Rock Chick 01 (33 page)

I looked at a man I hadn’t noticed who was
standing behind Goon Gary. He looked like an Italian version of
Rosie except better groomed. Slightly better.

The door opened as I was saying, “I don’t
need a coffee guy, thanks, we’re covered.”

Then from behind me came, “Uh-oh, major bad
vibe. What’s shakin’ now, woman?”

I turned to the door and saw Tex.

Wonderful, it just kept getting better and
better. Now Tex was in the mix.

“What’re you doing here?” I asked Tex.

“Came for coffee.”

Of course.

“How’d you get here?”

“Drove. I have a car, but I usually let the
neighbors use it.”

I gaped at him.

“You drove with your arm in a sling?”

“Fuck yeah, only got tricky when I had to
shift.”

I lifted both of my hands and put my palms to
my forehead. It was a Calgon-take-me-away moment.

“Coxy, she doesn’t want your man. You can
send him home,” Lee said, his voice calm but scary.

“He’s a present, for India. It’s hardly for
you to say,” Wilcox returned, also calm but combative.

“Lee says he goes, he fucking goes!” Duke
roared, not at all calm.

“I make coffee!” the Italian guy shouted,
looking a bit more at ease when someone was shouting.

I was having visions of Goon Gary flying
through the front window of my store.

“Everyone makes coffee, twerp. I make coffee.
Jeez-us. Why the big deal about coffee?” Tex said and lumbered to
the espresso machine as if the air wasn’t thick enough with
tension. He pushed himself behind the counter. “What’ll it be? I’ll
make
everybody
coffee.”

Oh… my…. God.

This was not happening.

I saw my life flashing before my eyes, or at
least my bank balance.

I turned to Lee and whispered, “Lee, that
espresso machine cost thousands of dollars…” I stopped speaking and
winced when Tex banged something, loud, “If he breaks it, I’m
totally screwed.”

“Come on! What’ll it be? Give me orders.
Woman, what’s your order?” Tex was pointing the portafilter at
me.

“I am barista. I am the best barista in
Milan. I make coffee!” Antonio shouted and dashed behind the
counter. “
Signorina
, I make you espresso.”

Lee was ignoring me so I yelled, generally,
“Someone stop them!”

“She drinks vanilla lattes,” Duke called.

I grabbed Lee’s arm.

“Lee!”

Lee was watching Gary and The Moron. He
didn’t look at me when he said, “He breaks it, I’ll buy you a new
one.”

I pressed up against him.

“When I say ‘thousands of dollars’, I mean,
like,
seven
of them!”

Lee’s eyes moved to me. “Indy, honey, what
did I say?”

Yikes.

Okay, Lee was concentrating and obviously it
was best to leave Lee alone when he was concentrating.

“Ha ha!” Antonio crowed watching Tex slam
around. “You know nothing about espresso. I am barista, my father
was barista, my grandfather…”

“Shut the fuck up and make coffee if you make
coffee, turkey,” Tex boomed.

Wilcox took two steps toward us, Lee moved in
front of me and Duke closed ranks.

“That’s close enough, Coxy,” Lee warned.

Wilcox was looking at me but he stopped at
Lee’s warning.

“You keep sending back my presents,” Wilcox
said to me.

I got a chill up my spine, his eyes were
weird, intense and frightening.

“Thank you, you’re being very nice but it
would be rude for me to accept them.”

“You accepted the one I gave you
yesterday.”

Lee’s body tensed and it seemed as if
electricity sparkled in the air.

Then it came to me, in a flash.

I was on the phone to Lee yesterday, telling
him about Pepper Rick’s body and Lee had said, “A present.”

I hadn’t thought of it again, but that’s what
he meant. Wilcox had killed my kidnapper and brought him to me as a
present.

Oh… my… God.

How totally gross was that?

I was standing mostly behind Lee and grabbed
bunches of his t-shirt in my hands but I didn’t take my eyes off
Wilcox.

“You didn’t…” I whispered.

“
I
can keep you safe, India. My
present yesterday proved it,” Wilcox said.

I felt bile climb up the back of my
throat.

Then something else hit me, the store was
bugged. Days ago, Lee had bugged the store. If I could get him
talking, maybe it could get taped or someone at Lee’s Command
Headquarters was listening. Then Wilcox could be picked up for
murder and I’d never have to worry about him again, or, at least,
until they let him out.

