Rock Chick 08 Revolution (43 page)

Daisy was waving her hands around her head fending off the raining
paint chips, snapping, “Shirleen, quit throwin’ them chips. You’re gonna give
me a paper cut.”

“
Sweet ‘ums!
” Ralphie
squealed, making an excited approach then reaching in and clasping his fingers
around my wrist.

He pulled my hand from Ren’s grasp and yanked me further in. As I gave a
smile to Buddy, who was smiling back at me, Ralphie pushed me, adjusted me and
stopped us facing the blank wall across from the inner offices.

He lifted his arms in front of him, hands up and fingers splayed wide,
floated them out and stated in a weighty voice, “
The Majestic.
”

I turned my head to look at him. “The what?”

“
The Majestic,
” he repeated.
“You
must
come to the gallery and see
this painting we have. It’s
perfect
for this space.
Utterly.
”

“I’ve seen it, Ally,” Buddy called, and I looked over my shoulder at
him. “It actually is.”

Ralphie moved away from me and snapped at Buddy with his fingers. “Give
me your phone, sweets. I’m calling Sadie right now. She needs to close up, get
over here and see this space. She’ll
totally
agree.”

Buddy zipped up the tape measure, reached to the back pocket of his
jeans and asked, “Where’s your phone?”

Ralphie assumed a look that could only be described as
aghast
, dragged a hand down his side and
asked, “Put a phone in my pocket and destroy this line?”

It had to be said, Ralphie, in fabulous skinny trousers and a tailored
pink shirt, looked like he’d just stepped out of a
GQ
magazine. A phone
would
destroy that line.

He’d made a good call.

“I called Ralphie to get some interior design help,” Daisy said, and I
looked to her to see she was gaining her feet.

She had also been hiding her outfit in her earlier position, and as it
fully hit me, it took a while for it to process through my system so I didn’t
hear her next words.

This was because she was wearing a jeans mini-skirt with a little poofy
ruffle at the edge, a pink tank top that should get a medal for its act of
heroism by stretching itself nearly to the limits in keeping her bosoms
contained, a bolero vest that was edged in what looked like silver rope, and a
hot pink, champion-boxer-wide, buckle-at-the back leather belt covered in
rivets that formed the shapes of lassoes, wagon wheels and cowboy boots.

And, not to forget, her feet were encased in pink cowboy boots with
wagon wheels stamped in the toe and lassoes decorating the sides.

A theme.

“Comprende?” she asked, and I focused on her face.

“What?”

“Ralphie is gonna help us decorate and get this place
stylin’
,” Daisy said to me. “I have
office furniture catalogues that’ll be comin’ in the mail in a few days. I figure
your office, the big one.” She waved behind her. “I’ll be out here.” She waved
to her feet. “We’ll set up a desk and computer in there for Brody and Darius to
use when they’re around.” She waved to the small office. “And obviously that’s
the conference room,” she finished, tipping her platinum locks toward the
conference room.

“Daisy,” I took a step toward her, “I think Dad’s got an old desk in
the garage. I can get him to unearth that and get it here. We’ll get you a
decent desk. Other than that—”

I said no more because Daisy snapped, “What?”

“Oh no, child,” Shirleen entered the conversation. “You got a choice
spot here. You don’t move some old desk into it, slap a computer on the top and
say ‘I’m in business.’ You gotta send the right message. And that message is
you ain’t Rockford. You’re Allyson Nightingale, a fine piece of badass ass with
class who can take care of
biz-nezz.
”

“And the right message is also cherry wood,” Daisy proclaimed.

“Oak,” Shirleen countered immediately.

“Black,” Ralphie stated and looked at me. “It’ll set off
The Majestic.
”

“Uh… guys, I don’t have any money for carpet, paint, office furniture
or fancy paintings,” I shared.

“Sadie will give you a discount,” Ralphie assured me on a big smile.

“Okay, let me amend,” I began. “I have some clothes. Someday hopefully
soon, I’ll have an insurance check that will need to be used to buy me more
clothes and various and sundry other items, like jewelry, roller brushes and
CDs. And whatever paltry sum I have after that I’ll need to use to live on
until Daisy and I make a go of this.”

Daisy chimed in, “Me and Marcus’ll—”

“No, honey,” I cut her off gently. “You won’t.”

Daisy’s face fell.

“A minute,” Ren said, and then I found myself dragged into the hall
with my hand in his.

I knew what was coming, so the minute he stopped me in front of him, I
started, “Baby—”

“You got twenty-five thousand dollars.”

My mouth dropped open.

Then I snapped it shut and closed my eyes.

I opened them and leaned in, putting my hand with the coffee cup to his
chest.

“That’s very sweet, honey, but no way. I haven’t even talked to you
about paying you back for the year’s rent. I can’t take—”

“You aren’t taking.”

I blinked. “What?”

“I’m investing. We can discuss distribution of your profits when you make
them. Until then, it’s an investment.”

“You’re investing?”

“I’m investing.”

“In me?”

“Yes.”

 
I swallowed, feeling good
things,
really
good things, but
unsure.

“I don’t know,” I whispered. “What if I can’t—?”

His hand dropped mine so he could wrap it around the side of my neck
and he dipped his face close, ordering, “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t doubt yourself. Not now. Until this moment, you were sure. Very
sure.
Be
sure. Take the investment,
make those offices something that anyone walking into them will trust you’ll
get the job done, then
be sure
and
get the job done.”

Well, one could say Ren was succeeding wildly in trying to be okay with
me opening a private investigations agency.

Still.

