Rock Chick 07 Regret (45 page)

“I’m thinkin’ that’s not a good idea,” Hector replied.

“What do you suggest I do instead? Sit in a dark room and reflect on my pitiful life, my mother who probably died trying to protect me, my squished cat?”

“Sadie –”

I shook my head and lifted my hands to pull my hair away from the sides of my face, leaving them there. “No, I need to do something normal. I need to be around pretty things in my gallery. I need Ralphie. I need Buddy. I need to go back to the brownstone and play with YoYo. I need Veronica Mars. I need to do everything I can do to forget all that is my
fucking hideous
life.”

Something flashed across his face, something so strong it penetrated my hysteria. I wasn’t certain sure, he hid it as quickly as it came but I could swear it was disappointment.

I realized then that of all the things I told him I needed, he wasn’t one of them.

I’d inadvertently scored a direct hit and I should have been glad but I was absolutely not.

I sallied forth, there was nothing else I could do. In my life, sallying forth was my only option and it always had been.

I dropped my hair and put my hands on his biceps.

“Please, Hector, take me back to the gallery.”

Finally, his arms dropped, he stepped back and I lost his heat.

And I saw that I also lost him. I could see it in his face closing down and his eyes going blank. And I knew it because he didn’t touch me, he didn’t slide his hand in my hair and he didn’t stay close.

And this hurt. It hurt so much I felt that hot, hard thing in my chest grow and spread, up my throat and down to my belly until I found it difficult to breathe and I was certain sure it was going to suffocate me.

Even though I lost him, he still quietly replied, “All right, Sadie, I’ll take you back to the gallery.”

I let out a breath and found that didn’t help at all.

* * * * *

Eddie

Eddie Chavez watched the door close behind his brother and Sadie and something about both of them made him feel unsettled.

Then Tom spoke and Eddie’s eyes moved to him.

“Seth Townsend is a piece of shit,” Tom announced. “But he loved Lizzie. It was an obsessive, smothering love but he loved her. He didn’t kill her.”

Lee leaned against his desk.

“You sure about that?” he asked.

Tom nodded. “None of the leads took us close to Seth. I don’t even think he knew she was talking to me. Malcolm and I figured Diggs found out what Lizzie was up to and ordered the hit.”

“Any chance she’s still alive?” Eddie asked, crossing his arms on his chest.

This time, Tom shook his head. “Sadie’s right. Lizzie would have found a way to keep in contact with her or she would have come back. Furthermore, Lizzie was loaded, still is. She had a trust, she was an only child and she inherited everything when her mother died and they had a large estate. The money is still sitting in her accounts. She never touched it. Seth never went after it either, didn’t try to have her declared dead so he could get his hands on it, never claimed desertion so he could get it for Sadie. Nothing. I’m not even certain Sadie knows it exists. If Lizzie found a safe place, she could have taken the money and she and Sadie could have lived their lives without ever lifting a finger. Eighteen years ago,
Malc
and I talked to Aaron Lockhart, Lizzie’s family accountant, and we told him our suspicions. His loyalty was to Lizzie and Sadie and he watched that money like a hawk
and
he would have done what he could to see Lizzie and Sadie safe. I called Aaron this morning to check and not a penny of that money moved, not in eighteen years. If Lizzie was alive, there would have been a time when she needed it. It never moved.”

“Any point pursuing this?” Vance asked. “Sadie’s got a new wound now and, by the looks of her, she has no intention of letting it heal, she intends to keep it licked raw. After eighteen years, that trail’s cold. I manage to find something, what purpose would it serve?”

Eddie looked at Vance. “At least she’d know her father didn’t kill her mother.”

Everyone knew that was so thin, it was practically useless.

But for Sadie, who had nothing but still managed to lose more, thin was better than nothing.

Because of that, Vance gave a jerk of his chin and muttered, “I’ll look into it.”

Hank moved to Lee’s desk and used his hands to pull himself up to sit on it. “We got another problem,” he announced when he’d settled.

Eddie felt the air in the room get heavy and his body tensed.

“Play the tape,” Hank said to Lee and Lee reached out and hit a button on a recorder on his desk. Sadie and Seth’s phone conversation from the day before filled the room. When it was over, Lee hit the stop button.

Hank’s eyes went to Eddie. “He said there’s business to attend to.”

Eddie clenched his teeth.

Hector had said Sadie had a will of steel. He hoped to fuck his brother was right because if Seth Townsend was doing business from prison, she wasn’t free of him. Not yet.

Lee spoke, “Hector heard the conversation. We played it back half a dozen times yesterday. He didn’t look happy at what he heard. I figure it was for more than the obvious reason but he didn’t share. We got somethin’ else to deal with here?”

“No idea,” Eddie replied truthfully and he saw Lee’s eyes cut to Hank before he continued. “Hector told me she knew what her father did. He also told me she slipped him information when he was on the inside.”

All eyes came to him at this surprising revelation.

“You’re fuckin’ kidding,” Vance murmured.

Eddie shook his head.

“Little Sadie?” Tom whispered.

This time, Eddie nodded.

“What are we talkin’ about here? What did she give him? Was she involved, in a position to know?” Hank asked.

