As if reading her mind, Carter chimed in, “Mimi’s at someone named Courtney’s house. Hope that’s okay. Casey talked to her parents and they said it was fine.”
“No, that’s good. She’s okay with them.”
Carter answered the unspoken question. “She hasn’t even asked.”
Ginny nodded. She supposed she should be grateful.
Carter took Jason by the hand. “C’mon, I need help with the horses.” Ginny could see Jason was only too happy to help. Carter called back over her shoulder as they walked down the deck steps and headed for the stalls, “If I had one ounce of his energy I could finish my chores in ten minutes.”
Tommy hadn’t said anything since the girls brought Jason home. He looked at Casey. “I know you just got here with him, but I really need another hour with Gin to talk. Do you think he’ll notice if we sneak out to have dinner somewhere?”
Ginny started to object, but Casey wouldn’t hear it. “He’ll be fine. He’ll be out there with Carter for at least an hour. We’ll keep him busy. Go.”
Tommy looked at his wife. “You up for dinner out somewhere?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t showered, but I am getting hungry.”
“You’re fine, honey. Just thrown on some jeans.” He didn’t want to have to deal with other men staring at his wife’s long legs. They looked sexy in shorts with her cowboy boots. He never wanted to admit it, but he had inherited Grizz’s tendency to be jealous.
After Tommy cleaned up, he talked quietly with Casey while Ginny changed into her jeans.
“Bumped it on the barn door?” Casey smirked. Tommy didn’t answer her.
Ginny came out of the bedroom then. “All ready.”
He followed her to the front door.
“So, where are you going?” Casey asked casually.
Ginny knew in her heart it was wrong, but she couldn’t help herself.
“Tommy is taking me to meet his boyfriend, Allen.”
Chapter Fifty-Five
1980
“Are you sure you can go? Why don’t you let someone else go?” Grizz asked Kit as they stood in the small living room of number four.
“I’m fine. The nausea isn’t as bad as it was,” she said as she looked up into his green eyes. They looked worried.
“What if you feel sick while you’re driving? You know what? Give me your keys. I’ll drive you.”
“Grizz, you are overreacting. I think I can handle a drive to the grocery store. Just the fact that I’m feeling like I can cook again must mean the worst has passed.” She cringed when she thought about how the smell of any kind of meat cooking made her want to empty her stomach. But she hadn’t thrown up in three days. That was something. Maybe the morning sickness—or in this case, the all-day sickness—was finally gone.
She wrapped her arms around his waist and stood on her tiptoes to kiss him on the mouth. “I love how much you love me, and I love you even more, but it’s just the grocery store.” She laughed at herself. “Hey, I made a rhyme!”
He pulled her closer and deepened the kiss. “There is no way you could love me more than I love you, Kitten. And, if you really are feeling better, maybe you can stay here for a little while longer,” he said in a teasing tone.
“Let me go to the grocery store and maybe I’ll make it worth your while when I get back,” she teased back.
He became very serious then. He gently took her face in his hands, rubbing her cheek with his right thumb. “I’m only teasing, you know.” He nodded toward the bedroom. Without waiting for her to answer, he added, “As much as I love making love with you, Kitten, it’s not about that with you. It never has been.”
His brow creased as he tried to come up with the words that could describe how much he loved her.
As much as she wanted to hear the words, she knew how difficult this was for him. She smiled and grabbed his wrist, slowly turned it so her lips met the inside of his palm. “I know, Grizz. I know.”
He was so overprotective. It was just the grocery store. Her heart swelled with love for him as she grabbed her purse and keys. Soon they would be moving into their new home. They were going to have a baby, and to top it off, Grizz was going to be finished with the gang. She couldn’t have been happier.
He reluctantly let her go and watched as she walked out the door. He stepped to the window, and his eyes followed her as she strolled down the motel sidewalk, disappearing around the side of the office.
