Hard Rock Roots Box Set (56 page)

“There's … been an accident,” Milo manages to stammer out, shifting the girl from one arm to the other. Lydia. Yes. That's her name. This little red-headed girl is Lydia. I hate to admit that I've only met her once. Instead of running across the room and checking her for injuries, brushing her hair back from her face and asking if she's alright, I stand there like a tool and lean against the dresser for support.

“An accident?” Turner has to ask the question because I can't. I'm frozen where I stand. My most recent declarations ring in my head like the pealing of church bells, reminding me that I'm a sinner who's due penance. Fuck. I swallow hard and nearly collapse when a pair of big green eyes swings around and locks on my face. “What fucking accident?”

Milo sniffles and shakes his head like he can't believe what's happening around him. Shit, I don't blame the guy. This is some hard crap to take in.

“The … um. Hmm.” Milo looks down at the child and purses his thin lips. “The poor girl's been through enough tonight. Perhaps we'd best speak in private for a moment?” He glances up and meets Turner's eyes. Before the man can balk, the girl's being placed in his arms and Milo's stepping back. He wipes his hands on his dark slacks as Turner's pupils get big and round and his lip starts to quiver.

“The fuck?”

“Turner, if I could impose on you for just a moment.” Turner starts to protest, but something he sees in Milo's blue eyes makes him pause. He turns his head to me briefly and frowns.

“Just for a second. I don't know shit about kids.” Lydia, apparently, takes a liking to my friend right away, throwing her arms around his neck and burying her face in his shirt.

“Daddy,” she whispers and my heart stops in my chest.

“Uh,” Turner says, biting at his lip piercing. “No.”

“Just five minutes, Mr. Campbell,” Milo says, adjusting his blood stained shirt and shaking his head in disbelief. “Five minutes.” Milo looks at me like he wants me to stand up, but I can't move. My knees are weak, and my head is spinning. Lydia doesn't have any fucking clue who I am. One pierced, tattooed loser is the same as the next. Bile rises in my throat, and I end up sliding to the floor to sit like the jackass I am. Frozen. Useless. Nothing's changed. I want it to, but it's so damn hard.

We'll have a big family, I think. Five? Maybe six kids?

I choke on my own spit and lean over, clutching my hands around my stomach.

“Maybe I'll just step out or whatever?” Turner asks, and Milo nods.

“Don't worry about the blood,” I hear him whisper. “None of it's hers.”

“Daddy!” Lydia screams, and my head snaps up. Dark hair obscures my gaze, but I can't seem to gather the strength to pull it away from my eyes. “Daddy!” Lydia starts to sob, snuggling hard against Turner's chest and fisting her tiny hands in his shirt. “Daddy, help!” My whole body goes cold and my eyes fill with tears that won't fall.

Turner looks down at me with so much pity in his face that the anger surges then, climbing up my spine and punching me in the chest. My heart starts to run at a feverish pace, but I still can't manage to find my feet.

“What the fuck are you waiting for? Get out,” I growl at him and his dark brows rise. He's not used to me having much emotion. Apparently, neither am I. A migraine comes on suddenly and takes hold of me, making my skull feel like it's ready to shatter in two. I grab my head in my hands and close my eyes, listening for the sound of the door closing behind them.

“Are you alright?” Milo asks me, and I shake my head.

“Just what the hell is going on?” I ask, feeling the exhaustion crawl across my skin and dig its dirty fingers into my flesh. We've been friends for awhile now, this never ending fatigue and I. My depression has sapped my lifeblood and left me so vulnerable, so so vulnerable.

I open my eyes and look up, watching as my manager takes a seat and runs a hand though his blonde hair. I usually only see him this ruffled when he's dealing with Turner's shit. Something bad must've happened. Fuck, I mean the guy came in here covered in blood with my kid in his arms. How good did I think it was going to be?

“Ronnie, when's the last time you saw your daughter?”

I have no idea how to answer that question, so I just stare. What a great time I chose to go straight-edge. This shit is not going to happen. I'm going to shoot up the second he walks out of this room. I know I am, and I feel like I have no choice in the matter.
That's such a load of shit,
I tell myself.
You always have a choice.

“What happened to her mother, Milo?” I ask because there's no other explanation. Why else would Lydia be here? Her mom hates my friggin' guts. Last time I saw her was the first time I saw Lydia, when she was nearly a year old. And it was also the time she gave me an ultimatum – move to Oregon with her and be a part of my kid's life or keep doing music and forget about ever seeing her.

