Rock Chick 06 Reckoning (2 page)

I held my ground. I was ashamed to admit, holding my ground took a lot, even after a year.

Luke hesitated.

Mace approached.

Bad luck. I would have preferred Luke to approach.

Effing hel but my luck sucked.

Juno went wild. Final y happy with our ungodly hour adventure, Juno was straining at the leash, wanting more than anything, even hard food covered in melted bacon grease, to get at Mace. Juno loved Mace. She took Mace’s defection almost harder than me. She’d pouted and waited at the door for him for months after he broke it off. She hadn’t seen him in ages.

I held on tight to the lead but struggled to keep my big dog stil .

“Juno, sit,” Mace commanded, five feet away.

Juno sat, as always, obeying Mace without hesitation but she wasn’t happy about it. Her tail swept the dirt, her tongue lol ed, her life brightened.

Mace got close and Juno butted his hand with her wet nose, neck stretched to the max but keeping her doggie-heiny to the ground.

I watched as Mace’s long fingers slid through the fur on top of Juno’s head and the gut kick feeling came back.

Jealous of my own damn dog.

How far had a sunk?

I straightened my spine and tipped my head back to look at him.

“Go home, Stel a,” Mace said when my eyes caught his.

Not “hey” not “how are you?” not “you look good” not “I made the worst mistake in my life breaking up with you.

Please forgive me and marry me and live with me until we both die at the same exact time holding hands when we’re one hundred and seven.”

To hide my disappointment at his non-greeting, my eyes went to the door of the house then they scanned the area.

Luke had moved to talk to Wil ie Moses, another friend of mine and a police sergeant for the Denver Police Department. The ambulance was stil there but I saw no paramedics.

Something was not right.

I looked back at Mace.

“Is Linnie okay?” I asked.

“Go home.”

Yep, something was not right.

“Is Linnie okay?” I repeated.

“Stel a, nothin’ you can do here. Go home.” Oh hel . Something was
definitely
not right.

“Buzz cal ed me. Said Linnie overdosed. Did she overdose? Is Buzz in there?” I asked.

“I’l talk to Buzz. He’l cal you in the morning,” Mace responded unhelpful y.

I felt fear begin to tear at my insides and I started to move around him, pul ing Juno with me.

“I need to see Buzz,” I said.

His fingers wrapped around my upper arm in a way that couldn’t be ignored. I stopped on a lurch, Juno stopped with me and I stared at his hand for two beats then up at him.

“Take your hand off me Mace,” I said, my voice soft and low, my meaning clear.

He gave up the right to touch me a year ago. He gave up the right to tel me to go home. He even gave up the right to pet my damn dog (maybe that last was pushing it but I felt like pushing it at that moment).

He didn’t move his hand, in fact his fingers tightened. It didn’t hurt but it certainly made his meaning clear too.

“Either you go to the van or I carry you there. Your choice, Stel a.”

He meant it.

This pissed me off.

I didn’t get pissed off very often. I didn’t have the time.

My life was music and my life was the band. When we weren’t playing, we were loading or unloading our gear.

When we weren’t loading or unloading, we were rehearsing. When we weren’t rehearsing, I was finding us gigs. When I wasn’t finding us gigs, I was practicing guitar.

When I wasn’t practicing guitar, I was getting my bandmates out of trouble. When I wasn’t getting my bandmates out of trouble, I was hanging out with Juno and cooking fabulous, gourmet meals-for-one because Juno was a big dog with not a lot of energy thus she didn’t do much so I had to find some way to amuse myself and Juno liked the scraps. When I wasn’t hanging out with Juno and cooking, I was shooting the shit with my girlfriends on the phone or meeting them somewhere.

The rest of the time, of which there wasn’t much, I was sleeping.

As you could see, I didn’t have time to be pissed off.

But real y, who the hel did he think he was? He couldn’t break my heart one day and then get in the way of me and a member of my band the next.

Nunh-unh.

No way.

No one got in the way of me and my band.

I leaned into him.

“Tel me what’s going on,” I demanded on a quiet hiss.

“Buzz’l cal in the morning.” He kept attempting to blow me off.

“What the fuck is going on?” I demanded on a not-at-al quiet shout.

I felt rather than saw the eyes that turned to us.

“Stel a, lower your voice,” Mace demanded.

That pissed me off more.

“I’m goin’ in there,” I told him.

“You aren’t goin’ in there,” he told me and his hand stayed where it was.

Effing hel .

I changed tactics. “Why are you doing this?” This caught him off-guard, I saw it. His usual y blank-but-broody look disappeared and I saw his eyes flash in the dim il umination of Lindsey’s porch light.

“I’m protecting you,” he answered, his voice low, the words seemed torn from him as if he didn’t want to say them.

There was the gut kick feeling again and more fear started tearing through my insides.

“It isn’t your job to protect me anymore, Mace,” I reminded him and watched the flash in his eyes again.

Erm, excuse me? What in the heck was that al about?

“You’re right. It’s not,” he said and dropped my arm.

Big time gut kick.

Sheesh. He gave up easily.

Oh wel , so be it.

I started to move away.

“Lindsey’s dead. Executed,” Mace said to my back.

I stopped moving and turned to stare, unable to process what he just said.

“What?” I whispered.

Mace got close again. “She was executed, somewhere else, brought back here,” Mace answered.

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

“Bul et to the forehead. No blood because she was moved from wherever they whacked her. She was put in bed, covers pul ed up, fuck knows why. Her face, except for the bul et 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 swal owed it down.

I saw Luke standing across the yard stil talking to Wil ie but my mind was elsewhere.

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

How she got caught up with heroin and that life no one knew, not even Buzz. Everyone tried to pul 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, al 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 pul ed 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 cal ing me “Kitten” his nickname for me, a nickname I earned because he said I “purred” when I was content. Normal y 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 smal 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.

“Stel a.”

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 bul ets 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 bul ets 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 fil ed 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 pul ed my hand away.

The wet on my hand was dark. Blood.

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

With a bul et. An honest-to-goodness bul et.

Jesus!

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

“This is Jack.” A voice fil ed the cab.

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

“Ava just cal ed in, said someone opened fire on her, Daisy, Al y, Indy, Tod and Stevie. They were outside a gay club on Broadway. I lost contact with her in the middle of the cal ,” 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 Stel a at the scene,” Mace added.

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

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

“Fuck,” Jack snapped.

“Cal 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, fil ing 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 pul ed his cel 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 al 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 cel 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 cal ed 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 nonsensical y.

“Cal Vance. Cal Lee. We need a rendez vous point,” Luke demanded to Jack. “Cal 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.