It was then that he noticed a car. Chowder was talking to the person behind the wheel. He squinted to see if he could make out the driver. He watched Chowder step back from the driver’s side of the car and point to the highway. He must have been giving a lost motorist directions. It wouldn’t have been the first time an unsuspecting traveler had accidentally turned into the motel.
As the car made its way around the pit and started to pass in front of number four, Grizz stepped back from the window so he couldn’t be seen. But not before he recognized the driver.
What was Matthew Rockman doing at the motel?
Immediately, Grizz went to the telephone and dialed a number. “I have someone I need you to check out.”
Less than a week later, Grizz pulled into the overgrown parking lot of an abandoned building in an older section of Hollywood. It looked like it had been some type of factory in better days. His contact had run a check on Matthew Rockman, then set up this meeting for him.
Two minutes later, an expensive luxury car pulled up next to him. The man got out and slid into the passenger side of Grizz’s car.
“What do you need, Grizz?” The man, Carey Lewis, was dressed in a pricey, well-tailored suit. He reeked of confidence, expensive cologne, and maybe a little arrogance. Grizz was the only person he would ever meet in this type of circumstance. He wasn’t a cloak and dagger kind of guy, but Grizz was different. He required special attention and he paid well for it. Carey had three ex-wives, five kids, and a twenty-two-year-old girlfriend. He was only too happy to comply.
Grizz handed him an envelope. “There’s a kid coming out of law school soon.”
“You need me to give him a job?”
“No,” Grizz said slowly. “Not a job. I need you to get close to him, though. It’s still too early to tell for sure, but I might need you.”
“What’s his name and what do you need me to do?” Carey asked.
“His name is Matthew Rockman.”
“Okay, sure, Matthew Rockman. Do you know any more details? What kind of law he’s studying, anything like that?”
“It’s all in there,” Grizz nodded toward the envelope now resting on Carey’s lap.
“Okay, what else? What do you need me to do?”
Grizz looked at Carey hard. “You need to earn his trust.” He paused. “And when you’re certain that he trusts you implicitly—”
Carey waited. “Yeah, what?”
“You need to make certain he thinks you hate me as much as he does.”
**********
After the meeting with Carey, Grizz drove to The Red Crab. He went inside and headed for his office. Chicky spotted him out of the corner of her eye and signaled him that she needed to talk to him. He switched directions and started walking toward her. He liked Chicky. She was one of the few women he’d slept with who he might actually consider a real friend.
He remembered how Chicky, who used to go by Rhonda, had tried years earlier to rope him into some kind of relationship. He never minded that she offered her body. It was when she tried to make it into something more that she used to piss him off. He was relieved when she set her sights on someone else. He even smiled when he remembered how Chicky had eventually passed the torch to Willow and how hard Willow vied for his love. How did that whore think he could possibly even like her, let alone love her?
Then his smile faded as he recalled something else. The night Monster had brought Kit to the motel. How Willow had lunged for her. And later, Willow’s involvement in Kit’s rape. He should’ve broke
n her fucking neck that very first night.
Chicky interrupted his thoughts. “Hey, Grizz. Listen, just wanted you to know Guido’s been looking for you. He stopped in here earlier and said he’s been paging you and calling everywhere he can think of.”
Grizz grabbed the pager off his belt and looked at it. “Didn’t get a page from Guido.”
Just as he said it, the pager went off, displaying a digital number with “911” next to it. Urgent. He headed for his office and dialed the phone.
“It’s me.”
“It’s about time, boss. I’ve been trying to get a hold of you for hours!”
“Page just came through. What’s so fucking important?”
“There’s something you need to know. Her mother, your wife’s mother—”
“What about Kit’s mother?”
“I think she’s looking for her.” Guido took a breath. “Actually, I think she’s looking for you.”
Chapter Fifty-Six
2000
Ginny shot sidelong looks at her husband as he drove them to dinner.
