I learned quickly that lots of stuff flashes before your eyes when you get shot at.
* * * * *
As I stared at my cell, trying not to have a heart attack, I tried to figure out who to call.
I could, and probably should, call Dad, Malcolm or Hank.
Considering those choices and this situation, in the cop stakes, Hank would be my best bet. He’d go ballistic when he heard I’d been shot at and would probably arrest Rosie on the spot, but he was least likely to kill Rosie for putting me in danger.
Hank had control. That was why Hank was such a good athlete, why he was a good student and why he’s a good cop.
Dad was my father and Malcolm considered himself like a father so they’d just lose it and make a scene which would freak Rosie out.
Rosie was a coffee artiste.
As an artiste, Rosie had a delicate disposition. He freaks out easily. You could only give him two coffee orders at a time or he’d have a mini-mental-breakdown. That chain coffee shop hadn’t been right for him, Fortnum’s was his nirvana. He could create his drinks and even when it got busy and the pressure got heavy, someone else, Jane, Duke or me, took the burden and just let Rosie perform.
But right now, Rosie said no cops.
And I understand why.
So even though I really, really wanted to call Hank, I didn’t.
* * * * *
I could call Lee, Lee isn’t a cop. I had his numbers in my cell, Ally put them there.
Lee would be a good bet. Lee had gone into the Army after high school. Lee had gone on to be Special Operations Force. Lee had done some serious shit while in the armed services that took the good ole boy look right out of his dark brown eyes and put something else, something colder, more serious and far scarier in those eyes. Lee had come out and gotten himself a private investigator’s license and opened an office in LoDo (or Lower Downtown Denver). Lee was supposed to be a PI but no one really knows what Lee does, I’m not even certain anyone has even been to Lee’s offices.
I could call Lee and tell him someone shot at me. That would take care of things pretty quickly. I mean, I hadn’t really had much of a relationship with Lee for ten years but it would be a kind of family responsibility, considering he thought of me as his little sister (huh).
Lee might track them down (whoever they were) and shoot them, though. Torture them first and shoot them. Lee had skills I could not comprehend (at least that’s what I heard Malcolm and Dad muttering about, more than once).
It wasn’t like when I was sixteen and Brian Archer was telling everyone he’d gotten to third base with me (when he’d barely slid into second) and Lee had found Brian and broken his nose.
This would be serious.
Maybe Lee wasn’t a good idea.
* * * * *
This left me with Ally.
Allyson Nightingale is always up for an adventure.
Allyson Nightingale can keep her mouth shut.
And Ally is not a cop.
Chapter Two
I Should Turn You over My Knee
Twenty minutes later, I found myself standing in the living room of Lee’s condo.
I’d been there before, only a few times, but my visits had been brief. Mainly dropping something off or picking something up and always I was with Kitty Sue or Ally.
And always, Lee was there.
Now, Lee was not.
“This is not a good idea,” I said to Ally.
Ally and I were the same height, both at five foot nine. Ally weighed twenty pounds less than me, was a jeans size smaller because she had much less ass and one cup-size smaller because she had much less boobage. She had whisky-brown eyes like Hank and thick, dark brown hair like all the Nightingales, hair that she kept rock ‘n’ roll crazy long, just like me.
Right now she was wearing a denim mini-skirt with a ragged, cut-off hem, a bright yellow tank top with “Sugar” written across the chest in glitter and flip flops.
We’re both thirty years old, with Ally two weeks younger than me. We’d be eighty and wearing denim mini-skirts and I’m-with-the-band t-shirts, I foresaw this for our future and even though I thought it was cool, it also kinda scared me.
Ally was talking. “Lee’s out of town. He’s not due back for ages. Definitely not tonight. And anyway, no one’s crazy enough to break into Lee’s condo.”
I considered her words as I looked at Rosie.
Rosie was having a “talented-artist-in-a-crisis” moment. His eyes were wild and he looked about to bolt.
