Rock Chick Renegade

  Though, considering he had his tongue in my mouth and his hands on my ass (and elsewhere), being prudish about the nightie seemed a bit silly.

  “Jules,” Vance called after I’d put the food down.

  I headed out of the room, right passed him.

  “I’m going to King’s,” I informed him, walked down the hall and went to the closet in my living room. I pulled out a pair of jeans and yanked them on under my nightie.

  I had them zipped and buttoned when a hand curled around my upper arm and I was shifted and pressed into the wall. Then Vance got into my space, seriously into my space, head bent close to mine.

  “We were in the middle of something,” he told me, like I didn’t already know that and wasn’t trying my utmost to forget it.

  “Yeah. I know. Sorry about that,” I said airily, like it was all the same to me (even though it was not) and his eyes flashed dangerously at my tone.

  Um.

  Yikes.

  I decided to explain. “It’s probably for the best. We don’t want things to get complicated.”

  He came closer. “We don’t want things to get complicated?” he repeated what I said.

  “Um… yeah,” I replied.

  “You think things aren’t already complicated?”

  He had a point.

  I remained silent.

  He got even closer, his hands slid around my hips and at the very top of my behind he pressed my body into his. His head tilted so it was a hairbreadth from mine. I put my hands between us but this didn’t serve any purpose, at all, because Vance didn’t let it.

  “I know about Cordova. I know he wants to get in your pants,” he told me.

  My eyes narrowed at him. “If you knew, why did you ask?”

  He ignored my question and said something that threw me right off balance. “Jules, listen to me. Since I intend to get in your pants, he’s gonna have to back off,” Vance announced, rocking my world. Then before I could process his words, he finished. “I’ll take care of Cordova.”

  Oh crap.

  “Vance,” I whispered, not sure what I intended to say but I intended to say something.

  For some reason, this made him smile. It was a new smile to me, it made his eyes soft and sexy and I felt my breath catch so I didn’t say another word.

  “I like that,” he said quietly, his voice back to silk.

  “What?” I whispered.

  “You sayin’ my name,” he told me. “I’ll like it better when you moan it, tonight, when I’m inside you.”

  My stomach plummeted. You would think this was a terrible sensation but instead it was thrilling, like being on a roller coaster.

  “Oh my God,” I breathed.

  “Tonight, at dinner, we’re gonna talk about what you’re doin’. After dinner, we’re gonna finish what we started this morning.”

  “Vance,” I said, at that moment, wanting to have dinner with him like I wanted oxygen to remain present on the earth. And wanting to finish what we started like I’d wanted nothing else before in my life.

  However, I knew this wasn’t smart and it was not going to happen.

  He kept talking. “I’ll pick you up here, six thirty. You’re not here, I’ll find you.”

  “Vance, listen to me,” I said.

  “You feel like talkin’ now?” he asked, his head cocked and his eyes flashed again.

  At his scary, threatening look, I forgot what I was going to say.

  His mouth came to mine. “Six thirty, Jules. Be here.”

  Then he kissed me, hard and deep.

  After he kissed me, he let me go, walked away, grabbed his boots from the floor and walked down the hall.

  I moved to look down the hall but he’d vanished.

  I heard the backdoor open and shut and I knew he was gone.

  Chapter Four

  I Wanna Be You

  I swung into King’s and knew immediately something was up.

  King’s Shelter was a huge, ugly building off Evans close to I-25. It consisted of a big rec room with a pool table, television and bunches of couches and chairs; an enormous kitchen and dining area; six large bedrooms; a conference room where we did our family reunions; an open plan office; and three smaller rooms where we did counseling and tutoring.

  There was a manager who ran the place and raised the money to keep it going, two full-time social workers, myself included, and one half-time tutor. We had two half-time professionals volunteering, one a social worker, one a tutor. Lastly, we had five volunteers who came and went as they pleased, three men and two women. They cooked, cleaned, spent time with the kids and stayed the night to let kids in or out and to keep an eye on things.

  The place was packed when I walked in and everyone’s eyes swiveled to me and most everyone stared. Not good. King’s usually had a number of kids hanging around but this, in my experience, was an all-time record.

  May saw me the minute I walked in and she approached me.

  May was one of our daytime volunteers and did most of the cooking. She was well into her fifties. She was short, black, round, straightened her hair and then arranged it so she looked like a heavy-set, African American Jackie Kennedy circa the White House years.

  “Hey hon,” she said when she made it to me.

  “Hey May. Any sign of Sniff and Roam?” I asked.

  “No, girl, but we gotta talk.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that.

  Before she could lead me away, Josefa, a thirteen year old Mexican-American girl who’d been on the streets for six months before I got her to King’s, approached us. She’d been reunited with her family a couple of weeks ago and they were in counseling. She wasn’t my kid, in other words, I wasn’t working her case, but I knew her all the same. I knew all the kids.

  “Is it true?” she asked, a gaggle of her girlfriends were standing close and staring at me in awe, much like I stared at Crowe last night (and, possibly, this morning).

  My heart stuttered, thinking she knew something about Sniff and Roam, and I asked her, “Is what true? And by the way, hello and how are you today?” I not-so-subtly reminded her of the pleasantries of conversation.

  She ignored my reminder and said, “That you’ve partnered with Crowe. Is it true, you and Crowe are patrollin’ the street and takin’ down the dealers of Denver? A vendetta for Park?”

  Oh crap.

  “Mm hmm. This is what we gotta talk about,” May told me.

  I looked from May, to Josefa, to her posse. “No. It’s not true,” I replied, and it wasn’t, exactly.

  “But I heard you and him took down Shard last night,” Josefa said, looking disappointed.

  I closed my eyes. Sniff and his big mouth.

  Then I opened my eyes. “Josefa, I have not partnered with anyone. Don’t believe everything you hear.”

  It wasn’t exactly a lie. I hadn’t partnered with anyone and it wasn’t me who took down Shard, it was Vance. I wasn’t going to share this with Josefa however.

  “But I heard –” Josefa went on.

  “Josefa, girl, enough. Leave Law alone. Go on. Scoot,” May cut in.

  Josefa stared at me, so did her posse then they shuffled away.

  May caught my arm, dragged me to a quiet corner and turned to me. “Well? Is it true?” she asked, her eyes lit with a fire I’d never seen before.

  “May –”

  “Don’t think we don’t know what you’ve been doin’. These kids talk, they been whisperin’ about you for weeks. I’ve been keepin’ myself to myself, not likin’ you out there alone, but not disagreein’ with you either. Park was a good kid. We all loved him. You partner with the likes of Crowe, well, I’m thinkin’ that’s a bit of all right.”

  “May, I haven’t partnered with Crowe. Something happened yesterday and… erm… last night,” and that morning but I didn’t go into that, “I met him, we’ve talked, he helped me with a situation and that’s it. We aren’t partners.”

  “He as cute as they say?” May as
ked, eyes still dancing with excitement.

  Crowe? Cute?

  I couldn’t help myself; I threw back my head and laughed.

  “What’s funny?” May talked over my laughter.

  “Vance Crowe is not cute,” I said when I got myself under control.

  May’s nose scrunched. “That’s damned disappointing. I heard he was a little hottie.”

  “Oh, he’s hot all right, but he isn’t cute. You don’t describe a man like that as cute,” I told May.

  May’s eyes lit again. “How do you describe him then?”

  I thought about this and couldn’t come up with anything. He was simply indescribable. You had to see him, and if you were lucky (which, surprisingly, I was) feel him.

  “Just… not cute,” I said.

  May must have caught something on my face because she smiled wide. “Bet he wouldn’t describe you as cute either,” she told me.

  Whatever.

  Time to move on.

  “You hear anything about Roam and Sniff?”

  “Not word one. They’re out on the street, of course, probably spreading this Crowe and Law Death to All Denver Dealers Crusade story far and wide. I was you; I’d get those boys in here. Pronto.”

