* * * * *
Two days later…
“Yo, Ty!” Wood called him, he looked from the belly of the car he was working on and across the garage to Wood who was turned, looking out a bay.
Walker’s eyes moved that way and then he moved out from under the car when he saw Tate stalking his way.
Fuck.
Tate stopped five feet away.
“Lexie needs a couple of hours to get the rest of her shit outta your house. For reasons I’m guessin’ you get, she does not want to ask you herself and she does not want you there,” he stated.
“Tell her to name the time and I’m gone,” Walker replied instantly.
Tate stared at him like Julius stared at him for an entire day any time he saw him until he’d connected with his man and went back to California – like he thought Walker was one serious dumb fuck.
Then Tate jerked up his chin and started to go.
“Jackson,” Walker called and Tate stopped. “Tell her the safe will be open. She’ll know why. And tell her she’s plain stupid she doesn’t take what’s hers.”
“Great, I’ll continue this junior high bullshit and tell her that, Ty. You got anything else I should whisper to her at recess?” Tate asked, pissed as all hell, not at his errand, not doing this for Lexie but because he was pissed at Walker. And he was not hiding it.
“Nope,” Walker answered.
“Terrific,” Tate muttered, turned and stalked away.
Walker moved back under the car.
* * * * *
Three days later…
Walker worked out hard and he worked out long then he returned home late, giving Lexie plenty of time to do her thing.
He parked the Cruiser by the Snake in the garage. Then he took the stairs, braced for what he would find.
But when he got to the top of the stairs, it was all there. The pitchers, the snow globe, the frames, the crock with the spoons in, the fruit bowl, the KitchenAid, the toss pillows.
Fuck, she didn’t show.
Fuck!
He needed her shit out.
Now he had to call a still seriously pissed off Tate.
Or stop acting like a fucking idiot and continue perpetrating exactly the junior high school bullshit Tate called it and phone his soon-to-be ex-wife.
He dropped his workout bag by the stairs, reminding himself to sort it. There was no Lexie to take it away and deal with it. Not anymore.
He headed upstairs and hit their room then something made him stop dead.
His head turned and he saw the frame that held the picture of them at The Rooster was gone. He felt his chest compress and his gut tighten as he walked to the closet.
Her clothes were gone.
He retraced his steps down the stairs and went right, to the guest bedroom.
Cleaned out.
He moved to the office.
Her computer gone. The frames gone. Her print gone.
He moved to the other bedroom.
Void of everything.
He walked back up the stairs and to the closet, looking down; he saw the safe was closed. He moved to it, crouched in front of it and opened it.
Money and jewelry still there.
“Fuck,” he whispered to the safe. Then he slammed the door shut using all his strength, it flew back open, hit the back of its hinges and swung shut again.
He surged to his feet and barked, “Fuck!”
He prowled back downstairs to his workout bag, bent to it, dug through it and found his phone. He straightened as his thumb moved on the keys, taking him to her number.
He clenched his teeth as it rang.
He got voicemail. No surprise.
“This is Lexie. Busy right now, leave a message.”
He clenched his teeth harder at the sound of her voice.
Then he heard the beep. “Don’t be stupid. Come back, get your cash and diamonds. You need me gone, I’ll be gone. Just get them.”
Then he flipped his phone shut.
Then he stood by his bag and stared at the snow globe in the kitchen windowsill and his eyes lifted.
The petal heart was still there.
Except that picture of them at The Rooster, she left everything that was them.
Everything.
He turned his head away.
Then he sucked in breath through his nose and walked into the kitchen to blend a shake.
* * * * *
Five days later…
His cell ringing woke him up.
He rolled, tagged it off the nightstand, looked at the display and it said, “Unknown caller”.
Considering his business and the ball Julius got rolling, it could be anyone.
His eyes slid to his alarm clock.
Anyone, even at one thirty in the fucking morning.
He sat up, flipped his phone open, put it to his ear and growled, “What?”
“She’s with Shift right now,” he heard a woman say and he knew that woman.
It was Bessie.
But he couldn’t think of Bessie because he’d stopped breathing.
Bessie kept talking.
“Motherfucker finds out shit, found out she was home, was all over her. And now, way she is, no job, no money, no schoolin’, no fight left in her, no nothin’, that asshole is gonna be all over her. But you knew that, didn’t you? You just didn’t fuckin’ care.”
She didn’t wait for him to respond. She got finished saying what she had to say and gave him dead air.
But Walker was still fighting for breath.
When he got enough in, he shifted to sitting on the side of the bed and stared at his display in the dark as his thumb moved over the keypad, finding Lexie’s number.
He hit go and put it to his ear.
Two rings then, “We’re sorry. This number is no longer in service…”
“Fuck!” Walker snarled as he shot out of bed.
He flipped the phone closed then back open as he turned on the light and then prowled to the closet. He found the number he needed and put the phone to his ear as he turned on the closet light and headed to his bag.
Three rings then Tate saying, “Ty, this better be good.”
“I need you to fire up your computer right now. I need addresses for Ella Rodriguez, Bessie Rodriguez and Duane Martinez.”
Silence then, “What?”