“This is too much,” I whispered.

“It’s investing in your future, which is tangled with my future. How is
that too much?” he asked.

I said nothing.

“If I didn’t have a plan and was at odds and you were in the position
to invest in something I wanted to do, would you do it?” Ren pressed.

“Absolutely,” I answered.

“So because you’re a badass, you can’t take the same from me?” he
pushed.

Seriously.

Totally.

Completely.

How awesome was my man?

To share this with him, I muttered, “Okay, okay. You’ve convinced me.”

“Good, then kiss me and go in there and tell them they got twenty-five
K to blow on makin’ my woman’s space right for her.”

I stared into his beautiful eyes.

Then I whispered, “You’re totally the shit, Zano.”

“I know,” he whispered back.

I leaned in and up and kissed him.

He kissed me back, wet and deep.

When he broke the kiss, I didn’t move away, so I could say, “Though, as
awesome as it is, you doing this for me and investing in our future, it was
awesomer, you giving shit to Dawn.”

Ren burst out laughing.

I pressed close and watched, smiling the whole time.

When he was done, I got up on my toes, touched my lips to his, pulled
back and moved away.

But I blew him a real kiss before I walked into my new kickass offices
to tell the gang they had twenty-five Gs to blow in making them killer.

And it was with no doubt that Ren heard the shrieks and squeals when I
did.

By the way, we decided on gray carpet, gray walls and black furniture.

And when Sadie sent a text picture of
The Majestic
to me and offered the Rock Chick Discount (in other
words, free) with a text that said,
Remember.
I’m loaded,
we decided on that, too.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Never Forgive

I’d found a parking spot three blocks away from the Lucy in Cherry Creek
North but as I was hoofing it up to the store I saw Darius’s Silverado parked
three cars down from the front door.

Lee and his boys always managed to do that. It was some kind of voodoo
but they had parking magic.

It was annoying, especially after driving by Lucy (twice) to find a
parking spot that Darius obviously got after me and hoofing three blocks.

Darius was sitting behind the wheel of his truck. I stopped outside
Lucy, where Darius and Brody were supposed to meet me, and sent a salute his
way to get his attention even though it looked like his wire-rimmed shades were
aimed my way.

He lifted a hand and did a full finger curl indicating I should haul my
ass to his truck.

Badasses.

Save me.

I sighed and moved to his truck, yanked open the door, climbed in and
turned to him.

“I have a full day and I need to shop,” I said by way of greeting. “So
if we can multi-task, that’d work in a big way for me.”

“Then it’s good this meetin’ is gonna go fast because my ass is
not
gonna be in that store,” Darius replied
by way of his.

I knew it.

Whatever.

“Is Brody coming?” I asked. “I texted him and he hasn’t replied.”

“He’s neck deep in used energy drink cans, his eyes are bloodshot and
he’s glued to the computer. He’s on a mission to find out who’s writin’ those
books and he’s runnin’ up against wall after wall. He’s taken this on as a
personal challenge. I think the only break he took since this all went down was
to go to Luke and Ava’s thing.”

This surprised me.

“He’s made no headway?”

Darius shook his head. “None at all. He hacked the publisher’s systems
and they don’t have that woman on their books. Not electronically. Whoever she
is, she obviously knows about Brody and took precautions. Calls to them brought
nothin’ back either. They say Kristen Ashley is a penname, the author is
adamant about anonymity and they’re not at liberty to give out further
information.”

Stymied.

Shit.

“Is there a legal route?” I asked.

“Lee looked into that,” Darius answered. “His attorney asked if there
was anything untrue or defamatory in the book. Unfortunately, there’s not. So
he’s fucked.”

“What’s Brody doing now?”

“Checkin’ blogs, reviews, anything that might give some hint or start a
trail to the author. He’s also tryin’ to pick up a thread on financials since
the bitch is local and she has to be gettin’ paid.”

I thought it prudent to inform him, “Just to say, Ren has mentioned
he’s also looking into this. He’s not happy it’s gone down and he and I are up
eventually so, no pressure on Brody, but I think it would be good if Lee found
whoever she is before Ren does.”

“Zano is no way gonna find her before Brody,” Darius spoke what was
very likely the truth. “But, advice. You gotta brace. This woman, whoever she
is, knows this crew. She knows us well and she’s taken precautions. She’s
covered her shit so deep there may be no answer to that question, even for
Brody, definitely not for Zano, and all you all might just hafta suck it up.”

I was actually okay with that. Truthfully, though I would never share
this with my BFF and brother, I was itching to dig into their book. Though I’d
likely skip the sex parts.

“Right, movin’ on to Smithie,” Darius said.

I nodded.

“Seein’ as when I asked Brody if he could take some time to run Smithie’s
guy, he threw an empty can of Red Bull at me and Lee would probably get up in
my shit if I tore his head off, I let him be.”

I grinned.

“So I ran him.”

“Okay,” I replied.

“Man’s thirty-three and established a career as a bouncer startin’ at
twenty-one. Not much on him. He’s got one speeding ticket that he paid. He also
got a DUI at nineteen that he beat. I talked with Eddie, Eddie talked with the
arresting officer and that guy remembered our guy. The officer said our guy was
a smooth talker, even back then. The kind who could talk his way outta
anything. So much so, fourteen years have passed and he still remembers him.”

This was not good.

“What kind of clubs has he worked?” I asked.

“Normal shit, no strip clubs. Know a coupla the owners at places he
worked, talked to them on the down low. Solid track record. Long tenures.
Movin’ on only for more money.”