“No. Hector said the information was worthless but she didn’t know that. He wasn’t in the place where he could tell her without putting them both in danger and it doesn’t matter. She did it all the same. Still, I’m thinkin’ Townsend figures family ties bind and she could help him keep a hold while he’s in prison. There was shit the Feds knew existed but they couldn’t find it. We know he’s still got men loyal to him and he’s keepin’ himself informed. Now, he knows she’s strayed and he obviously isn’t happy about it.”

“Where’s the link?” Vance asked. “If she wasn’t involved while he was active, why the fuck would he involve her now?”

Eddie shook his head because it was beyond his comprehension why a father would want to drag his daughter into a life of crime.

Then he looked at Lee. “Brody needs to do a hack, find out what the Feds got and what they didn’t and if they’re still keepin’ an eye on him. I’ll talk to Hector. We got more than the Balduccis to worry about. We need to keep Sadie clear of her father. By the sound of it he’s lookin’ to suck her in.”

“She hates him,” Tom put in. “She’s not getting involved.”

“That’s not what I mean,” Eddie told Tom. “His daughter has taken up with the agent who brought him down. We all know Seth Townsend sure as fuck isn’t going to stand for that, even if he’s behind bars.”

“I’ll get Brody on it, you talk to Hector,” Lee said immediately.

Eddie took in a breath, he didn’t like what he was going to have to say next, he didn’t like to owe markers to anyone who was dirty, but he knew he had to say it.

His eyes moved to Lee. “You need to go to Marcus and Vito. They need to make their protection of Sadie official. Townsend and any of his crew that are out there need to know what they’re up against if they’re thinkin’ retribution against Hector or Sadie.”

Lee simply nodded.

“This just keeps getting uglier and uglier,” Hank muttered.

Hank was right but Eddie, thinking about his brother’s woman, her mother dead, taking her life in her own hands to be free of her father, ending up beaten and raped by one of his competitors and Sadie’s response to this latest news, still hoped Hank was wrong.

As for the unsettled feeling he had about Hector and Sadie, the way they behaved and the way he saw them looking at each other, Eddie knew it was time to talk to Jet.

* * * * *

Buddy

“Double H is here,” Ralphie whispered from his position at the window and Buddy looked to his lap.

Sadie’s head was there, her magnificent hair fanned out everywhere and she was asleep. YoYo was on her side and asleep too, tucked in the crook of Sadie’s lap, Sadie’s hand on the dog’s belly.

Sadie had come home from work with Ralphie, her face pale, her eyes dead, a look that seriously alarmed Buddy. It didn’t help that Ralphie was giving Buddy faces saying, nonverbally, all was even
more
unwell in the World of Sadie.

She’d tried to make a go of it, pretend excitement for
YoYo’s
arrival (as was her way), but
Bex
showed up with the dog, took one look at Sadie and asked, straight out, “Oh God, Sadie girl, what’s happened now?”

Sadie pulled in her lips, trying for control (this lasted about a second). Then she snatched YoYo out of
Bex’s
arms, cuddled the dog against her face and burst into tears.

Through her blubbering, she told them a crazy story about her father killing her mother, something about “amazing ‘fuck-me’ sex” with Hector (she said they had sex four times, which had to be a crazy story, four times in one night and all of them “amazing” was impossible and if it was true, Hector Chavez was legend material) and ended on some incomprehensible nonsense about her need to learn Greek.

They calmed her down, made her eat and then Buddy gave her two Tylenol PMs and sent her to the couch with Veronica Mars.

When
Bex
left, Buddy and Ralphie followed and they all had an impromptu conference on the front stoop about what to do.

Ralphie had a plan.

It was a bad plan.

Buddy and
Bex
didn’t like it but Ralphie was adamant and he talked them both around (as was
his
way).

Then Ralphie called Hector and told him to hold off coming over until they knew Sadie was “visiting dreamland” (Ralphie’s words) and they could talk.

Hector didn’t like it but Ralphie was adamant and talked him around.

Now Hector was there and Buddy
still
didn’t like the plan but he’d been watching Hector closely now for over a month.

Buddy didn’t know Hector well but there were a few things he
did
know.

He knew (because a friend of his at Denver Health told him) that Hector had spent the night in her room in a bedside vigil after she’d been raped. Hospital gossip spread it around that this hot, Hispanic guy had brought her in, gone berserk when they’d tried to separate them and ended up having to be physically removed from her examination bay. He’d lied to the staff, telling them he was her partner. After that was over, he and his friends had spent a month sitting outside the brownstone, making a statement to anyone who might want to come after Sadie. When he finally deemed it time to make his move, he went against what Buddy was certain was his nature and took it slow, showing patience, restraint and understanding. But also, Buddy noted, a sense of humor, consideration and a gentleness that Buddy thought was almost unreal.

Ralphie adored him and, talking with
Bex
about it, she agreed with Buddy’s assessment of Hector’s behavior and admitted she even trusted him and
Bex
didn’t have a high opinion of men, what with working at a rape crisis center that was a job hazard.

Even so, they were about to break Sadie’s confidence and Buddy didn’t like doing it.

And he hoped to all hell that they weren’t about to break her heart.

Buddy moved Sadie’s head, slid out from under her and carefully tucked a pillow under her, hoping he wouldn’t wake her. She moved, Buddy sucked in breath but she just curled her knees up higher, pinning YoYo, who didn’t mind and simply snuggled closer. She tucked her hands under her cheek in prayer position and stayed out.

Buddy let out a sigh.

At that point, Ralphie and Hector walked in the room.