He tagged his bag and started back to the bedroom. “Bess called. Shift’s got Lexie.”
“Shift?”
“Martinez.”
He dropped his bag on the bed and moved to the dresser.
“Fuck,” Tate whispered.
“Tate, don’t got a lot of time.”
“Ty, you are not allowed to leave the state.”
“That’s why I don’t got a lot of time. I need you to give me those addresses so I can get there, get shit done and get home without anyone knowin’.”
“Ty, you fuck up –”
Walker stopped dead and barked into the phone, “Quit wastin’ my fuckin’ time! You gonna get me those addresses or you gonna fuck me?”
“Let me go after her.”
“No.”
“Ty, I’ll get the addresses, leave tonight.”
“No.”
“Why no?”
“She isn’t your wife, Tate, she’s mine.”
Silence.
“You’re wastin’ my time,” Walker warned.
“You bringin’ her back?” Jackson sounded disbelieving.
“Yeah,” Walker replied instantly.
“Brother –” Tate started.
“Did you not fuckin’ hear me? Martinez has got her.” Walker’s voice was low and tight with anger and impatience.
“I get you. I get what you’re feelin’ but you gotta listen to me a second, Ty. You did not see her. She stayed with Dominic but I saw her, Laurie saw her. The state you left her in, you cannot waltz into Dallas and bring that woman home.”
That thing pierced his chest again but the feeling was different
. Savage. Brutal. Inflicting damage.
He powered through it.
“I’ll deal when I get there.”
“Let me go and talk to her. I’ll leave Jonas with Pop, take Laurie with me.”
“This isn’t junior high, Tate.”
“You do not know what you’re dealin’ with, Ty.”
“This is wastin’ my fuckin’ time,” he said low.
Silence then, “I’ll get the addresses, I’ll come over and I’ll go with you.”
“Suit yourself. But be here soon. You got half an hour. You aren’t here, brother, I’ll head to Dallas and find her myself.”
“Fuck, Ty, it takes twenty minutes just to drive to your place.”
“Then you better drive fast.”
Then Ty flipped his phone shut, tossed it on the bed and turned back to the dresser.
Tate Jackson drove fast.
* * * * *
Seventeen hours later…
“Do you get me?” Walker asked and Shift, prone on the floor in front of him spit out a mouthful of blood.
“Yeah,” he grunted.
“Just to be sure,” Walker went on. “You lose her number, you lose her fuckin’ memory, you don’t, your next visit will be from Julius Champion. Now, let’s confirm. Do you get me?”
“Yeah!” Shift snapped, sliding angry eyes up high to Walker.
“Good,” Walker muttered, his eyes moved to Tate who was staring with distaste at the floor.
Tate felt his gaze; he looked to Walker, tipped up his chin and followed Walker out, both of them stepping over one of the two prone enforcers that Walker laid out before he turned to Shift.
* * * * *
An hour later…
The door to the tidy but tiny house opened the minute Walker and Jackson hit the end of the front walk. The screen door opened after it. The house door closed instantly and the screen door banged behind Ella Rodriguez who stood on her front stoop, arms crossed on her chest, eyes glaring down at the advancing men.
“You are not here,” she announced when they were four feet away.
Walker kept moving and stopped at the bottom of the two steps of her stoop.
“She’s in there, Ella, I advise you let me by,” Walker said quietly.
“She’s gone.”
“She was with Shift not twenty-four hours ago,” Walker returned.
“She was, Bessie got her; they’re gone.”
“Where?”
Her eyebrows shot to her hairline and her voice pitched four octaves higher when she asked, “Boy, you think I’m gonna tell you that?”
“I need to talk to her.”
“Yeah,” she nodded her head once. “I see that. But what you really needed to do was take her Momma’s advice those weeks ago when she laid it all out for you.”
“Ella –”
Her eyes narrowed, her face twisted, she leaned forward and the shutters flew up on her eyes, exposing her pain.
“Told you,” she said quietly, her voice trembling, “you had her in your hands and I told you, you weren’t careful, you’d destroy her. I’m not wrong often and again, I… was… not… wrong.”
There it was again. That thing piercing his chest. More pain. More damage.
Ty Walker stood at the bottom of a stoop of a tiny, tidy house in a not great, not bad area of Dallas and engaged in a stare down with a protective, loyal, loving black woman, a stare down he had no hope in fuck of winning.
“Ty, let’s go,” Jackson said quietly from his side.
“You do her no favors, keepin’ me from her,” Walker said softly.
“Way I see it, ain’t no single body on this earth ever did Alexa Berry no favors,” Ella returned.
“Walker,” Walker corrected and Ella’s back shot straight.
“Not anymore,” she aimed and fired her kill shot, it penetrated its target, leaving devastation in its wake then she turned and slammed into her house without looking back.
Walker turned on his boot and prowled down the walk to Tate’s SUV. Tate bleeped the locks before he made it and he didn’t hesitate to swing in.
Tate swung behind the wheel. Then he turned to Walker.
“What now?” he asked.
“We find a place to sleep, we sleep, we go home,” Walker answered the windshield.
