And now she had crossed a killer who was currently playing a most disturbing game of chicken with law enforcement.
No wonder she had embraced her new identity as a gothic brunette. No wonder she never resisted going to and staying in a house full of bikers she did not know. What she was running from was a whole lot worse. And now there was a timer ticking on her carefully balanced house of cards. The police would drop the photo to the press to ID the girls, which would put a huge target on the both of them. There would be nowhere they could go to escape media attention, which was just what the Hard Candy Killer needed to find his little needle in the haystack.
The only one who could help her now was M.J., and she knew it. So if she had to show her face in Hollywood and risk retribution for the dead gangbanger, she’d deal with it.
It wouldn’t be the first time.
The biggest variable would be whether she could find the other runaway from the alley. He had run afoul of a street gang. If he was smart, he’d be laying low himself. But she’d known from the second she saw him that he was a junkie. Caution just wasn’t in the cards.
Besides, he was a street kid. Where else was he going to go?
It took a couple of hours, but finally she caught sight of the long-haired boy and easily guided her bike in his direction. He turned his head when he heard the thunderous roar of her bike. A second later he broke from his potential john and took off down an alley.
M.J. easily jumped the curb and maneuvered through the crowd to follow him down the alley and down another side street. She could have easily outrun him, but instead she stalked him, like a panther navigating through the jungle. Every muscle rippled as she effortlessly controlled the massive motorcycle, just a foot behind the boy, who was desperate to get away from her.
She finally had to abandon her bike when he started climbing a chain-link fence. She was on his heels before he knew it, grabbing his ankle with one strong hand. He was small and boyish, a perfect twink for the older men who paid for his services. This made him fairly easy to catch. She tugged him down the fence. “What the fuck do you want, bitch?” he finally cried.
“You know what I want,” she said, pulling him to the ground. He tried to bolt, but she tackled him at the knees and easily took him down. Resigned, he ran a hand along her face and into her hair.
“Fine. I don’t normally do chicks, but it’s your twenty bucks.”
She rolled her eyes and eased up onto her feet, pulling him with her. “Cool your jets, Ponyboy. All I want from you is information.”
He shrugged. “Still twenty bucks.”
“Fine,” she said brusquely, pulling a twenty from her pocket. “That girl you were with the other night. Who is she?”
Again he shrugged. “I dunno. We weren’t exactly together.”
“But you knew her,” M.J. persisted.
“We’d met,” he said with a smirk.
“I need to know the people she was with. Just a couple of names.”
He studied her. “That’s all you want?”
“Well, that and you getting the hell out of Hollywood,” she replied.
He laughed. “Crazy bitch.”
“It’s been said,” she noted dryly. “Look, I already know that the girl in the alley was with a couple of Hollywood people. Teen prostitute, redheaded pimp. They scope the bus stations, which is where they found this girl. I have reason to believe they’ve run afoul of someone very dangerous. I just to talk to them, that’s all.”
“Yeah, right,” he scoffed. This kid had been on the streets for a while. He knew he couldn’t trust a stranger. The adults who noticed them usually wanted to take something from them, whether it was their innocence, their freedom, or now—with this new maniac running around—their lives.
M.J. withdrew more twenties. “You don’t know me and I don’t know you. You need time, I get it.” She planted a hundred dollars in his hand. “Let me prove to you I can keep you safe for twenty-four hours. Then I will double this, and all you have to do is give me one little name that isn’t even yours.”
He still peered at her from under wayward locks of hair. “So, what? You’re gonna take me to your house or something?”
She shook her head with a smile. “I have a better idea,” she said as she guided him to her bike. “A place where all the valuables are actually nailed down.”
Within ten minutes they were standing at the counter of the Roses N’ Palms Motor Inn. The kitschy décor featured big pink palm trees and license plates from every state in the country, along with some from other countries. There were flags and funky regional knickknacks, including decorated ceramic cows.