“So how come I’ve never heard about or met this supposed ‘good friend’ of yours?” she finally asked, more than a little haughtily. She refused to let herself feel bad about the comment she made to Casey about Allen.
Without looking at her, Tommy mumbled, “He had HIV and it weakened his immune system. He died from pneumonia.”
She felt instant shame. She looked at her lap. “I—I’m sorry, Tommy. I didn’t know and you never mentioned him.” She looked at him now. “But why, Tommy? Why would you have never told me you had a dear friend who ended up dying? You had to be grieving. How could you have never once mentioned it?”
“I don’t know, Gin. I guess I didn’t want our time, our new life, to be about sadness and death and loss. I had enough of that for the first part of my life.” He shrugged. “I got through it.”
Her mind was still reeling from all his stories, which she realized went as far back as 1969. He seemed remarkably steady for someone who’d known so much for so long. She had her own reasons for being upset, but he’d had to be the one who lived it, day in and day out. He had known about Grizz’s real childhood. Known what Grizz had really done to Darryl and Willow. Even witnessed some of it. He’d eventually found out Grizz murdered his own mother, Candy. And—she couldn’t forget—he’d even played the part of a gay man just to be with her, then endured a beating that put him in the hospital for weeks because of that charade. And now he was telling her he’d lost a close and dear friend and she’d never known about it.
He was either the most caring and generous man in the world, she decided, or he was stone cold crazy.
She shuddered and looked out the window. He was right when he said she’d stuck her head in the sand for years. It was her coping mechanism. She had played the part of naïve wife to two men. She wasn’t stupid, and she was starting to get angry at herself for letting herself believe she was. She never saw it as avoiding truths. She really was a “glass half full” type of person, had tried for as long as she could remember to remain positive and upbeat regardless of what life tossed at her.
But with this new knowledge came a new realization that this was all she ever did: caught and dealt with whatever life threw at her.
She’d even allowed herself to be the victim of an abduction by making herself believe she was protecting Vince and Delia by not escaping. Sure, she could proudly pat herself on the back for making the best of whatever life tossed at her, but she secretly berated herself for not once thinking about tossing something back.
They didn’t speak as they made their way through traffic. She wondered what Tommy was thinking. Was he remembering his friend, Allen? Was he thinking about what he was going to have for dinner? Was he wondering if his marriage was over? That’s what she was wondering.
How much of Tommy’s personality was actually the same as Grizz’s? She blinked—her husband was her first husband’s son. It sounded weird any way you looked at it. But was there anything about him that even remotely hinted at it?
She let herself drift back to a time when she was married to Grizz but spending some hangout time with Grunt. They were driving somewhere, she couldn’t remember where, but she remembered what came next like it was yesterday.
“Grizz said he would meet us at Razor’s,” Grunt told her in the car.
“Razor’s?” She wrinkled her nose. “Can’t we meet him somewhere else? I hate to go to his bars. The women are all topless and it makes me uncomfortable. Not to mention the customers. They’re all criminals.”
“He has business there, Kit, and it’s just easier for him to meet up with us there. I don’t have time to drive you all the way home. Besides, it’s still early, so I don’t think there will be a lot of people there. Plus, I think Vanderline is working.”
Kit smiled. She liked Vanderline. She was one of the few women who worked for Grizz that Kit actually admired. She was about Kit’s age and only worked at the topless bar to pay her way through college. She was very up front with the customers that she wasn’t a working girl and she wouldn’t be serving up anything that wasn’t on the menu. She had a tough, no-nonsense attitude, and the customers loved her.
They pulled up to Razor’s, and Kit was glad to see there were only a few bikes in the parking lot. Grunt was right. It wasn’t busy. She didn’t see Grizz’s car or one of his bikes. Maybe he was parked around back. She wasn’t sure what he would be driving, but she hoped that he would get there soon. Hopefully, he had his car. She didn’t have her helmet with her.
