Red Velvet Revenge (6 page)

“But, Ange,” she said. “We have enough people to work the rodeo; you could go to California.”

Angie gave her an annoyed look. She glanced over Mel’s shoulder to where Tate sat in the front of the truck with Oz. They were chatting about the band the Ramones and the punk rock movement of the late 1970s. Then she glanced across at Marty, who had his head tipped back against the wall, cushioned by his travel pillow, with his mouth slightly ajar as he dozed.

“Here’s the thing,” Angie whispered, and Mel had to lean forward to hear her over the drone of the engine and the chatter in the front seat. “Roach’s scene, well, it gets exhausting.”

“Meaning?” Mel asked.

“Out every night all night, playing gigs or recording or just showing up at an event because the PR machine wants to keep his name busy.” Angie let out a big sigh. “There’s very little peace in his world.”

“Have you told him this?” Mel asked.

“Yeah, and then I fly out and he promises it will be different and maybe for one or two nights it is. We sit in his
huge house on the hill in Laurel Canyon, and then Jimbo, his manager, calls and we’re off to a ball game or a celebrity golf tournament or a movie premiere.”

“My heart is breaking for you,” Mel said. “Really, I’m shattered. Didn’t you get to meet Liam Neeson and Bradley Cooper the last time you were there?”

“Yeah, and I didn’t faint. I thought that spoke well of me. They were very nice,” Angie said. “But that’s not my world. Whenever I’m there, I just feel like Roach’s accessory. I might as well be one of his drumsticks, you know?”

“No, I can’t say that I do,” Mel said.

“Well, how about the lawyerly functions you have to attend with Joe?” Angie asked.

Oz swerved sharply to the right, and Angie fell over into Mel’s lap.

“Sorry!” Oz yelled. “There’s a lunatic out here in a BMW, and I think he’s trying to run me off the road.”

“BMW?” Angie asked. “What’s it look like?”

“Black with orange flames coming up the hood,” he said. “He’s waving at us. