Rock Chick Reckoning Read online

  Falling for You Wasn’t Either

  Stella

  I’d fucked up.

  Big time.

  In my bid to save humanity from whoever this Sid guy was, I put all the Rock Chicks on the line.

  I didn’t think.

  I just acted.

  That was happening to me a lot lately and I was going to have to find a way to stop doing it or I’d get laid again (which, I had to admit (only deep down inside), wouldn’t suck) or killed (which would totally suck).

  The Rock Chicks didn’t mind. All day they’d been promising me they agreed with me, more than agreed with me, even went so far as telling me I’d saved the day. Their men didn’t give up, it was one of the reasons they were with them (literally, they’d all been kind of hard to win over).

  I forced myself to believe them and we’d had a good day. The boys took off to take care of business and the women gossiped, drank coffee, helped Daisy clean out her closets (yes, plural) and played Guitar Hero.

  But I was worried. Not that something would happen to me but that something would happen to one of them and it would be all my fault.

  Now, it was late evening and Mace was taking me home in one of the Nightingale Explorers.

  I wasn’t talking to him. This, for your information, was my new plan.

  It started naturally.

  When the Big Meeting was over, I had no chance to talk to him. He just put his hands to my neck, tilted my face up to his with thumbs at my jaw and touched his lips to mine lightly in a brief kiss.

  I was too freaked out about what him “going maverick” meant, not to mention the dawning knowledge that I’d put the whole gang on the line, further not to mention a light kiss from Mace was nice, to protest.

  Then, before I could find my voice, he was gone.

  Fifteen minutes ago, he walked in while Ally and Indy were dueling through Guns ‘n’ Roses’s “Paradise City”, both on advanced (which meant using all five toy guitar buttons which I found utterly impossible).

  He looked at me and said, “Ready to go home?”

  I was ready to go home. I was more than ready to go home. Not with him but I was so ready to go home I wasn’t going to quibble. Not because I didn’t like spending time with the Rock Chicks but because I did, very much, and every second with the girls made me feel a little bit guiltier and a whole lot shittier.

  Mace drove in silence.

  This, for your information, was his way. Mace wasn’t much of a talker. In fact, we talked a lot more in the last two days than we would in a week when we were together. It was something else I liked about him, that I didn’t need to entertain him and he felt no driving need to dazzle me with his brilliance. It felt comfortable from day one.

  As he drove, I watched Denver slide by and my mind wandered to home.

  I lived in a huge room in a big, old, gold-boom mansion that had been chopped up into apartment decades ago. The current owners, Ulrika and Swen, were restoring it to its former glory. To pay for this, they first restored the mother-in-law house and rented it out. Then they restored my room and rented it to me.

  To get to my room, you entered the mansion at a side door off the Italian-tiled veranda and walked up two semi-private (as in, only Swen, Ulrika, Juno, Swen and Ulrika’s three cats and I used them) flights of stairs.

  My room was big, airy, painted white (but not harsh white, a soft eggshell). It had hardwood floors with bright-colored rugs thrown everywhere. My décor came from TJ Maxx and Target. On my budget of money from gigs and intermittent guitar lessons for the kids of fans of The Gypsies who wanted their children to live their dream (thus, these lessons didn’t progress very far because the kids were never really into it, only their parents were, but the kids and I’d have fun anyway), I couldn’t afford the good stuff.

  It wasn’t luxurious but I loved my space.

  You walked in the door and to the left there were three steps up to a platform that held my big bed covered in a creamy, eyelet cover with soft yellow sheets. It was shoved in a huge, round turret, windows all around, filmy-white curtains and views of Ulrika and Swen’s quadruple-lot garden that Ulrika kept full of flowers and Swen kept tidy as a pin. There were also unadulterated panoramas of the Front Range.

  From my front door, to the right and down two steps, was my sunken kitchen, tiny and u-shaped.

  In front of the kitchen, up five steps, was a platform holding a worn, moss-green couch, my TV and another big window.

  Across from that, up two more steps, was another platform. My ultimate space. Three guitars on stands, two electric, one acoustic, piles of music, two music stands, stacked amps and a big, mauve, overstuffed armchair that had seen better days but was comfortable as hell.

  Behind the partition wall of the kitchen was a stacked washer dryer, a walk-in closet and the door to the bathroom which was as big as the kitchen, had a claw-footed tub, a pedestal sink and mosaic tile floors. I kept my wicker laundry hamper in there and a big, glass-front apothecary cabinet that looked like it came from an antique drug store. I found it at a yard sale and Floyd fixed it up for me, Emily and I painted it white and it held my bits and bobs and towels and stuff.

  My space was not rock ‘n’ roll stereotype with rich colors, lots of clutter and tasseled scarves over the lamps. It was tidy, clean, unlittered with junk which was how my space needed to be because my head was always a mess.

  I remembered the first time Mace walked into it when he picked me up for our date. He looked around and couldn’t hide his reaction.

  “You’re full of surprises,” he murmured and I had the feeling he didn’t mean to say that out loud, so, to be polite, I didn’t respond.

  I always wondered what he meant. I didn’t find myself surprising at all.

  After that date, he spent nearly every night with me. We only stayed at his place a few times. He said we needed my bed because of Juno (Mace only had a queen-size) but I suspected it was because he liked my space. As for me, I liked him in my space, in the end, too much.

  Daisy lived in Englewood and I lived in the Highlands, at least a twenty minute drive if traffic was good (which, it wasn’t). My mind moved from going home to its more usual pastime of worrying about my band. Or, at this juncture, them worrying about me.

  Especially Floyd.

  I sighed and rested my head against the window. Behind me, Juno licked her chops and snuffled the wind coming through the crack where Mace had rolled her window down.

  I really needed to call Floyd.

  Floyd was talented. He could have done something with his music. He could have gone somewhere if he’d gone after it and moved to NYC or LA. He could have been at least a sessions player but likely more. A lot more.

  He didn’t want it, he wanted to live a quiet life with his wife and see his girls grow up happy. So that’s what he did. That was Floyd and that’s a lot of the reason why I loved him.

  At first, he pushed me to be more than I wanted to be, saying not only did I have the talent for it but I had a stage presence that “knocks your socks off” (his words).

  I didn’t want fame and fortune, stadium gigs and my picture on the cover of Rolling Stone. I didn’t write music, I played it. I didn’t play music for the money; I did it for my sanity. The only way to escape my shit life growing up was by entering the hundreds of little, dizzyingly cool worlds of notes and lyrics of the songs I played.

  Don’t get me wrong, I was happy The Gypsies had local success. We demanded top dollar, free drinks, a percentage of the door and our cover charge was nothing to sneeze at. It paid the bills and let me live the music. The whole band knew we weren’t going any further because I had no intention of taking us further. I’d been approached by some scouts, more than once, but for me, it was about the band. For the scouts, it was about me.

  It was unspoken but Hugo, Pong, Leo and Buzz all knew the heart of the band was my guitar and my voice and the soul was Floyd’s piano. The other band members were good but they weren’t ever going to be
great.

  They looked great, all handsome guys up there with Floyd and me and they were better players with the band than they’d ever be on their own. They needed The Gypsies to stay together for them to be anything at all and part of me knew that was the only reason The Gypsies did stay together. We were always fighting and in danger of one of the hot-headed ones (Hugo and Pong) or the dramatic ones (Buzz and Leo) losing it and walking out the door.

  I needed us to stay together and I needed them. At first it had been just about the music but then they became the only family I had since I’d turned my back on my own. When that happened, it became all about the band.

  Mace pulled up the gravel drive at the side of the house and I pulled myself out of my thoughts.

  My van was parked by Swen and Ulrika’s Volvo.

  I didn’t have to ask how it got there.

  Mace.

  I didn’t say anything. I was glad I didn’t have to go back to Lindsey’s to get it. I was also glad I wasn’t talking to him or I’d have to say thanks.

  He parked and my hand went to the door handle.

  “Don’t get out until I open your door for you,” Mace ordered, bossy as all hell.

  I sighed but didn’t answer. He got out, skirted the hood, eyes scanning and he came around and opened the backdoor. Juno bounded out. Mace grabbed the workout bag in the back, slammed the door and opened mine. I exited the vehicle with a lot less enthusiasm.

  Mace crowded me in a protective way and didn’t waste any time getting Juno and me in the house.

  This played havoc with my already tattered guilt. I may not have wanted to be back together with Mace but it didn’t go unnoticed that he was taking care of me and he was being very serious about that task. It also didn’t go unnoticed that this was not because I was someone to protect but because I was his someone to protect.

  Effing hell.

  We walked silently together up the stairs and Mace made me stand in the hall after he unlocked my door (I’d never asked for my key back, this would have necessitated me calling him which might have descended into me begging him to come back which was not something I wanted to do, nunh-unh, no way, therefore I let him keep the key).

  He walked in my place, I heard some weird beeping then I heard him doing a walkthrough of the house and finally he called Juno and me in.

  We walked in, Juno turning left, probably to hit the bed in order to take the all important Big Dog Nap Number Fifteen for the day.

  She skidded to a halt on the stairs, stumbled a bit and stared ahead of her in confusion.

  I stared too.

  The room was dark, blinds I hadn’t owned when I left two nights ago were pulled low. The bed was moved over to where my guitars were. My guitars were now in the middle, the couch where my bed was.

  “What the –?” I started.

  Mace closed the door and tossed the bag on the platform where the couch now resided.

  I stood staring as Mace went up the platform and turned on a light then came back to me. His hand in his pocket, he pulled out something that clinked.

  He got close to me but pointed at the door.

  “New deadbolt, chain, peephole. Use the last two when you’re in the house. Always use the first one. Not just during this situation, all the time,” Mace ordered, handing me a key.

  I took the key but stared at my door which now had three locks and a new peephole.

  Effing, bloody hell.

  Mace grabbed my hand and pulled me two steps to the side of the door.

  “Alarm panel,” he announced, dropping my hand, pointing at a new box on the wall and flipping it open. “This is your combination. Memorize it.” He handed me a slip of paper.

  I looked at the paper, read the numbers, read them again, repeated them in my head and made a wonky, only understood by me mathematical formulation of them (something I did when I had to memorize numbers).

  “Got it memorized?” Mace asked.

  I looked at him and nodded, not speaking because I couldn’t find my voice, not because I wasn’t talking to him. At that juncture, I kind of forgot about my latest plan.

  He took the slip of paper from me, balled it in his fist and shoved it in his pocket.

  “You come in, you got thirty seconds to punch in the code then hit this button.” He pointed at a button. “You go out, always set the alarm. You got a minute to get you and Juno out the door. You set it the same way, same code, same end button. Yeah?” he asked.

  I nodded again.

  “See this button?” He pointed to a red button.

  Again, I just nodded.

  “Panic button. You hit that, a signal gets sent to the police dispatch, they know it, they don’t fuck around; they send a car with sirens. Then a signal goes to the control room at the Nightingale offices and we know you’ve been compromised. Don’t hit that button unless you know you got a situation. Hear me?”

  What was going on?

  “Mace –” I started.

  “Do you hear me?” he repeated patiently.

  He seemed pretty intense so I decided to nod yet again.

  “Both of your phones have the Nightingale control room on speed dial, hit button one then pound. That way, you can’t get to the panic button, you can grab one of your phones. Yeah?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “The door is alarmed, so are the windows. You hit that code then this button…” he pointed at another button, “while you’re in the house. That means the peripheral sensors are activated but the motion sensors are not.” He pointed at sensors with red lights that were in the corners just where the ceilings hit the walls. I looked around and noticed there were a lot of them.

  Mace kept talking.