After their eyes adjusted inside, they found a seat close to the jukebox. There were a few guys playing pool on the other side of the bar. Vanderline, full-bosomed and bare from the waist up, made her way over to them.
Kit and Grunt both stood as she approached.
“Hey, you two, long time, no see,” Vanderline said as she hugged them both. She smiled when she noticed Kit was blushing.
“Hey, Vee. We’re just waiting on Grizz,” Grunt told her. “He said he has business here and it was just easier for us to meet up so he can get Kit.”
“Yeah, he called a few minutes before you walked in. Said he would be late, but he had something back in the office he wanted you to take a look at. Are you two hungry? I know it’s a little early, but I’m pretty sure we can fix you up some lunch if you want.”
“I’m not hungry, but I’ll take an iced tea.” Grunt said, then turned to Kit and gestured toward the office. “I’ll be back in a few. Let me go see what it is he wants me to look at.”
Kit told Vanderline, “I’ll have an iced tea, too, and—”
“Lots of ice and lemon. I remember.” Vanderline smiled warmly at Kit before she turned around and headed for the bar.
Kit watched the waitress walk toward the bar and remembered when she’d first seen Vanderline. Grizz had brought Kit to Razor’s to pick something up. She sat in the corner and observed the waitresses in action. Vanderline caught her eye because she was the only black girl. She later asked Grizz about her. He told her Vanderline, who the regulars called Miss Vee, was about Kit’s age. She had exotic good looks and a body that the men couldn’t seem to take their eyes off of. With very large, full breasts and a rear end to match, she sported tattoos on both wrists and a small one just above her left breast. Vanderline was of mixed descent. When asked, she proudly declared that she had a black father and a Spanish mother. She had lost both parents when she was very young. Her mother died from cancer. And her father, who had never done drugs in his entire life, turned to them in his grief. He died of an overdose less than six months later. Vanderline had been passed from relative to relative until she finally struck out on her own at sixteen.
Kit had insisted on an introduction after Grizz told her Vanderline was working to put herself through college and refused to earn her money as a prostitute. They had hit it off, and Vanderline had impressed Kit so much that Kit began harassing Grizz about giving the girl a raise.
“She brings a lot of the regulars in. If I give her a raise, then she finishes school and is out of there,” Grizz told Kit after she mentioned it that first time.
Kit just stared at him. “You just asked me what I wanted for Christmas. I want Vanderline to make more money. A lot more money.”
“Kitten, you’re killing me.”
But Kit knew Vanderline had gotten her raise, and it wouldn’t be long before she would be able to retire from Razor’s.
Kit smiled at the memory as she dug around in her purse for some change. What had Grunt recently told her? That Vanderline would be graduating in a couple of months? Kit approached the jukebox and was studying the music selections when the door opened. She glanced behind her to see if it was Grizz. No, just two men. She went back to perusing the jukebox selections. Hmmm, no Boston or ELO. She would mention it to Grizz.
She heard the new customers settle themselves at a table near her. She put some change in and made her first selection. Nothing. Was it broken? She heard Vanderline set two drinks on the table behind her, then approach the men.
“What can I get you guys?” she asked.
“What have you got on tap?”
“Screw that,” the other guy said. “I’ll have me some brown sugar, sweetheart. I heard this bar is good for some snatch. Didn’t know they had a chocolate version.”
Kit could hear them, but wouldn’t turn around. She winced, but relaxed when she heard Vanderline’s reply.
“The only brown something you’re going to get is my fist down your throat if you don’t take your hand off my ass right now.”
“Whoa, whoa, didn’t mean anything by it! Sorry!”
“What can I bring you?” Vanderline had to handle jerks like this before. She wasn’t fazed by it at all.
“Whatever you have on tap is fine.”
Kit heard Vanderline walk away, and out of the corner of her eye saw her approach the bar.
“Well, well, well, what have we got here?” One of the guys asked. “Hey, sweet thing. Why you wearing a shirt? Too good to show us your tits?”