“Home?” The word was low, angry and unbelieving and, slowly, Walker turned his eyes to his friend.
“Home. Where your computer is. Where your database is. Where you start to do what you do. They’ll leave a trail or they’ll surface, you’ll find them, you’ll tell me where the fuck they are and then I’ll fucking go get my fucking wife.”
Tate stared at him a second.
Then he grinned.
Then he turned to face forward, switched the ignition and guided the SUV to the nearest hotel.
* * * * *
Lexie
Two weeks later…
Panama City Beach, Florida
I liked this time of night at the beach. Dinnertime. When most everyone was eating, a breeze came off the Gulf, the air was still warm but cool and the beach was nearly deserted.
There were a couple of kids playing Frisbee some ways a way. A man running with his yellow lab at the water’s edge, this taking awhile because the dog kept bouncing into the waves and he’d have to turn around, jog backward, call, the dog would ignore him, he’d run forward, the dog would leap out of the water in great bounds then the guy would turn back around and run some more only for the dog to bounce right back into the surf. A bit down the beach there were combers walking with heads bowed, toeing things in the sand, bending sometimes to pick them up, getting close to the water’s edge to wait for a wave to clean the sand off what they found so they could get a better look.
But that was it. Mostly just me sitting on my ass, the sand and the waves, all I could see, all I could hear.
It didn’t make me feel at peace but, these days, it was the best I got.
I sighed and dropped my chin to my jeans clad knees that were bent to my chest, my arms around them and I watched the waves.
I could do this for hours and I did.
I heard the footsteps in the sand behind me but didn’t turn. Someone coming from our motel. Definitely a motel. The Beacon. I suspected it was built during the late fifties, early sixties and since then they’d changed not one thing. Not even the curtains or the bedspreads.
It was clean, it was seriously freaking cheap, they gave you a discount if you bought a week in advance and it was right on the beach. But those were all it had going for it.
It was certainly nowhere near what Ty gave me in Vegas.
Not even close.
But it was on the beach so people stayed there. Like Bessie and me.
And whoever was making their way to the water.
I put the footsteps out of my mind and stared at the sea.
Then it hit me the footsteps stopped.
Then I felt him behind me.
Then I tensed as I felt him move.
Then I closed my eyes tight when all that was him, and damn, there was a lot of him, surrounded me.
He sat behind me, right at my back, his long legs on either side, knees bent, insides pressed to the outsides of mine. His long arms circling me. His massive front pressing into my back. His jaw pressing into the side of my hair.
And there he whispered, “Mama.”
That one word tore through me like a blade.
I opened my eyes and saw sea.
“How did you find me?” I asked the waves and the minute I started speaking, his arms convulsed.
“Tate,” he answered.
Right. Of course. His bounty hunter friend.
Scratch Tate off my Christmas list.
“We gotta talk,” he said gently.
“Nothing to talk about,” I replied.
“You know there is, baby.” He was still talking gently. It was nice. I’d heard him be gentle. I’d heard him be soft. I’d heard him be sweet. I’d heard hi
m be quiet. But none of them were as gentle, soft, sweet and quiet as the way he was now.
But it didn’t matter.
Nothing mattered anymore. When shit mattered, it could hurt you.
So nothing mattered anymore and I was determined to keep it that way.
“No, there isn’t,” I told him.
His arms gave me another squeeze, “Lexie –”
I cut him off. “Unless you brought the divorce papers. You said you’d deal and all I had to do is sign. Is that why you’re here?”
His arms tightened on the words “divorce papers” but they didn’t loosen even after I was done speaking.
And his answer was instantaneous.
“No it fuckin’ is not.”
“Then you wasted a trip.”
“Lexie, baby, listen to me.”
“Think you said enough.”
His tight arms gave me a gentle shake. “I was pissed –”
“Yeah, I got that.”
“Babe,” another gentle shake, “listen to me.”
I fell silent. The sooner he did what he had to do the better. Then he would be gone and it would just be me and the sea.
He waited a second then he went on, “You know why I was pissed.”
I didn’t reply.
“Five years of my life, Lexie.”
I still didn’t reply.
“I lost it. Pissed and powerless, the Carnal PD wanted to play with my woman, I had no play of my own. Been powerless a long time too, Lex, man like me, any man, fuck, baby, any woman loses their power, it does not fuckin’ feel good. And there I was, they were fuckin’ with you, I could hear your fear on the goddamned phone and I had not one, single, fuckin’ play. I went to Tate to calm my ass down so I didn’t do somethin’ stupid and really lose you and he decides to lay it out for me, what he’s been doin’, how you instigated that shit. I lost my mind. It wasn’t smart, it wasn’t right, too much comin’ at me at once, I acted out, fucked up and hurt you again. But all that, you gotta know from all you do know, was understandable.”
“You’re right,” I told him.
A hesitation filled with surprise then, “Come again?”
“You’re right. I figured that all out right away and you’re right. It’s understandable.”
Ty was silent.
I decided I was done.
“The thing you don’t understand is, I’m used up, Ty. I am so done. And that, well, that used up the last I had.”
His arms tightened again and his legs pressed in, pulling me deeper into him all around.