Rosie wasn’t my favorite person at that particular time. Rosie nearly got me shot but it wasn’t entirely his fault, he didn’t shoot at me and he didn’t mouth off to the bad guys.
I’d always had trouble with my mouth.
Anyway, he was my friend and I had to keep him safe. That’s what friends do. They don’t drink so they can drive you home when you’re drunk. They like your boyfriends when you’re with them and then trash them after you’ve broken up. And they find you a safe house when people are shooting at you.
And Ally was right, only someone with a death wish would break into Lee’s condo. Even I was having heart palpitations at daring to enter Lee’s lair, worried he’d go all commando if he found us there.
Not only that, it was a secure building and Lee lived on the fourteenth floor (with an unobstructed view of the Front Range, by the way).
Ally looked between Rosie and me. “What’s this about?”
“Don’t tell her!” Rosie shouted.
“I’m not gonna tell her!” I shouted back, beginning to lose patience with Rosie. I forgave myself for losing patience. I figured that happened when you got shot at. I’d never been shot at but I was always a quick learner.
Ally lifted her brows at me and I gave her my “later” look.
“I need caffeine,” Rosie whined and walked to Lee’s couch. It was soft, rich leather and faced an enormous LCD TV. Rosie threw himself on it and rubbed his temples with his fingers trying to find his Zen nirvana without a stainless steel pitcher filled with frothing milk in his hand
“You don’t need caffeine, you need Valium,” I said.
“I’ve got Valium,” Ally put in.
Ally could generally find all different kinds of pharmaceuticals either in her personal medicine cabinet or through her network of contacts.
“I don’t want Valium. I want to get the bag back from Duke as soon as possible and go to San Salvador,” Rosie said, grabbing the remote and being a bit dramatic.
“He’s an artist with an artistic temperament,” I explained as I walked Ally to the door.
“He makes coffee,” Ally replied.
I ignored that. Ally didn’t understand the beauty of coffee. She preferred tequila.
“You sure Lee isn’t gonna come back?”
I didn’t want to be caught in Lee’s condo when Lee didn’t know I was here. I hadn’t been somewhat successfully avoiding him for ten years to be found in his condo in the middle of the night harboring a possible felon who had bad people after him. There was a good possibility Lee would frown on that.
“He’s in DC,” Ally replied. “I think you should take his bed.” Her eyes got big and happy when she said this and I sighed and rested my shoulder against the wall.
“Maybe you should call him,” I suggested.
“He doesn’t like to be disturbed when he’s out-of-town on business. Only in emergencies.”
“This might be considered an emergency,” I explained unnecessarily as I’d called her only twenty minutes ago, hyperventilating, and telling her someone had shot at me and Rosie and we needed a safe house. Such things didn’t happen every day, in fact, they never happened, at least not to me.
Ally looked through the open plan kitchen to Rosie, who’d turned on the TV and was watching the Food Network.
“What bag is he talking about?” Ally whispered.
“I’ll explain it later. Just call Lee and warn him that we’re here, just in case.”
Ally swung her eyes back to me. “Was a time when you’d live for that kind of ‘just in case’?”
“I’ve told you, that time’s long gone.”
Ally studied me. She’d heard this for ten years and still didn’t believe it, the silly, stubborn bimbo.
“Right. I’ll call him. Still, I think if he was gonna come home, he’d rather come home to find you in his bed than Rosie.”
“I’ll sleep in the guest room.”
“Girl,” Ally smiled, “Lee doesn’t have a guest room. That second bedroom is locked up tight and no one gets into that room. Hank and I call it the Command Center but no one knows what’s in there.”
I turned to look at the three closed doors that opened off the hall and when I turned back Ally had the front door open.
“Later.” Then she was gone.
I grabbed the door and watched her sashay down the hall.
“Call him!” I shouted.
She gave me the peace sign and got on the elevator.
“She’s not gonna call him,” I said to the empty hallway.
* * * * *
Ally was right.
