Rock Chick 05 Revenge (56 page)

Uh-oh,
Good Ava murmured.

Yippee!
Bad Ava hooted.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Vibrator Ceremony

Shirleen walked Smithie and I into what she called the “Down Room”.
 

It was a big room. It had a couch, a TV, a treadmill, a weight bench and a bunch of weights. It also was filled with Rock Chicks, Tod, Stevie, Tex and Duke.

When we walked in, everyone turned to stare.

“Hey,” I said.

Sissy came forward and gave me a big hug. I hugged her back. She pulled away and looked up at me. I braced in preparation for her to say something that would make me cry.

“I’m thinking you aren’t fuck buddies with Luke anymore,” she said on a grin. Clearly my shouted diatribe in the kitchenette announcing my elevated relationship status with Luke superseded all my other dramas, including being duct taped to a steel support and then fondled by my con man ex-boyfriend.

I looked to the ceiling.

“I’m thinkin’ her vibrators are gonna get lonely,” Daisy noted.

I closed my eyes.

“I’m thinking we should have a vibrator ceremony. Maybe we can all stand around in the dead of night, carrying candles and chanting while she buries them in her backyard,” Ally added.

I made a low, frustrated sound in the back of my throat.

“I’m thinkin’ you bitches best stop talkin’ about vibrators. We got a pack of wild men in the next room plannin’ a human hunt and you women are talkin’ about sex toys,” Smithie threw in, sounding exasperated.

I looked at Smithie and said with feeling, “Thank you.”

“Who brought him?” Tod whispered loudly to Indy.

“I did. I figured we needed all the help we could get,” Jet replied.

“He’s kind of a kill joy,” Tod went on. “I like the idea of a Vibrator Ceremony. After we’re done burying them, we could make canapés and drink champagne. It’s a lot more fun to talk about that than hunting down humans.”

Tod was not wrong.

“Oh for fuck’s sake!” Duke exploded.

“All right!” I shouted before I lost any more control. “Listen up.”

All eyes turned back to me.

I took a deep breath.

Then I realized I didn’t have anything to say.

So, as any good Rock Chick would, I winged it. “Let’s break this down. First, some guy hit Bobby in the head with a baseball bat. Seems everyone has forgotten that but I haven’t. I don’t even
know
Bobby and I know something’s gotta give with the guy who hit Bobby. You with me?”

There were a couple of nods but mostly the Rock Chicks looked confused.

“Um, he’s kinda in jail,” Roxie reminded me. “Remember, Hector and Darius got him? Hank told me Bobby ID’d the guy from mug shots and after that he confessed.”

Oh. Yeah. I forgot the first part, the second part was good news.

I decided to forge ahead. “Okay, that’s sorted,” I announced. “Then, second, last night was not good. For some reason it seems it was worse for Luke than it was for me.”

“That’s because you’re a steel magnolia, Sugar,” Daisy chimed in.

She got more nods than I did.

“What the hell does that mean?” Tex asked.

“You seen the movie
Steel Magnolias
?” Daisy asked Tex.

“Fuck no,” Tex stated the obvious.

“Watch it, then you’ll understand,” Daisy went on.

“Will someone please tell me why we’re talkin’ about a fuckin’ Julia Roberts movie?” Duke put in.

“It wasn’t a Julia Roberts movie, it was a Dolly Parton movie,” Daisy snapped back.

“It was really a Sally Field movie,” Jet said quietly.

“Oh pu-lease. Everyone knows Shirley MacLaine stole the whole damn show,” Tod threw out.

“Someone kill me,” Smithie begged.

“People!” I yelled.

Everyone quieted and turned back to me.

When I had their attention I continued. “All right, so, second point, part A. Luke’s off-the-scales pissed and Lee’s none too happy either which means Noah, my ex, is fucked. I don’t mind that, I just don’t want anyone I care about doing something stupid and fucking up their life in order to make Noah pay. Which takes me to part B, I’m pissed too. I mean, the guy beat me up, taped me to a post and put his hand down my pants but it’s worse! At the same time he was stealing my auntie’s jewelry and all my money, he was conning a seventy-year-old disabled lady out of her retirement fund and he stole her car!”

There were gasps all around.

Finally. Now I was getting somewhere.

“Oh my God,” Sissy breathed.

“No shit?” Ally asked.

“No shit,” I told her. “That means we have to find him first and make him pay by turning him over to the proper authorities.”

“I know some proper authorities,” Roxie said.

“Me too,” Jet put in.

“Practically my whole family is proper authorities,” Indy added.

“Right, they come in later, first we have to catch him,” I went on and looked at Duke, Tex and Smithie. “Everyone with me?”

The girls, Tod and Stevie nodded.

Tex, Duke and Smithie did not.

Shit.

“Are you guys here as members of the Rock Chick gang or are you here as informants for the Hot Bunch?” I asked them.

“Shit, woman,” Tex said but I noted he didn’t answer my question.

“I’m being serious,” I told him, sounding just as serious as I was being, which was ultra serious. “If you’re here as informants, take off now. If you’re not, you can stay. Either way, I don’t want you talking me out of this. My crush on Lucas Stark began when I was eight years old. Now, twenty years later, he’s mine. He just caved in a locker with his fist, for goodness sakes. God knows what he’s going to do to Noah when he catches him. I’m not spending the next twenty to life visiting him in a penitentiary. Got me?”

Tex, Duke and Smithie just stared at me.

“Got me?” I snapped.

Tex looked at Duke “She’s got spunk,” he said.

“Where I come from, we call it sass,” Duke replied.

“Where I come from, we call it attitude,” Smithie put in.

“Oh for the love of God, whatever you call it, are you in or are you out?” Jules clipped.