Yeah. Hate me all you want for making the choice I did. I already hate me enough as it is.

“There are some police officers next door that would like to speak with you after we're done here.”

“Fuck!” I turn and punch the dresser so hard my knuckles bleed. “Just spit it out, Goddamn it!”

Milo looks away.

“Lydia's mother, Chelsea Stark, was murdered in her Portland apartment last night. When her boyfriend came home from work, he found … a lot of blood. But not Lydia. The girl was reported missing.” Milo nibbles at his lower lip as I stare at the hideous carpeting and try to stay composed.

This is all connected. I know it is. This … thing with Naomi and Turner … the murder of that roadie, Katie and Eric Rhineback, it's all one and the same. I don't know how, but there's no other way to explain this shit. I mean, there are coincidences in life, but this doesn't smell like one of them. This smells like bullshit. Poor Chelsea Stark. Only mistake she ever made was in climbing into bed with me. And for the life of me, I can't even remember it.

“When I got back to my room this evening, she was sitting on my bed covered in blood. I don't know how she got there, but I called the police right away. It was Treyjan that saw me with her in the hallway. He told me she was your daughter. I honestly had no idea.”

“How was she killed?” I ask, wondering what could've happened that would've left Lydia covered in wet blood so many hours later. Nothing good.

“I don't know. They … they just discovered the body.”

My head snaps up and I stare at Milo's white face.

“What?”

“There was no body in the apartment, just so much blood that the coroner determined it was impossible for Chelsea to have lived through the loss.” Milo clears his throat. “The body … the body is in my room.”

Chapter 4
Lola Saints

“There are fucking pigs all over the hallway,” I say as I stand on my tiptoes and stare through the peephole.

“That explains all the noise,” Honesty mumbles before turning over and starting to snore. Glad she can sleep so freely. The rest of us – or maybe just me – know what we've done. One day, I'll pay for the crimes I've committed. I just hope today's not the day. I drop back and wring my hands, wondering about the mask. If the cops search our room and find it, it's curtains for little Miss Lola. “Shit.” I turn around and start to pace, keeping my arms crossed over my chest. I suppose now's not exactly the best time to try and get rid of it. Best thing I can do is wrap it in a pair of dirty panties and hope if anyone searches my stuff, they'll be repulsed by the bloody fabric.
God, you're disgusting,
I chastise myself as I grab an Indecency sweater from my bag and slip it over the top of my tank.

I wrap the mask up in the nasty knickers and shove that bitch deep as I can in my bag before kicking it under the table. It might not be a good idea to go out right now, but there's no way in hell I'm sitting here with idle hands. Oh no. Fuck that.

“I'm going out,” I tell Honesty, but she's fast asleep and doesn't give a shit anyway.

I slip my feet into a pair of red peep toe pumps and open the door, pretending to be surprised at all of the commotion. Heads lift and eyes turn to look at me, but nobody stops me as I step into the hallway and close the door. Two rooms down from me, I see Ronnie McGuire emerging from another room with sunken cheeks and sallow skin. He didn't look so great before, but now he looks
horrid.
The man's attractive, I'll admit, but the way he carries himself sort of takes away from all that. He looks in need of a good fuck and a full night's sleep.

“Hey, you,” I call out to him. He raises his head to look at me, but it takes a minute for the light to go off in his head.

“Lola Saints,” he says with a small half-smile. “Didn't recognize you without the shades.” He points at his face and then lets his hand drop limply by his side. I peer around him and see that the next room has police tape across the door frame. Not good.

“What's going on out here?” I ask, moving aside to let a man with gloves pass behind me. There's a smell, like old metal, that's hanging heavy in the air. I recognize that smell, and it makes my stomach churn.
Blood.

Ronnie lets his head hang and stares at the floor. It's hard to watch him. The man doesn't have anything inside to hold him up. I don't even know him and that much is obvious to me. He's like a deflated balloon or something, drifting slowly towards the earth. There isn't even enough air left in there for a pop. Nope. A pop would be way too big of a move for Ronnie McGuire.

He's your target. Don't let yourself get too deep in.

“You ever heard of a baby daddy?” he asks, lifting his brown eyes to mine. When we lock gazes, my chest gets a little tight and my heart starts to flutter. I don't recognize the feeling, but I can tell it's dangerous. Whatever it is, it has to be stifled. I push it down and hold it there, waiting for the life to bleed out of it.

“A baby daddy?” I ask skeptically. I have no idea where this conversation is going. He's an odd one, this guy is. I let my eyes trail down the hard lines of his face, examine the snake tattoos on his neck. He's got a good body. He's skinny, but there are muscles there. I can see them in the swell of his biceps when he raises his arm and drops it behind his head to scratch at his dark hair.

“Yeah, a baby daddy. Do they have those in Australia, or is it really all just koalas and kangaroos?” I snort and try not to smile.
I do not find this idiot amusing. He's just a tool. Just a tool. A step on the ladder to success.

“Ah, well,” I say, watching a smile light his face for a split second and then fade just as fast. I don't know what's going on, but he's obviously in the middle of it all. “We've got plenty of koalas and kangaroos, but we've also got drop bears. They'll eat ya in your sleep and scoop up the leftovers for their young.” I wink at him, but he doesn't respond to the gesture. That momentary spot of light is gone, snuffed out by whatever's keeping him down in the dumps. “They especially like the taste of deadbeats and scum dogs. That's we call baby daddies back home.”

Ronnie's sullen expression turns into an all out frown.

“Can you send the monster my way?” he asks as he moves around me and pauses with his hand hovering over the door to another room. “Because I'm one of those useless sacks of shit, and I'm about to hit the damn fan.”

I wrinkle my brow as I watch him standing there, halfway between hell and hades, sweat pouring down his back and soaking into the fabric of his white shirt. It's got an upside down cross on the front with the words
So Sue Me.
Makes me inclined to like him a bit.

Ronnie sighs and turns to face me, pain and regret etched into his face like stone, carving his bones and flesh and turning him into a tragic painting with bright eyes I can't look away from. He's consuming me, dragging me down and wrapping me up in his emotions. Goose bumps break out across my skin and my breath catches in my throat.
What in the fuck is wrong with me?

He leans his back against the door and bends over, putting his hands on the thighs of his holey jeans.

“My daughter is here,” he whispers, and I can't help taking a step back in shock.
Daughter? She's already here? This is already happening? I'm guessing this is what Mr. Rutledge really wanted to talk to me about.
His gaze flicks straight up back to mine and cuts through me, making me shiver and sending my body into a push and pull sort of a state where my head says one thing and my down under says another.
This changes everything.
“My daughter is here, and I haven't seen her in two years. She's here and her fucking mother is dead. The Goddamn body was in that room. My baby was in that room with her dead mom.”

My eyes get big, almost as big as those stupid sunglasses I was wearing earlier. My head snaps around and I can't seem to stop staring at the police tape and the people coming and going from the room.
Blood.
Copper tang on my tongue.
Just like that night. It's the same as that night.
I resist the urge to clamp my hands over my ears and start screaming. I look back at Ronnie. There are tears in his eyes now, clinging to him and refusing to fall. It's like he's holding all of this pain and sadness inside of himself, weighing his body down with negativity. I just want to shake him. And maybe pash the shit out of him, too. Yep, there's definitely something wrong with me.

“I don't know what to do with her. I don't even know her.” He lifts his head and looks at me like he thinks I could help him, like somehow I know something he doesn't. Which, unfortunately, is actually true. He stands up suddenly and touches a hand to his chest. It's covered in ink, words I can't read and little purple hearts. Broken hearts. Four of them to be exact. “She's mine now. Mine.” He points at his chest. “How am I supposed to be worth something to her when I don't even mean anything to myself?”

“That's the problem then,” I tell him, feeling myself solidifying even as I watch him fall apart. “If you don't love yourself,” I shrug. “You're pretty much fucked. Chin up and you'll get through it.” Out of the corner of my eye, I see Cohen step into the hallway. When he sees the cops, he freezes up and looks at me like I'm the culprit, like I called them all here just to spite him. I flip him off and reach forward, taking one of Ronnie's big biceps in my hand. Warmth prickles between us, flickering from his flesh into mine. Our eyes meet and my mouth gets dry. Can't say the same thing about my cunt. “Look, if you go in there like this, you're only sabotaging yourself. Let's get out of here for a little while. Your girl will be here when you come back.”