  “That means the alarm is set but if the door or windows are breached, a signal goes to the police, a car goes out and the control room gets the signal, same drill as the other. Got me?”

  Oh my God. This was too much. Simply too much. It was insane.

  I didn’t share these thoughts, my only ability, it seemed, was to keep nodding.

  Mace went on, “The room is full of cameras. You won’t see ‘em, no one’ll see ‘em. The bathroom has a small window, two stories up. Unlikely to be breached but it has an alarm sensor. Therefore no camera in the bathroom. The cameras are gonna be on, and monitored at the office, twenty-four-seven. You need to change, you do it in the bathroom. You still with me?”

  I kept nodding.

  “There are exterior cameras, the front, back and side doors and the parking area. They’re monitored twenty-four-seven too. I talked with Swen, he knows what’s goin’ on and he’s happy with the work we’ve done. He and Ulrika are set to go on vacation on Saturday, good timing.”

  I started to tremble, it was beginning to hit me just how serious this was. Losing Linnie, being shot, knowing the threat, none of that did it.

  This was freaking me out.

  “Mace –” I started again.

  His hand came to my neck, he got in my space and his head bent to mine.

  “I’ll answer all your questions in a minute, Kitten,” he said quietly. “Let me finish explaining the set up and then you can ask me anything you want.”

  He wasn’t finished explaining the set up?

  This wasn’t already the entirety of the set up?

  He kept talking.

  “You know Indy’s Dad, Tom? He’s a detective for the police department?” Mace asked.

  I nodded.

  So did Mace, once.

  “Tom’s arranging regular but random drive-bys by squad cars. Anyone watching the house waiting for a chance might either be seen by a car or they’ll notice the frequency of squads in the area and they’ll be a fuckuva lot more careful or bag the chance to get at you here at all. Every once in awhile a uniform is gonna buzz your door. They’re gonna wanna see your face, in person, so you’re gonna have to show it to them. This could happen day or night. There’s video surveillance here.”

  He pointed to another box with
a screen that was situated just above the alarm box.

  Then he kept going. “You hit this button, you see them and can talk to them but they don’t see you. No plainclothes officers will call up, only uniform and they’ll show you a badge. You only go down if you see the uniform and the badge. By whatever small chance they got, anyone breaches the security and is in the house and on you, they tail you to the door but stay hidden, you got a code word. When you get to him, you tell the officer you’re hunky dory. He’ll know you’re not but he’ll proceed with caution. You got that?”

  I was beyond trembling, I was beginning to shiver.

  “Babe, you got that?” Mace asked softly.

  I nodded.

  “Blinds always pulled. The bed was moved away from the windows so they have no shot when we’re asleep. Avoid the couch, it’s exposed. The walls are brick, you’re safe at a wall. Windows aren’t safe, don’t get near ‘em.”

  “Okay,” I whispered.

  Mace fell silent.

  “Is there more?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he replied.

  Effing hell.

  He kept talking.

  “You got safe zones. Fortnum’s is covered. The Castle. The offices. Indy and Lee’s, Ava and Luke’s. And here. That’s it. You don’t hang anywhere else unless me or one of the boys is covering you. To get to a safe zone, you go with an escort. No exceptions. You go nowhere unless you’re in a squad car or a company car. Okay?”

  I nodded.

  He fell silent again.

  “Is that it?” I asked.

  It was Mace’s turn to nod.

  “Isn’t this all a bit much?”

  He shook his head.

  “It had to cost a fortune, who paid for it?” I went on.

  “Most of the equipment is kept in stock. Any extras were purchased according to the Rock Chick they were meant to protect.”

  Oh dear.

  “What does that mean?” I was afraid I knew the answer before I asked the question.

  “I paid for it.”

  I closed my eyes. That was the answer I was afraid I knew.

  Juno woofed in approval.

  I opened my eyes.

  Juno located the bed, trotted up and down stairs, made it to the bed, jumped up to it, settled on her belly, put her head on her front paws and watched us.