Rose Palmer greeted her old friend with a bright smile. She looked like someone plucked right out of the 1950s, from her bleached blonde curls to her Capri pants and canvas sneakers. Even her two-story motel looked like something from a bygone era that one might have run by on a cross-country trip on Route 66.
Rose Palmer had moved to Los Angeles in 1967, and she and her husband Don had opened the motel. Twenty years later, Don was dead and Hollywood was a cesspool. If it hadn’t been for Joe Bennett redirecting his charity cases to her establishment and making sure that her rooms were filled with kids who needed a place to stay, she would have gone back to Nebraska years ago. He had given her a purpose after her husband died, and it was a priceless gift.
When M.J. took over where Joe tragically left off, she kept a handful of rooms on a permanent retainer. This income had saved Rose’s skin more than once. And usually M.J. was careful in the kids she brought to the motel, although the tweaker at her side immediately put Rose on guard. She tried not to let it show. “What can I do for you, sweetie?”
“Room 201 free?” M.J. asked.
“As always,” Rose replied. “How long do you need to use it?”
“One day,” the boy answered for her.
“Alrighty then,” Rose said, and she pulled the brass key from its hook. It too was a relic of a bygone age, with a big pink keychain decorated with a shiny gold palm tree. “You should have enough towels and linens in the room. If you need more, just dial zero on the phone.”
The boy took the key and swaggered off toward his room for the night. M.J. sighed as she turned back to Rose. She withdrew another twenty. “Order him a pizza. I doubt he’s eaten in days.” She pulled out another couple of twenties. “And if anyone at all comes to his room, I need to know about it.”
It wasn’t like Rose to question M.J., but her brow furrowed as she glanced at her friend. “You sure you know what you’re doing?”
M.J. nodded, then followed her informant up the stairs to his room. She muscled her way in behind him. “Okay, here’s how it’s going to go down. You’re going to stay in this room for the next twenty-four hours. Not at the motel. Not on the premises. In this room.”
“What if I want a soda or something?” he asked with a smirk.
She opened the mini-fridge. It was stocked full of soda.
“What if I need a pack of smokes?”
She pointed to the No Smoking sign. “And before you ask, I already ordered your dinner. So everything you need is covered.” He stared her down momentarily, but she was unmoved. With a sigh he flopped on the bed, which was covered in a bright pink-and-green tropical pattern. “I’ll be here tomorrow afternoon. When I return, you give me the names I want. In the meantime, however, don’t let anyone into your room. Not a trick. Not a dealer. Nobody. Got it?”
He linked his hands under his head. “Why?”
“You think I’m the only one those guys from the alley are looking for?”
That gave him pause. She could tell by the way his foot, which had been tapping on the bed, fell still.
“What do you think will happen if they find you and no one is here to stop them?” She that sink in for a minute before she headed for the door. “I’ve ordered a pizza for you. Eat it,” she told him pointedly. “And if you need anything, you let Rose know. Lock the chain.” She left the room. S
he didn’t leave the landing until she heard him secure the lock on the other side of the door.
At last she could head back to Pasadena.
7. CRAZY ON YOU
The house was dark when she arrived, though she could hear the sounds of gunfire coming from the loft upstairs. In Hollywood, this would immediately put her on guard. In Pasadena, it meant that Kid was still up, playing one of his endless video games. If they ever had a zombie uprising, he’d be the first person she’d choose for her team.
She had a smile on her face as she headed to Snake’s bedroom. She eased the door open and slipped inside, shedding her clothes as she made her way in the dark toward the bed. His strong shoulders were bare, the sheets and comforter tucked around his waist, and he had his back to her.
She eased onto the mattress and under the covers in one fluid movement, exhaling in relief when he did not stir. She turned her back to him, facing the wall. Just as she was drifting to sleep, he said, “Productive night?”
“Can’t complain,” she answered softly.
He turned onto his back and peered at her in the low light coming from the window. “You’re still alive, so I guess neither can I.”
