” didn’t suck either.

  Floyd and Emily would take care of me, I knew it. Especially considering there was a bleeding bullet wound involved.

  They were the only ones in my whole life who took care of me or at least the only ones who did it for any length of time. I didn’t call on them often because I didn’t want that to end like it had with Mace that night when he stood, shoulder leaned up against my doorway, and told me I needed him too much.

  That wasn’t going to happen to me again, not if I could help it.

  Two men wearing dark suits, white shirts and slim ties and carrying big guns materialized and approached the Explorer as we swung into the drive. I sucked in breath, thinking this was not exactly a welcome party but they spied Luke and Mace and disappeared in the shadows again.

  I had no time to dwell on castles with moats and men with guns because Luke’s lights flashed on a limousine that was parked in front of the house. We could see the bullet holes along the side. At the sight, the cab went electric and this electricity was emanating from Luke.

  “He should have gone down like a man,” Mace said softly.

  “Now he’ll pay,” Luke replied.

  “Now he’ll pay,” Mace agreed.

  “Who?” I asked.

  Mace turned around to look at me as Luke parked and I got the gut kick feeling that he forgot I was there.

  “You okay?” he asked belatedly but not, I noticed, answering my question.

  No, I’ve been shot which could be the definition of “not okay”, my brain replied sarcastically.

  “Hunky dory,” my mouth said.

  Luke had turned off the truck and was now twisted to look at me too. He heard my reply and I saw his half-grin. I grinned back.

  “Out,” Mace snapped, sounding for some reason impatient and jerked open his door.

&
nbsp; I opened my door too. Juno trundled over me and hopped down. I gritted my teeth against the pain and hopped down behind her. It took a lot but I walked normally and, to hide it, kept my bloody hand pressed against my belly like a pregnant woman.

  Luke had forged ahead probably keen to get to Ava. Mace walked at my right side, opposite the wounded left side. He walked beside me but he put distance between us.

  When we’d been together he didn’t like distance anytime, anywhere. Mace was not a man who shied away from public displays of affection. He walked with his thumb hooked in the side belt loop of my jeans so I was plastered against him. In restaurant booths he sat next to me not opposite me. He lounged in front of the TV with my head or feet in his lap or me pressed against his side. In bed, he was a spooner, the front of his long, hard body curved and pressed into the length of the back of mine. When we kissed, standing up, sitting down, lying in bed, he sought maximum physical contact. He didn’t seek it, he demanded it. It was another one of the seven hundred and twenty-five thousand things about Mace that I missed the most.

  Juno loped beside us, alternately trotting and sniffing the ground.

  After we crossed the little stone bridge over the moat and Mace caught the door Luke was holding open for us, I said, “I’ll call Floyd to come get me.”

  Luke was again moving ahead. Mace fell back in step beside me. I was staring in awe at my surroundings. A long, stone-walled hall, a bright red carpet runner punctuated by shiny brass rods holding it down, crossed swords, wrought iron torches with electrical lights in and full suits of armor decorating it down either side. It was unbelievable. It was indescribable. It was like I stepped into a different world.

  “You need to wait until we debrief. Then I’ll tell you what you can do,” Mace replied.

  I lost my awe, I forgot about the pain in my hip and my head turned to Mace. I was pretty certain I was pissed off again.

  “What did you just say?” I asked.

  “You heard me,” he answered but didn’t look at me.

  Either in an attempt not to argue or because he was raring to debrief, whatever the hell that meant, he forged ahead too, his long legs taking him well ahead of me. I scrambled to catch up.