I did a wee bit of snooping (as you do).Two doors in Lee’s hall opened, one to the bathroom and one to Lee’s bedroom. The other one was locked up tight. I even walked along the wraparound balcony to check if I could see in but the French doors to the second bedroom had curtains and those curtains were firmly closed.
After what seemed like a lifetime of Food Network, I found Rosie a pillow and blanket and crawled, bleary-eyed and still a little scared (not only at the night’s events but at our accommodation) into Lee’s big bed.
I considered sleeping on the floor but I was too tired and anyway, Lee was busy these days and never in Denver unless it was someone’s birthday, a holiday or a weekend the Broncos were playing at home. I’d heard Kitty Sue lamenting that fact so often, if I had a dime for every time she said it, I’d be rich.
I’d taken off my jeans, boots, socks, and bra and found a wife beater t-shirt of Lee’s, luckily in the first drawer I opened. I didn’t want to be rifling through Lee’s drawers, he might not like it.
I had to borrow Lee’s tee because I was wearing my Guns ‘n’ Roses shirt that had rhinestones stitched in and they would snag at the sheets, not to mention it was one of my favorites and I didn’t want it to get misshapen while I slept.
I was not a light sleeper, I slept deep and I moved around a lot, as in a lot. I moved around so much that most of my boyfriends eventually opted for the couch (usually right before they opted for the door). I tried to sleep in attire that would not get me into trouble during my nocturnal twisting and turning, which usually meant I slept in underpants and nothing else. However, the thought of sleeping in Lee’s bed nearly naked was simply not to be entertained.
I tried not to think of crawling into Lee’s bed at all. It was just a bed. So it was Liam Nightingale’s bed. So it kinda smelled like him, like leather and tobacco and spice. So what?
The smell and the bed made me feel a little bit like I felt when I touched Joe Perry’s chest and I had this niggling inclination to do a little naughty activity but, thankfully, I fell asleep before I could do anything about it.
The next thing I knew, something was wrapped around my ankle and dragging me down the length of the bed, just like the heroine in a horror movie
When my knees slammed into the footboard, I whipped around to my back and gave a small yelp. I saw a big shadow looming over me in the dark and I opened my mouth to scream, knowing that whoever had shot at us had found us and this was the end.
My life was over, finished, and I’d never seen Pearl Jam play live.
Before I could scream, the hand left my ankle, two hands grabbed at my hips and yanked me out of bed in a way that my back arched painfully. My head snapped back and I swallowed my scream on a surprised gulp.
I was set down on my feet, both of my wrists were seized and pulled behind my back, making me give a whimper of pain and I was slammed against a hard body.
“Talk,” a deep voice demanded and I could smell tobacco, leather and spice.
It was Lee.
Shit, shit, shit.
Either I had really bad luck or Ally set me up.
Maybe Ally and Rosie set me up. Ally was really into the sister-in-law shit and maybe she was getting impatient enough to hire someone to shoot at me.
“Two seconds,” Lee warned.
“Lee, it’s me. Indy.”
The hands on my wrists loosened but didn’t let go.
“What the fuck?”
I took in a deep breath which pressed my breasts further into his chest.
This was the closest I’d ever been to him, we were full-frontal. Even in the days when I was throwing myself at him, I hadn’t made it this close.
I explained (hastily), “I’m in a bit of a bind and needed someplace safe to stay for a night. Ally let me in.”
Lee took a moment to let this sink in.
“Who’s the guy on the couch?”
“Rosie, my barista.”
“Your what?”
“He makes the coffee at my bookstore.”
“Shit.”
He hadn’t let me go until that point, but he released me, turned on his heel and walked out of the room.
Something about the way he did it made me follow him.
When I made it to the living room, Lee snapped on a light and Rosie was lying face down in the middle of the floor. His hands and feet were taped together behind his back with duct tape and there was tape on his mouth.
“Lee! Jesus! What’d you do to him?” I asked, running forward and going down on my knees by Rosie. Rosie eyes were rabid and shifting everywhere as he struggled against the tape.
I couldn’t believe it, I hadn’t heard a thing.
Man, Lee was good.