They stared at each other for a long moment before she crossed the inches that remained between them and put her arm around his waist. He didn’t resist her as she reached for a kiss. Her fingers danced under the sheet, exploring his naked, rigid body. He groaned under her mouth. She deepened the kiss immediately.
With a growl deep in his throat, he flipped her onto her back. Their eyes locked and held. Every time she left his house he worried he might never see her again, and then she’d always reappear like a dream, with a kiss and a touch to make him forget all the hours together they had missed because she was off trying to save a dying world.
He wanted to punish her for worrying him. He wanted to throttle her for risking her hide when it didn’t matter. For every kid she sent home, five more took that kid’s place. It was endless, and as far as Snake was concerned, it wasn’t worth the price.
He was there when Joe was murdered. He never wanted the same thing to happen to M.J.
It was archaic and it was old-fashioned, but he wanted to protect her. She had always been a wildcat who could never be domesticated or tamed, though he had gotten damned close a time or two. She’d rather die than admit it, but they belonged with each other and to each other. Their bond had been unbreakable, even she couldn’t deny that.
God, she felt like paradise in his arms. She always had. She was supple and she was willing, so eager to take him deep in her body in exchange for keeping him locked outside her heart. He knew why she did what she did, but that didn’t make it any easier.
Looking into her eyes, he lost the battle with himself once again. With another angry growl he bent his head to crush his lips on hers.
She met his need and his desire with equal measure. He knew just where to touch her, just how to love her. She quivered under his hand as it covered the swell of her breast. He dragged his mouth from her lips to her hardened nipple, and she gasped as he captured it between his teeth. His fingers disappeared between her legs, which opened for his hand. He kissed his way down her body, kneeling between her parted thighs. Without any preamble, he touched her throbbing clit with the tip of his slithering, skillful tongue, reminding her yet again how he had earned his nickname.
She bucked against his face, and he held two fingers together and penetrated the velvety soft lips he had thoroughly explored with his tongue only moments before. Her body clutched his fingers and he groaned into her. She made him crazy, so he returned the favor. She was practically incoherent when he crawled up her body and sank into her with a grunt. He kissed her again, harder and deeper, and she tasted herself on his lips. He lifted her arms over her head, his fingers tangled with hers as he held her flat.
She met each thrust, grinding herself onto him, feeling herself teeter right on the edge of where she wanted, needed, to be. “Fuck me, please,” she whimpered.
He complied. In fact, he couldn’t get deep enough. He wanted to disappear inside of her. “God, M.J.,” he muttered as he stared into those bright green eyes. “Tell me that you need me just as much as I need you.”
She nodded. There was no way she’d be able to lie. “You know I do. You’re the only one,” she promised softly.
He groaned as he covered her mouth for another kiss, riding her harder until she was screaming into his mouth. “Fuck . . . M.J.—” he cried out as he came. She squeezed herself around him as he let himself go, which was enough to do her in.
They were panting as they collapsed against each other in a sweaty heap. He fell over to his side and she caught her breath on hers. When their eyes met, she scooted over into the crook of his arm, which he wrapped around her. His damp, hard body was solid in her arms. She traced a finger along the traditional color tattoo covering the left side of his chest. It was a head-on view of a coiled rattlesnake, fangs bared, that looked like it was striking right from his heart.
Likewise, he traced the lines on her back piece. An angel on one shoulder and a demon on the other watched over the people in the centerpiece of the tattoo, a black-and-white photo-realistic image taken from one of her favorite photos. She sat astride her grandfather’s bike, with him sitting right behind. She couldn’t have been more than five when the photo was taken. She’d told him it was the first time Joe had allowed her on his beloved bike, and she sat right in front of him, reaching her arms out toward the handlebars with the biggest smile on her face. It nearly matched the one on Joe’s.
