Hung Out: A Needles and Pins Rock Romance (38 page)

The homepage on the screen was familiar, but there was just one hitch. A hitch that I was sure would mean he wouldn’t be gone. Wouldn’t poof.

The last time I’d seen that bank logo, I’d been checking my account balance in the bar in Belize.

“That’s not my bank.” And as he stared, his face a mask of furious incredulity, I expanded. “The money was moved.”

“No games, girl. I’m warning you.”

“The funds were moved right after they rolled to me.” Again, I weighed my options of escape, or at least a fight. “Because of suspicious transfers over the years.” I added with as much satisfaction as fear.

“I don’t believe you.”

Another sound from the other room had Fake Bodyguard edgy. “We need to go.”

Ketchum exploded, ripping one of the chairs from its place at the table and tossing it as if it were a dollhouse toy. “Fine. Sign into your bank and give it here. I’ll figure out the max amount.”

“Someone’s here.” F.B. informed over his shoulder and stepped just to the side of the large window overlooking the street.

Gage?
Desperately, I craned my neck for a plane of view. Faintly from the heavens above, I heard my cell ring.

“Sign in now!”

My fingers tapped the keys while Ketchum moved closer to the window. F.B. stationed himself in front of the monitors.

Could I make it to the door before one of the two caught me? As if picking up that thought wave, Ketchum turned. “Signed in yet?”

“Almost.” I picked up my shaking, bound hands for emphasis and dropped my fingers to the keys again.

My phone continued to ring. I heard it in the interims of silence. From the other room came an erratic bump here and there.

“Son of a bitch!” F.B. roared from the window.

“Signed in?” Ketchum.

“Can you stop asking every second? I can’t think!”

“What’s to think? Sign the hell in!”

“I can’t remember my password. I’m trying.”

“That’s a lie. Just sign in before I knock your skinny ass outta that chair.”

“It’s not a lie. I’ve been living on a cash stipend for three months. Just shut up and let me think!”

“This is not good. Not good at all.” F.B. swore continuously from his lookout perch. “There’s two of them. I think we’ve been made.” He raced back to the window, and from beneath his jacket, he produced a pistol.

“What are you doing?” I freaked when he checked the clip and popped it back in. “I’m in. Look! I’m in.”

“Give it here!” Ketchum yanked the computer from my hands.

“What the hell…” F.B. frowned at whatever he was seeing through the slit of drapery and glass.

“The PIN. You put your password in but not the PIN. Give it to me now!”

I was on the floor wincing at the fiery pain in my elbow joint before I realized Ketchum had ripped me from the chair like a ragdoll.

My head blanked. As surely as a whiteboard that was suddenly erased.

“No bullshit about wanting to put it in yourself. You lost that privilege.”

“You gotta see this.” Totally ignoring the ruckus behind him, F.B. continued his monologue. “These two are brawling in the street.”

I absorbed the information, wondering for the life of me who would be fighting outside the house, but I didn’t dare even look in that direction. Last time I had taken my attention off of Ketchum, I’d found myself here on the floor. “My birthday backwards. Is the PIN.”

“I don’t know your―”

“Okay. Yeah. They’re in the gate. Coming to the house.” F.B.

“Then shut up about it and take care of them!” Ketchum yelled. Kneeling, he shoved the computer at me and snapped, “You’ve got five seconds to put the PIN in or I’ll wrap my hands around your neck and make you hold your fingers up for each number.”

The click of the safety released. F.B. positioned the gun and cracked the apartment door. Ketchum’s attention was diverted, and I took that opportunity to try out another move from my self-defense seminar years ago. Lifting my wrists above my head, I brought my arms down as hard as I could, using my hipbones and the momentum to rip my wrists apart and break the tape.

Ketchum spun back to me, but I already had the computer with a hand on either side of the screen, and I arced it in a swing so that the edge of the heavier keyboard clocked him in the temple. Immediately, I put distance between us and watched astounded as he crumpled. It looked as if I’d knocked him out!