“Lee keeps me protected,” I told Wilcox, I
didn’t know what to say to draw him out.

He smiled his oily smile.

“To do it properly, you have to eliminate the
threat.”

“Is that what you did? Eliminated the threat
and put him at my front door?”

His smile didn’t waver and he didn’t
answer.

“I didn’t know he was from you, how was I to
know the dead guy was from you? You should have left, like, a note
or something,” I said.

“Antonio!” Wilcox shouted, the suddenness of
it making me jump, “we’re going. The lady said she doesn’t need
your services.”

“But I make coffee,” Antonio whined.

Wilcox just slid his eyes to Antonio and
without another word, he rushed out from behind the counter.

Wilcox winked at me, nodded to Lee and Duke
and then left, Antonio and the rest of his goons on his heels.

I was holding my breath. When the door closed
behind them, I let the breath out in a whoosh, sagging against
Lee’s back.

“I’m surprised you didn’t put your fist in
his face,” Duke said to Lee.

“I’d rather put a bullet in his brain,” Lee
replied in a voice that was oh-so-much-more scary then the calm one
he’d used earlier. Mainly because he sounded like he intended to do
it.

He twisted, pulled me around to his front and
kissed my forehead.

“You did all right,” he told me.

“This has to end soon, I’m coming apart at
the seams.”

His arm wrapped around my shoulders and neck
and held me close.

Jane wandered out from the bowels of the
shelves, reading and walking at the same time, her face buried in
an open book. Oblivious to the most recent drama, she seemed to
sense the presence of others, looked up in surprise as if she’d
just encountered us all in her living room, not standing at the
front of a huge, used bookstore. She stopped dead, staring at
Tex.

“Hey Jane, honey. How’re you doin’ today?” I
asked, worried that she’d have ill-effects after seeing a dead body
yesterday.

Her eyes went from Tex, to me then flickered
to Lee and I could see her blush.

This didn’t surprise me. Lee had that effect
on women.

She didn’t answer me, just nodded and
wandered behind the book counter.

“She’s hangin’ in there,” Duke mumbled,
answering my unspoken question.

“Indy, are you gonna try my coffee, or what?”
Tex called.

I disengaged from Lee and walked on shaky
legs to the counter. I took the cup from Tex and before I even took
a drink, I stopped and lifted my eyes to look at the big, crazy
man.

I could smell it, and it smelled good.

I tasted it.

Divine.

“Tex,” I whispered, “this is the nectar of
the gods.”

“I told you anyone could make coffee,” Tex
replied.

“You want a job?” I asked him.

Tex stared. “You shittin’ me?”

“Nope.”

“What about the cats?”

“Sometimes they need to play and sometimes
they need to sleep. They can sleep while you’re making coffee.”

Bitch Triple Threat

We left Tex to fill out employment forms and
Lee drove into LoDo, turning into underground parking. There was a
bank of spots with signs that said, “Nightingale Investigations”
and Lee reversed the Crossfire into one. Most of them were empty,
one held a soft-top Jeep, another the Mercedes Lee was driving when
Tex and I did our breaking and entering, another held a red Miata
and one held a black Ducati Monster Testastretta next to a silver
Harley Dyna Low Rider.

I’d seen Lee on the Ducati and it was sweet.
I kinda hoped the Harley was his as well.

I couldn’t concentrate on happy thoughts of
maybe getting a ride on the Ducati, or the Harley, because I was
too excited about the fact that I was about to visit Lee’s LoDo
offices.

We got off the elevator on the second floor
and I saw a door with a small brass plaque that had Lee’s company
name on it. Lee opened the door for me and I walked in.

It was decorated in “Man” with wood-paneled
walls, a hulking reception desk, leather couches, thick carpet and
dark wood, heavily framed cowboy prints on the walls with a bronze
statue of a bucking bronco on a column in the corner.

The final touch was a glamorous blonde woman
who looked like a super model sitting behind the reception
desk.

She glanced up and the moment her eyes caught
sight of Lee, they went from enquiring to inviting.

“Hey Lee,” she said, or more like
breathed
in a “happy birthday, Mr. President” way.

