“I curl hair.”
“You give a feel to the production no one could imitate.”
Janna’s head jerked.
“You’d be a loss and it’d mean a lot if you stayed,” I told her.
“I . . .” she seemed to get stiffer, move more to the edge of her seat to the point I thought she’d teeter off, then she declared bizarrely, “Your man might not want me.”
I felt my brow furrow. “He’s just here to—”
Her voice was pitched high when she declared, “Beck’s my boyfriend.” She woodenly twisted to Rush and repeated, “Beck’s my boyfriend. Throttle’s my boyfriend. Though he’s not Throttle anymore. Throttle is gone. But he’s my boyfriend.”
I felt something beating out of Rush that made me look at him, see the tight in his jaw and around his eyes, so I started to get up.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Janna jerked around to me.
“You need to know it all. I was there. I was,” her voice cracked but she pushed through it, “I was there. When Chantilly was killed. I was in the closet. I . . .” She shook her head, all her blonde hair floating around her, but when she lifted her eyes again to me, they were tortured.
I sat my ass back in my chair, unable to keep my feet, even in a squat. It felt like all the air had been forced out of me.
My hair, makeup and costume person was the witness who came forward for Diane.
How could that be?
“It’s all totally messed up,” she announced. “They were allies of Mr. Valenzuela. Both of them. And I was there to try to get her to end things with them. It was bad. She had to get out of that. At least that. Everyone was worried. He . . . he hurt her. I heard it all. It was terrifying. And I knew . . . I knew . . . if I said anything, I knew Mr. Valenzuela would—”
“You’re the one who called me,” I whispered, and Rush’s bad vibe ratcheted up about fifteen notches.
“I did,” she forced out, looked like she was going to make a break for it, but then she lifted her chin, even if that chin was wobbly. “We met. Briefly. At her house once. You didn’t remember me.”
I didn’t.
Anytime I went to Diane’s house around that time, I didn’t pay any attention to anything but her.
Though that solved the mystery of why the voice sounded familiar, but I couldn’t remember why.
“I know it won’t make you understand,” Janna went on. “But I lived with my weakness. I lived with the fear and how it made me weak and what I was doing to Chantilly’s family for months. It wasn’t easy. Those women were killed and everyone was whispering it had to do with Mr. Valenzuela coming back, and those two guys Chantilly was seeing, and I just got more scared. But that’s no excuse. I should have come forward. I should have—”
“If you had, it wouldn’t have made her any less dead.”
Her head twitched.
“Janna, that whole thing was one massive clusterfuck,” I pointed out. “It was as messed up as something could get. But there’s no moratorium on doing the right thing. So it took some time.” I shrugged. “In the end, you did the right thing.”
“You’re not furious at me?” she asked.
I thought of Paul’s descent into vodka. The truth of Diane’s death and who was behind it. The fact that knowing might bring closure, but it didn’t bring healing and it certainly didn’t bring peace.
And I thought none of that would be any different even if we knew the truth of what happened months ago.
Outside my sojourn into porn, of course.
But if I didn’t take that path, I wouldn’t have met Rush.
“I’m not furious at you,” I told her.
Her shoulders sagged with relief.
Then they shot back up with tension and she turned to Rush.
“He’s trying to be a good man,” she told him strangely.
“He’s got a long way to go,” Rush growled.
You had to hand it to her, even with Rush’s obvious bad mood, she braved the contradiction.
“Not as far as you think.”
“Warning, he’s not real good with women,” Rush stated.
“You’re very wrong,” she whispered.
I sat silent through this exchange, and when they started just staring at each other, I chimed in.
“Right, Janna, we’re good. I really appreciate you sharing all this with me. It means a lot. It truly does. But now it’s all done. Totally done. Let’s just make it that and I’ll see you Monday.”
She twisted back in her seat to face me.
“She was good.”
I sat solid behind my desk.
“She was a good person. It cut her up, what she was doing, who the drugs made her. I saw that in her. When she was alive, I tried . . .” another shake of her head, “I failed.”
“You didn’t fail. I didn’t fail. Her parents didn’t fail,” I said gently, thinking about what Essence had told me. “She was ill. She was very, very sick. And then she died.”
That was when Janna and I started staring at each other and we did this a few beats before she nodded.
“Thanks, Rebel. I’ll see you Monday.”
With that, she got up and only glanced at Rush while she quickly walked out of the room.
I gave my attention to Rush.
“What was that about?”
“Her boyfriend and his MC beat the fuck outta Rosalie, Snapper’s woman.”
“Holy shit,” I whispered.
“Yeah. She was informing on his club to Chaos. Doesn’t make it right.”
Informing to an MC on another MC?
“Holy shit,” I breathed.
“Doesn’t make it right, Rebel.”
“I know. But, whoa. That would take balls.”
“She’s sweet as sugar, but born to be an old lady, so yeah. Wouldn’t read that on her you looked at her, but she’s all in to go to the wall for someone she loves or something she believes in.” His expression changed. “Chaos seems to attract that kind of thing.”
Wow.
That felt nice.
So nice, I had to cover it by giving him shit.
“In your case, it’s your big dick.”
His expression changed again as he started chuckling.
“And your eyes. You have pretty eyes,” I shared.
He just kept laughing.
“And your hair. Love your hair. And totally digging the beard.”
“You need shades,” he said.
“What?”
“On your window. You need a blind or something. You don’t have one means I can’t show on your set, make you take fifteen, and fuck you on your desk.”
“A further delay in you dropping me at Ride so you can go out and hunt your final enemy since we’re going to Lowe’s,” I announced.
He burst out laughing.
“’Bye, Rebel!” I heard and turned to see Meryl walking by my office. “I’ll email to tell you how far we got while you were gone, and I’ll see you on Monday!”
She called me Rebel.
She’d see me on Monday.
God, both those felt good.
I lifted my hand her way.
“See you on Monday!”
Two thirty-eight, that afternoon . . .
“I’m feeling very Tawny Kitaen right about now,” I announced as I walked through the garage to where Rush was bent over the engine of a one hundred percent kickass car.
My guy: hot.
My guy kicking my asshole brother’s ass: hotter.
My guy bent over the engine of a fucking sweet muscle car: hottest.
Okay, so Rush wiping the floor with Gunner was the hottest, I just didn’t have that visual right then.
I had this one.
And it was good.
He tipped his head back and grinned at me. “Hold that vibe, the others go home, we’re workin’ it out.”
I stopped opposite him. “No way. The others go home, since you aren’t hunting your enemy, we’re going to my place and I’m making you an anniversary dinner.”
He retracted himself from the engine and declared, “We’re goin’ out for steaks.”