F.B was in the hallway now, and through the broken windows, I saw Gage and Logan sprinting up the porch steps. Running, I used my weight and momentum, barreling into the back of F.B. while screaming out a desperate warning to Gage and Logan. Using the banister, F.B. caught his balance and reflexively turned the pistol to me.

“Scarlette!” Gage shouted my name in a way I’d never heard it. Terror. Frustration. Above all, love. One of his arms extended through the broken glass and he grappled with the locks at a disadvantage of not knowing which were already released.

“Stay out, or I
will
shoot her.” F.B. might have been acting like an extremely unseasoned criminal, but now, without Ketchum yapping at him, he was unruffled.

“Drop it.” Deadly calm, I heard the order come from behind me and although it had been months, I recognized the voice of my longtime neighbor and bodyguard. F.B. hesitated, but had his own moment of clarity. Reengaging the safety, he set the gun on the stairs, and Real Bodyguard demanded, “Hands up, motherfucker,” before stepping forward and grabbing it.

“Scar…” Gage’s arm hooked around my waist, dragging me far from the action. “Thank fuck.” He hugged me close, but not before I noticed the scrape on his temple. Still against his chest, I twisted my head and found Logan just as scuffed up.

What the hell?

“W
hat the hell?”

Gage had expected Scarlette’s question. Police procedure was over. Ketchum and his accomplice had left in the back of a squad car hours ago. Scar’s live-in bodyguard had been escorted to the hospital the moment his temporary replacement (times two) had arrived. The two men were downstairs. One stationed outside and one inside the downstairs apartment with the surveillance equipment.

Ketchum and his accomplice had used an animal tranquilizer dart on her regular security as he was entering the property and then restrained him in his apartment for two days with further doses of tranquilizer. He’d told the police that he’d had a window of approximately a minute before the drug and his assailants had overtaken him, but his phone hadn’t worked. He suspected them of using a ‘pocket jammer’ to prevent his call for help the moment he realized he was under attack.

They’d used the keys in his pocket to get him back inside his apartment, and a lock picking kit to get inside her apartment. This explained the jammed, uncooperative lock when she arrived home.

“Seriously, guys.” She looked to Logan who had immediately busied himself cleaning up the mess in her apartment the moment they’d walked in.

When he pretended not to hear, Gage sighed. “I was on my way back even before I got your text. It took so long because I’d had Allison just pull over and let me out before she got on the freeway. I got the text while walking back toward your place, and I tried to call you to see if you wanted to pick me up. When you didn’t answer, I kept walking while calling Logan to give him hell for not picking me up at the airport. He was already on his way here, so he swung by. Picked me up. By the time we got here, we were arguing.”

“You were on your way here?” Scar turned inquisitively back to Logan, and Gage gritted his teeth. Not ‘wow, Gage, you were
walking
back to my house?’ The part of that story she’d taken so quickly away was Logan.

“Yeah. To apologize. In person. About the dating fiasco.” Logan, to his credit, seemed embarrassed.

At this, Gage left her side for the first time since finding her at the end of a gun muzzle. Opening the fridge, he peered in, biting back his jealousy as Logan proceeded with the mentioned apology.

The moment he’d looked beyond Logan to the house and had seen the broken windows had been the most terrifying moment of his life. And he’d had some doozies, if near death experiences counted.

Scar’s fridge was near empty. One bottle of water occupied space among a few condiments. He left it for Scar and opened cabinets until he found a glass. California tap water might be lethal but he’d take his chances.

“You eat today?” He returned to the couch where Logan had hijacked his spot. Without preamble, he jammed himself on the piece of a cushion between Scar and the armrest, happy for the excuse of his body touching hers.

“I think.” She spaced off staring toward the fireplace. “I’m not hungry if that’s what you’re asking.”

“I’m gonna order. Is that okay?”

“Here?”

