His dad lost patience and bit out, “Spill, Hawk, Jesus.”
“I got a file,” Hawk told him. “I’m givin’ it to you. You read it. Then you get that redhead’s ass out of her porn set director’s chair and back in her bohemian wasteland pad in north Denver. Hank’s troubled. Eddie’s pissed she tied their hands. Jimmy’s considering retirement. They all want her out. She won’t budge. I figure Chaos will have the touch.”
Yeah.
Chaos was gonna have the touch.
Hawk kept talking.
“I don’t have to tell you that ugly has been gettin’ uglier and uglier. What we haven’t considered is that all this bullshit has been touching the lives and breaking the hearts of people not directly associated with Chaos. And Rebel Stapleton is one of those people. She’s just made of stuff that isn’t gonna let her take it lying down. Mo, get the file,” Hawk ordered his man.
Mo moved.
Rush looked back to the parking lot at the spot he’d last seen Rebel.
“I know you got a lot on your plate. I’d intervene, but you both know why I can’t,” Hawk continued.
Yeah, they knew.
Rush looked back to Hawk when he kept speaking.
“But someone has to get her out. Valenzuela or Lannigan catch on she isn’t who she says she is, she won’t be delivered to Chaos and laid out on your picnic table. She’ll disappear. And she’s not tight with her family in Indiana, but she’s got a brother in Phoenix who will go apeshit something happens to his sis. I’ve seen pictures of that guy, and his partner, and if those two come tearing into Denver, we might not recognize it after they get done. Makin’ matters worse, those boys got ties to a fixer I know who’s currently outta the game. Something happens to a woman that means something to someone that means something to this fixer, she’ll get involved and we’ll miss the old days of dead women turnin’ up on picnic tables with notes stapled to their foreheads. You boys don’t talk Rebel Stapleton down, this shit is gonna split wide open. And this shit is already serious shit. It gets any more serious, they’re gonna have to evacuate the city.”
Mo showed with a manila folder in his hand.
He started to hand it off to Tack, but Rush reached in and took it.
He dipped his chin, flipped open the folder and saw an eight by ten closeup of Rebel’s face.
She was wearing Ray-Bans and lip gloss. It was black and white, but he knew she had on gloss not only because her lips were shiny but because strands of her hair had been caught on them seeing as it appeared the snap had been taken when she was turning her head while on the move, that phenomenal mane of hair flying out at the back.
It looked like a goddamned ad for sunglasses.
Or lip gloss.
“You got this in hand?” Hawk asked.
“Yeah, we got this in hand,” Tack answered.
“Good. We’re out,” Hawk muttered.
Rush didn’t look up as Tack said, “Later,” and he felt the other men leaving.
He flicked through the file, seeing a lot of shit typed out that he’d read later.
He was looking for more pictures.
He had no idea if it was a second or ten minutes before his father remarked, “My bead, considering your fascination with that file, you intend to take lead.”
Rush looked at his dad.
“I need Shy, Joke, Snap, Dutch and Jag.”
Tack shook his head. “Dutch and Jag are recruits.”
“I need them.”
“I promised Keely—”
“I need them.”
Tack closed his mouth.
“They won’t be in danger and they gotta do more than work the store and clean up biker bunny puke to earn their patches.”
Rush knew Tack saw the truth of this when he nodded shortly and offered, “You want Chill?”
“I only need six bikes to surround a car.”
Rush watched the slow smile spread around his dad’s ragged-bottomed goatee.
Then Tack slapped his son on the shoulder. “Don’t scare her too bad, son.”
He wouldn’t scare her.
Not too bad.
That would fuck with his plans to get her ass in his bed.
Shallow
Rebel
Nine months earlier . . .
I sat in my car like the officers told me to do, only ungluing my eyes from Diane’s run-down, piece-of-shit house to look at my dash and check the time.
The first squad car had arrived about nine minutes after I made the call to 911.
The second squad arrived about sixteen minutes after they went in.
The 4Runner arrived twenty-one minutes after that.
Now it was seven minutes after that, a van had arrived, a black Ram truck was pulling up, and one of the first officers who showed, the one who came to my car and told me to stay right where I was before he went into the house, was walking out of the house toward my car.
I didn’t get out. He told me to stay in.
I did stop watching him when the dark-haired guy who came out of the 4Runner, who had the body of a linebacker and a way with wearing a pair of jeans that even pierced my terror about whatever was happening with Diane, came out of the house on the same trajectory as the uniformed officer.
I was so intent on the tall one in jeans that the officer knocked his knuckles on my window before I knew he’d arrived at my car.
I hit the button to roll it down and looked up at him.
“I stayed in my car,” I said inanely.
He gave me a tight smile and muttered, “Good, ma’am. Can I ask you to get out of it now, please?”
I nodded. I did this a lot and fast, then he stepped out of the way as I pushed open my door.
“You might wanna turn off your car,” he suggested.
It was winter.
It was cold.
I’d kept it running to stay warm.
I also kept it running just in case someone in this awesome neighborhood felt like coming by and saying hi, even with cops around, and before they did I could peel the hell out of there.
But there were cops right there, so I reckoned now I was safe.
I switched it off and straightened out of the car just in time for the linebacker to join us.
His face was better than his body.
He was also wearing a very wide, gold wedding band.
Of course.
“Ma’am,” he said to me.
“Uh, hey,” I replied, slamming my door behind me and stepping up on the curb.
“Got it from here, Leahy,” the linebacker said.
“Right, Hank,” the officer muttered and loped off.
The linebacker turned to me.
His eyes were the color of whisky.
“You dialed 911?” he asked.
I nodded.
He jerked his head backwards. “You know the woman who lives in that house?”
Lives.
Okay, he said lives.
Present tense.
So . . .
“Yes.” I had a frog in my throat. I cleared it. Nodded again and repeated, “Yes. Diane. Her name is Diane Ragowski. She’s a friend of mine.”
“Can I ask your name?”
“I’m Rebel. Rebel Stapleton.”
He took a step closer to me.
In a club, I’d take a step back and find some words to remind him he was wearing a wedding band.
Right there, my heart slammed in my chest and my stomach heaved.
He’d said lives.
Lives, lives, lives.
“I’m sorry, Miz Stapleton, but I have to inform you that your friend has been killed.”
Has been killed.
Not, has passed.
Not, is no longer with us.
Has been killed.
Which meant someone did the killing.
That was when I took a step back, looked to the house, my feet, my car, my phone on the passenger seat, Diane’s house again.
Then him.
But he’d said lives.
I swallowed the saliva that had all of a sudden filled my mouth and asked, “Killed?”
“Do you have time to come down to the station and answer a few questions?”
I didn’t.
Who did?
Who had time to go to a police station and answer questions about their dead friend? Questions they didn’t have answers to because their friend should not be dead.
But I wasn’t surprised.