Smithie looked at me. “I don’t know about your firsts and seconds or A’s and B’s, all I know is, Jet told me a friend of hers got violated. I ain’t down with that shit. I don’t care
who
nails this motherfucker, I just wanna be in on nailin’ him. So yeah, I’m fuckin’ in.”

“In,” Duke growled.

“Fuck yeah, I’m in,” Tex boomed.

I nodded to them. Once. “All righty then, here’s my plan.”

And I told them my plan. It was kind of a shit plan but luckily Indy, Ally and Jules had ideas to share and they were better than mine. In the end, I felt all right because instead of a half-assed plan, we had a pretty decent one.

When we were done, Tod raised his hand and I nodded to him.

“Can I just ask, after we find this guy, can we talk about the Vibrator Ceremony? I’m thinking of making us all kind of choir like robes to wear but with sequins and some satin sashes as belts. Maybe in chartreuse.”

It was then I was wishing someone would shoot
me
.

* * * * *

The gang handed out assignments, everyone prepared to move out and I approached Jules.

“Hey,” I said.

“You hanging in there?” she asked, looking at me closely.

I nodded. “Listen, I... um...” I started but May came up to our group and I stopped.

“It’s okay. You can talk in front of May,” Jules told me.

“About
anything?
” I asked.

“Hon, if you mean about you freakin’ out yesterday about Luke makin’ out with Jules on her couch while Vance was watchin’ on the monitors in the surveillance room, then yeah, you can talk about anything,” May put in.

My bugged out eyes swung to Jules. “Vance was watching?” I breathed.

“Yeah, I didn’t know that, neither did Luke. Vance installed cameras in my house during my troubles and he was on duty in the surveillance room the night Luke and I... um...” Jules stopped then started again. “Ava, you have to know, it didn’t go very far.”

“Vance was watching?” I breathed again. I didn’t know Vance very well (read: hardly at all) but I figured Vance was a lot like Luke. “Did he throw any lamps?” I asked.

I saw Jules relax before she grinned. “No, but he wasn’t too happy.”

“I’ll bet,” I said, thinking she got off easy.

“Did Luke throw a lamp?” May asked.

“Yeah, after he caught me with Ren,” I told her.

May looked at Jules. “Who acts like that?”

I thought this was a good question but I didn’t share. Instead I said, “Jules, listen, I don’t want you in on this operation.”

Both Jules and May looked at me. May’s eyes narrowed. Jules looked surprised.

“Why? She’s The Law. Right now, way I see it, she’s the best thing you got goin’ for you,” May said.

I looked at Jules. “I can’t explain it now but I think Jules understands.”

I saw the light dawn on Jules. It didn’t dawn on May. Therefore I reckoned May wasn’t in on the pregnancy news.

“You can’t cut her out of the action just because she made out with your boyfriend,” May protested.

In any normal situation a girl would be obligated to cut out another girl because she made out with her boyfriend.

This, however, wasn’t a normal situation.

Still.

I ignored May, it was up to Jules if she wanted to share that I was protecting her because she was pregnant. Instead, I looked for a compromise.

“Can you be the information person? Operate a Command Central? People can check in with you, you can keep tabs on things, where people are, what they’ve learned. I don’t know, that kind of shit?” I asked.

Jules smiled. “I can do that.”

“Hang on a second, Jules can drop a guy twice her size. I don’t –” May cut in.

“I’ll explain it later,” Jules interrupted her.

“But –” May went on.

“May, I’ll explain it later,” Jules repeated.

May looked from Jules, to me, back to Jules.

“You’re keepin’ somethin’ from me,” she accused.

“I’ll explain later,” Jules said again.

“Hon, you better explain later,” May snapped, really not happy to be out of the loop but she said no more and moved away.

Jules and I watched May retreat then Jules turned to me. “It isn’t that I don’t want her to know, I just want to be further along before I tell her. I don’t want her to get all excited and then... it’s just that, I have a history of... if I lose it, I just want Vance and me...” Jules stopped and looked away.
 

I grabbed her hand and gave it a squeeze.

She looked back at me and said quietly, “Thank you for keeping it a secret. There aren’t many of those in this tribe.”

I’d noticed that.

Instead of answering, I pulled on her hand to bring her closer and I hugged her. I hugged her because I was happy for her and Vance. I hugged her because she obviously didn’t think I was a screaming dork for my freak out the day before. Lastly, I hugged her because she was proof that Luke had good taste in women and he had settled on me which said a lot about both of us.

“Is there gonna be lots of huggin’ and carryin’ on or we gonna get this shit done?” Tex boomed from somewhere close.

I sighed. So did Jules.

We broke our hug and I looked at Tex.

“Let’s get this shit done,” I said.

* * * * *

Indy Ally, Tod and Stevie went to go talk to Brody, a friend of theirs and an employee of Lee’s. Apparently he was a computer genius and Lee’s hacker. They were going to pump him for any information he had on the Noah Investigation.

Jet, Roxie, Daisy and Smithie went to get provisions including stun guns, Tasers, pepper spray and handcuffs.

May and Jules went to Jules’s house where we were all going to meet later.

Shirleen, Tex, Duke, Sissy and I went to my house so I could get my Range Rover.

We trooped in my front door, Duke first. He stopped dead barely clearing the doorway from the entrance hall to the living room.
 

Shirleen slammed into his back, I slammed into Shirleen’s back, Sissy slammed into me and Tex boomed, “What the fuck?” from the rear.

“What the fuck is right,” Duke growled, staring into my living room.

I looked around everyone in front of me and saw through the doorway that Uncle Vito was sitting in my armchair.

Shit.

What was Uncle Vito doing there? I did
not
need this.