Lee already had his pocket knife out and was cutting through the tape.
“I came home and he was on my couch, you were in my bed. What’d you think I’d do?” Lee answered as he ripped the tape off Rosie’s mouth.
“Yeow!” Rosie cried.
I sat back, resting my behind on my calves and stared at Lee.
This was exactly what I thought he’d do.
“Ally didn’t call you.”
“No, Ally didn’t call me.”
“I’m gonna kill her.”
“Jesus, fuck, shit,” Rosie said.
Lee had gone down to a crouch when he’d released Rosie and now he stood, arms crossed on his chest.
“You okay?” I asked Rosie and Rosie gave me an “are you nuts, that lunatic just tied me up with duct tape” look.
You would think you couldn’t read all that in a look, but trust me, you could.
“What’s goin’ on?” Lee said, surveying us.
It was then I realized I was in a pair of peach, lace, hipster briefs that showed a good deal of cheek and Lee’s wife beater. Not exactly the attire I wanted to be wearing during this conversation.
Not exactly the attire I wanted to be wearing ever in the presence of Lee.
“I’ll go get dressed,” I said, standing.
Lee shook his head.
“You’ll talk.”
“I need to put on some clothes!”
“What you need to do is tell me what the fuck’s goin’ on,” Lee countered and, let’s just say, his tone brooked no argument and his face registered pretty severe unhappiness.
Regardless, I glared at him, just for good measure.
“Jesus, shit, fuck,” Rosie said, tearing the remnants of tape from his wrists.
I took another deep breath and let go of the glare. It was time to expedite this situation so I could get to my Levi’s. Generally, I felt naked without my jeans but at that moment I practically was naked without my jeans.
“Okay, we have a situation here. Rosie and I need somewhere to crash for the night and we’ll be gone tomorrow.”
“Why?” Lee asked.
“Don??
?t tell him!” Rosie cried, looking panicked.
“You talk or you walk,” Lee said.
I looked at Lee then I looked at Rosie.
I’d known Rosie for five years, he’d come to parties at my house. We’d gone to concerts together. He was a cool guy, a bit flighty and secretive and not as mellow as one would expect, considering he was a screaming stoner.
I had no idea he had a business on the side. I knew he made great coffee, I knew he thought Jim Morrison was an earthbound god and I knew he was a stoner.
I looked back at Lee.
“You have to promise to keep quiet.”
“No!” Rosie shouted, getting to his feet.
“I don’t have to promise anything,” Lee replied.
I did another glance at both of them.
Lee was being difficult, he was entitled we were in his domain without his permission.
Rosie was also being difficult, but Rosie was always difficult.
All I could think was I really needed my jeans.
“You can trust him,” I told Rosie.
Rosie was staring at Lee. Rosie was definitely far beyond mellow at this point. Rosie had been shot at tonight and then trussed up like a Christmas goose and I’d slept through it
However, Rosie had a lot to worry about. Rosie needed to start making good decisions about who to trust.
Rosie made a decision, a decision I hoped would take me closer to my Levi’s.
“He has to promise not to say anything to anyone. This’ll all be over tomorrow,” Rosie announced.
Lee hadn’t uncrossed his arms. Lee still wasn’t happy. This wasn’t hard to read, everything about him screamed it.
“Can I talk to you a minute?” I asked and then did a wave with my arm and Lee followed me to the entry hall.
First things first. Since the situation was still not stable and taking the time to dress, thus leaving Lee and Rosie alone, did not seem a smart option, I tried a different tactic in the hopes of covering my ass cheeks.
“Do you have a robe I could borrow?”
“No.”
“Does that mean you don’t have a robe I could borrow or I can’t borrow your robe?”
Lee stared at me some more.
Then he said, “Indy, start talking.”
His patience, it seemed, was running out. I’d have to leave my ass cheeks bared. I told myself this was Lee, he’d seen me in bikinis in his backyard (and mine, and on a family holiday to Mexico, and the one to San Diego). I was far more dressed than a bikini.