  I nodded because she was so right. Then I went into the office to get what I had to get done, done, so I could go and look for my boys.

  I checked my email, my voicemail, did a few return calls and took the two morning appointments I’d made with a couple of my kids. I had a free afternoon, which I was going to use to do some paperwork, make some calls and sit out in the rec room and talk to the kids but I grabbed my purse and headed out to Hazel.

  Hazel and I cruised the streets of Denver checking out Sniff and Roam’s places, then checking out places where all the kids hung out, the whole time keeping my eyes peeled for Crowe or Cordova.

  I came up with zilch. No one had seen them (this meant no one was talking).

  I got myself some chicken tenders, an M&M cookie and a diet cola from Safeway and sat in the car eating and thinking of where Roam and Sniff would go.

  Then it hit me.

  Shit.

  I put my head to the steering wheel and said to Hazel, “Please tell me no.”

  Last night, Roam had looked at Crowe like he’d stepped right up to the Messiah. There was the vague possibility that Roam would try to tail Crowe, especially if he was shit-hot to “help” me in my crusade and looking for a mentor. This meant Roam would look in three places.

  One was the Nightingale Investigations office. I didn’t know where this was but I figured a phonebook or the Internet would tell me (and Roam).

  However, I doubted Roam would approach the offices. Watch them, maybe, approach them, no.

  There were two other Nightingale Boys hang outs that I knew of.

  One was Lincoln’s Road House, a biker bar.

  The other was Fortnum’s Bookstore.

  I threw my chicken tenders bag on the passenger side floor, sucked down some diet soda, ignored my cookie (for now) and headed to Fortnum’s.

  * * * * *

  Fortnum’s was in my ‘hood.

  I’d been there a few times to buy books. It was only four or so blocks from my house. It had been there forever and had that feel about it. In fact, I was pretty certain some of the books had been there since it opened.

  It was huge, smelled musty and had three big rooms. The front room had an espresso counter against the side wall facing Bayaud, a book counter facing Broadway and a door that opened from the corner. There was a couch, its back at the store length Broadway window, another couch facing it and a coffee table in between. There were bunches of tables and chairs and a few comfortable armchairs. Behind the book counter there were rows and rows of shelves, then another, smaller room full of more shelves and a table topped with open milk cartons stuffed full of old, vinyl records, then a huge back room filled with more shelves and books.

  It was popular and getting more popular by the day. They had a coffee guy the last time I went there who made unbelievable lattes. Rumor had it he got into trouble, dragging the bookstore’s owner, India Savage, with him. Luckily for Indy, her boyfriend was Lee Nightingale (thus explaining why the kickass Nightingale Boys chose to hang out at a bookstore), so her problems were sorted pretty damn quick.

  The coffee guy took off and I heard they had a new coffee guy and he was supposed to be a maestro of espresso, the best of the best.

  I parked the Camaro on Broadway and headed in. The bell over the door went and everyone looked at me. When they saw me, most everyone stared for a second, then most of them smiled.

  Except one.

  “Oh shit,” a super-deep, gravelly voice said. The voice came from a man behind the book counter and he was the one not smiling. He had long, gray hair pulled back in a braid, a red, rolled bandana wrapped around his forehead and a thick gray beard. He had on a black, Harley Davidson, long-sleeved t-shirt over which he wore a black leather vest.

  Standing beside him was a gorgeous redhead who I knew was Indy Savage, the owner of the store and Lee Nightingale’s woman.

  Sitting on the counter was a beautiful blonde woman wearing a killer outfit and next to her was a woman who looked exactly like Dolly Parton, wearing a velour, powder-blue tracksuit, the top unzipped and showing so much cleavage she’d be arrested in some places.

  Behind the espresso counter was an enormous man with lots of wild blond hair and a russet beard and beside him was a pretty blonde.

  Looking at the women I decided there was another, more obvious reason the Nightingale Boys hung out at Fortnum’s.

  Even though it was well in the afternoon, way past coffee time, there were three customers waiting to give their order, two waiting for pick up and a scattering of customers in the seating area.