A stab to his gut. The one-word question was as good as saying, ‘Why my house? Eat at your own damn house.’

“I’m not leaving you.” Stubbornly, he began scrolling through his ‘food finder app’ for nearby takeout and ignored the kick to his pride when she frowned while mulling over his words.

Logan spoke up. “Well, I had a thing tonight. My friend’s band.” The group his assistant named wasn’t among any he knew. “You remember, Scarlette.”

Another sting of jealousy pricked when she nodded.

“I can cancel. But since your stalker’s in custody, I thought I’d go.”

Just go.
Damn he may have drawn blood biting his tongue this time.

“Sure. I’m good. Go. In fact, I may not stay here tonight. It’s too soon.” She walked him to the door. Hugged him.
Ouch again
. “Thanks for cleaning up—and everything.”

Logan left. Scarlette decided for sure she couldn’t sleep in the house where she’d been attacked hours ago. He felt like an ass for not being more sensitive to this and understood her aversion to ordering food and sitting down to a meal in this place so soon. She decided on the Bel-Air hotel just down the road.

“Can you just grab me anything you see out of that basket on the dresser to get me through the night? It’s the tour packing reject pile.” She pecked at her phone. “I’m going to call Mom again.”

He selected clothing and toiletries, piling them on the bed for her perusal and easy packing and texted security while she called Henni for the third time that evening. He knew she was worried because Ketchum had mentioned accomplices in Belize waiting to pounce if things didn’t go right. As much as it riled him to do so—since in a way, Henni had been the cause of this climatic situation with her usual lack of smart choices and careless handling of situations as they arose—he’d arranged round-the-clock security for her for the next several days.

“They got there.” Scar ended the call, and she looked so relieved, he felt petty for his anti-Henni attitude. It didn’t matter that he thought she was a shitty mother. She was Scar’s mother. Her only living relative that she knew of.

“Good.” He indicated the spread of items on the bed, and she nodded her thanks.

In less than five minutes, she’d dumped one of her smaller bags from tour into the bathroom floor and began selectively refilling it. “Did you already make the reservations?”

“Yeah. I got us a suite.” Something crossed her face, and he wondered if it was the ‘us.’ Hurriedly, he added, “Two bedrooms, a Jacuzzi for you to soak in, and the kitchenette has both a hot
and
cold beverage maker.” He waggled his eyebrows while touting the perks as quoted to him. But mainly he’d wanted to stress the two bedrooms. He was picking up on some extreme vibes.

It was normal, he knew. She was shaken. Traumatized. And he was no shrink, but surely, their on-again-off-again, freaky relationship was the last thing on her mind right now. It wasn’t as if they’d ever had more than a few months of being a couple secure enough to seek solace in each other at a time like this without overthinking things.

“Sound okay?” He reached out, running a finger down her arm. “It’s like I said, I don’t want to be away from you right now.”

“Yeah. Yeah.” She zipped the bag and seemed to shake from a fugue. “It’s not that. It’s that…” And then she turned and his heart stopped. Her eyes were limpid with unshielded emotions. Uncertainty. Loneliness. Love. “…I think I changed my mind. I’d rather go to your house if that’s okay.”

Okay? OKAY? Hell yes!

“Sure. It’s fine. Whatever you want. You know that.” He curved on hand through the handle of her bag, and the other around her hand and reiterated. “Anything you want. You know that, Scar.”

“Thanks. Because right now, what I want most in the world is to be in your bed, snuggled, with Rascal between us.”

Rascal, huh?
But he understood. And the turbulence inside him calmed.

“Me too.” He squeezed her hand.

She insisted on leaving every light on inside her home when they locked it up. Her security detail met them at the bottom of the steps. Outside, a hummer was idling. Once he and Scar loaded into the back, he informed the men of the change in plans and rested an arm behind the seat where she sat.

The ride to his house lasted almost an hour. In that time, he felt the tension ebb from her body, and her chin dropped as she dozed some.