“Dawn. This is Indy,” Lee said but Dawn was
already looking at me and sizing me up.

She was wearing designer clothing, she had a
fresh French manicure and her yearly budget for hair highlights
probably was more than my new furniture. She looked ready to step
on a private jet, I looked ready to go to Six Flags Elitch
Gardens.

She knew this, I knew this and when her eyes
flickered to Lee I also knew Dawn wasn’t working here because it
was an exciting career opportunity.

I smiled sweetly and lied, “Dawn, nice to
meet you.”

She smiled sweetly back and it was fake,
fake, fake.

“Indy,” she greeted and her eyes turned again
to Lee. “Luke’s out of critical, I thought you’d want to know. I’ve
e-mailed your phone messages through, two are priority but you’re
expecting them and there’s a new high bond skip that needs your
attention. The file’s on your desk.”

Lee nodded and propelled me with a hand at my
back toward a hallway.

“Can you get Indy outfitted with a belt, stun
gun, taser and spray?”

Yikes. What did I need all that for?

I decided not to ask.

“Sure thing,” Dawn answered, clearly
ever-helpful.

We walked down the hall and into Lee’s
office, which was more of the same but with a bigger desk. I was
shocked when I entered, it was obsessively neat and tidy. A sleek
coffee mug sat on a leather coaster on the desk, the mug shiny
clean. A laptop also was on the desk, closed and positioned
perfectly at an angle to the side. Fancy leather and wood desk
accessories adorned the top as well, but they were empty except for
a pencil holder filled with perfectly pointed pencils and one
folder sitting in the in tray.

“This is scary, you’re a neat freak,” I
said.

Lee walked behind the desk, opened the laptop
and hit a button. “Dawn keeps it like this.”

That was not surprising.

“I bet she does.”

Lee’s eyes came to mine. “I’m not exactly in
the business that allows me to keep open files on my desk.”

Hmm.

Locking away confidential files is one thing.
Keeping your boss’s designer coffee mug shiny clean is another. I
gave myself one guess as to who bought Lee that mug and that guess
was Dawn. I wondered if it was a thanks-for-the-great-sex gift or a
wish-we-were-having-great-sex gift.

I didn’t answer Lee. I made a show of
studying the cowboy print on the wall and decided not to tell him
that it was likely that Dawn would clean his Crossfire with her
toothbrush if he asked.

Knowing Lee, he probably already knew.

“She’s dating a Bronco linebacker,” Lee told
me, as ever, in my brain.

“Un-hunh,” I told the wall.

There was a big difference between dating a
guy who, on Sundays a couple seasons of the year, played at being a
tough guy, badass while wearing pads and a guy who simply was a
tough guy, badass. The linebacker may get big bucks but he was not
the real thing and, anyway, Lee wasn’t hurting money-wise, that was
certain.

When I looked back at Lee, he was studying
the file but he had the eye-crinkle going.

I was amusing him.

“What’s funny?” I asked.

He didn’t even look up. “You’re jealous.”

As if!

“I am not!”

He shook his head but didn’t answer and kept
scanning the file.

“Lee, if you think she doesn’t have the hots
for you, you aren’t as clever as I thought. And if you’ve already
screwed her, you
really
aren’t as clever as I thought.”

He closed the file, dropped it on the desk
and moved around it, toward me.

“Dawn’s organized, cordial, always on time,
willing to do overtime at a moment’s notice and doesn’t get
flustered easily. I know she’s attracted to me but she’s my
employee and she’s a good one. No way I’d touch her. You don’t shit
where you live.”

He was backing me up across the office and
doing his disarming straight talk thing. I had to admit I was a
little pleased Lee hadn’t sampled his receptionist. Not only would
it make things potentially difficult for me in future, it was
tacky. Though, thinking about it now with a clearer head, she
wasn’t his type.

“All righty then,” I said when the backs of
my legs hit a leather couch.

His hand went to my jaw.

“You don’t have anything to worry about.”

“I wasn’t worried.” This was almost not a
lie. Dawn was pretty but she was super-thin. Lee liked a woman with
curves, always had and (hopefully) always would.

“No?” Lee asked, his eyes warm, his face
wearing what had become a familiar soft look, a look I’d only ever
seen him give to me.