  “Fuckin’ A, turkey!” the big man behind the espresso counter boomed looking extremely pleased and, for some reason, he pointed at the Harley man.

  I ignored their bizarre behavior and did another scan of the room.

  That’s when I saw, in the corner next to the espresso counter, Roam and Sniff sitting at a table trying to look inconspicuous even though they were of the age where they should be at school and they were wearing homey clothes.

  I stalked up to them. “Let’s go,” I ordered.

  “Law,” Roam replied, just that but it was enough.

  “Up! Now!” I snapped.

  “Law, no one’s even come in yet,” Sniff told me.

  I turned to Sniff, not knowing what he was on about and not caring. “I’ve been worried sick and driving all over Denver looking for you two. We need to have a talk. We’re going back to King’s. Get up. Let’s go,” I repeated.

  They looked at each other and didn’t move.

  I put my hands on my hips. “Boys.” My tone held a warning.

  “Law. We been waitin’ forever,” Sniff said.

  Roam was silent.

  “For what?” I asked.

  “One of the boys to come in. Any of ‘em,” Sniff told me.

  Roam sat back in his chair and threw Sniff a “shut up” look.

  I leaned in. “I cannot believe this,” I snapped and shook my head because I really couldn’t. “Which one of you started the rumor about last night?” I asked.

  Sniff went silent and I got my answer.

  “So, you’re sitting around waiting for one of the Nightingale Boys to show up, is that it?” I went on.

  “Wanna talk to Crowe,” Roam finally spoke.

  I opened my mouth to reply, or maybe yell (okay, probably yell) but I was interrupted.

  “Hey woman,” the big guy behind the espresso counter boomed at me and I looked at him, “you wanna latte? I’ll make you my special. On the house.”

  His generosity was a surprise and I looked around the room again.

  Most of the customers from around the espresso counter had cleared; the rest of the folks who looked like regulars were all watching me openly and grinning like lunatic
s. I didn’t want to upset the lunatic asylum and didn’t know how it’d look if I waltzed in, yelled at a couple of runaways and didn’t buy a coffee.

  So I said to the big man, “Sure.”

  “I’m Tex,” he informed me, even though I didn’t ask, and he started banging on the espresso machine in an alarming way.

  “I’m Jules,” I replied because I didn’t want to appear rude.

  “She’s called Law,” Sniff declared loudly.

  Oh crap.

  “Law?” The blonde behind the espresso counter walked to our side and looked at us, smiling. Her smile was amazing and, for a second, I was dazzled.

  “Yeah. She’s Law. Street name. Got it ‘cause she’s The Law. Gonna bring down all the dealers. She goes out huntin’ ‘em down at night, just like Batman,” Sniff announced.

  “Enough, Sniff,” I said, my voice low.

  The blonde’s eyes turned to me. They’d grown round.

  In fact, the whole place had gone silent and there was a tremor in the air that was almost physical.

  Then the big man pointed at me and boomed, “Fuckin’ A, darlin’!” Then he threw his head back and shouted, “Yee ha!”

  Yikes.

  Indy, the blonde and the Dolly Parton lady had approached us.

  “Seriously?” the blonde from the book counter asked, staring at me.

  I glared at Sniff.

  “I’m Indy.” The redhead came up to me and shook my hand, saving me from having to answer.

  “Jet,” the blonde behind the espresso counter said and waved.

  “I’m Roxie,” the blonde from the book counter put in, she shook my hand too.

  “Daisy. Sugar, I like your boots,” the Dolly Parton woman offered, also shaking my hand but she was looking down at my shiny, black cowboy boots. They were a Christmas present from Nick the year before.

  “Me too,” Indy said, “they’re the shit.”

  “Um… thanks,” I replied as the bell over the door went.

  “Holy fuck,” Roam breathed from behind me.

  I twisted to look at him but he was staring, eyes wide, at the door. Slowly I turned around to the door, feelings of dread seeping through me.

  Three men had walked in and at the sight of them my breath left me in a whoosh.