To her, it symbolized her grandfather’s continual protection as she reached for her own destiny. After she confided that to Snake, he had snagged a copy of the photo from her grandma, and it now sat atop a dresser in the guest room where Baby slept.
But on her body, it seemed alive, somehow. Joe seemed alive somehow.
If only, he thought for the hundredth time with a sinking heart. How different would their lives have been if Joe Bennett had not been murdered in cold blood? In those dark early days after Joe’s death, that question had fueled his anger, an impotent rage with a thirst for revenge. He drank, he fought, he railed at the world for its inherent unfairness. Now the question only made him sad for what might have been, especially for this scarred and angry woman at his side. “I love you,” he murmured. It was all he could offer to heal her wounds.
She hugged him tight. It was still a promise she could not make.
The next morning they awoke to the smell of sausage and bacon filling the house. They peered at each other through half-open eyes, until finally their growling stomachs could take no more.
Baby placed a platter of fluffy scrambled eggs onto the dining room table just as they entered the room. “Good morning,” she said, smiling wide.
Snake was the first to speak. “What’s this?”
Baby shrugged. “I just wanted to show you how grateful I am to you for taking me in and helping me out.”
M.J. sat at the table. “You didn’t have to do all this.”
“I know,” Baby said as she poured juice into her glass. “I wanted to. I want you to know that I want to pull my own weight. It’s important to me.”
Kid brought a plate of pancakes into the room from the kitchen. Both M.J. and Snake immediately knew a plot was afoot, but they let their young hosts serve them without comment. As they dug in, Snake complimented his young cook. “She looks like Morticia and cooks like Betty Crocker. I think I’m in love.”
Baby laughed. “I love to cook. I’d probably find a job doing that, but it’s going to be hard to get one without an ID.”
M.J. and Snake shared a look. “You want to work?” Snake asked, and Baby nodded.
“Always,” she answered. “Gifts are nice, but they always seem to come with a price.”
Neither M.J. nor Snake could argue that point.
What she couldn’t say, what she wouldn’t say, was that the price for being kept was in the ke
eping. She’d learned a long time ago that a gilded cage was still a cage. As long as people paid her way, they controlled her destiny. She owed them. And she was quite over that, thank you very much. She never wanted to be that girl again, lost on Hollywood Boulevard without a cent to her name, at the mercy of the world around her.
But to say any of that would open her up to difficult discussions she wasn’t yet ready to tackle, if she ever would be. “I mean, I’d work for you,” she told Snake, “but it’s a bar and I’m underage.”
Silence followed her statement, as every eye at the table drifted toward M.J. She kept her head down and focused on the food on her plate. Kid sent a nod of encouragement toward Baby, who forged on. “Retail would be perfect. I don’t have a lot of marketable skills, but I can fold a mean T-shirt.”
Snake looked at M.J., who concentrated on her fluffy scrambled eggs without lifting her head or contributing to the conversation. There was no way she’d ever allow this girl out in public, especially in an establishment that could be linked back to her. Baby might as well have been asking for the moon.
Finally M.J. finished her meal, lifted her head and said, “I’ll keep my eyes and ears open,” before throwing her napkin on the plate and leaving the room. They all jumped when the door slammed shut behind her. Minutes later, her bike roared from the driveway and down the street.
Baby sighed and Kid gave her a helpless shrug. He’d known it was a long shot, and he knew why. He was actually kind of glad M.J. was so hard-nosed, because it meant that Baby was safe another day.
Baby gathered the dishes, and Snake touched her arm when she brushed past. “Sorry, Baby.”
She shrugged and disappeared into the kitchen. “Well, that was pretty,” Snake commented to no one in particular.
Kid answered anyway. “I tried to talk her out of it, but she’s kind of hardheaded.”
Snake laughed. “I’m familiar with the dynamic.” When Baby returned, Snake turned to her with a big smile. “I think this most excellent breakfast deserves a reward. Let’s go do something.”
Chasing Thunder Page 9
