Chasing Thunder (12 page)

Perhaps the only person who would make the connection was Isbecky himself, in which case she instinctively knew she couldn’t come forward. He had money and he had connections. No one could keep her safe from his reach, even if she ran all the way back to North Carolina. Tammy had already warned her that he had chased girls down before, punishing the ones that got away and anyone who dared give them shelter.

“You knew her?” he asked quietly.

She glanced at Kid. He had been so kind to her, as had Snake. They had given her sanctuary without question. Though she hadn’t known them for very long, for the first time in a long time she felt safe enough to close her eyes and sleep at night. Silence was the only option left. As far as she was concerned, that girl on the computer screen was already dead. And if she claimed that identity, she might as well be, too.

“No,” she finally answered.

She went to her room without saying another word. Sleep eluded her long after she crawled under the covers. Finally she sat up, turned on the bedside lamp, and reached for her brand-new sketchpad. There was only one thing to do when she felt this scared, this out of control.

She had to draw.

M.J.’s bike crawled along the gridlocked traffic on Hollywood Boulevard. Her eyes were peeled for the male prostitute who had been cornered with Baby on the night that they met. She would have normally kept a low profile after what happened in the alley, but now that she had Baby to protect she knew she had to take some risks.

She had to catch the Hard Candy Killer and deal with him before he finally sniffed his way to Baby’s door, which at the moment also happened to be her beloved’s door.

Fortunately for all of them, Snake had been away from the scene for years. He had fallen off the radar in association with M.J., and the Wyndryders, nearly a decade before. So his house was safe as any for her newest rescue, safer certainly than her apartment, should this maniac track her there. And she was confident that he could.

Baby wasn’t like the other street kids; M.J. could smell it on her from the moment they’d met. She was alone, yes. She was now homeless, yes. But she had been sheltered, M.J. would even guess pampered, in the life she left behind.

So why would she leave? What had happened to her must have been pretty traumatic to force her to face the horrors of living on the streets. In M.J.’s experience, that meant the secrets she carried could hurt someone somewhere, and they’d likely do anything to get to her before she could expose them.

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. She 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

T
he 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.