Rock Chick 01 (13 page)

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
un
happy,”
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.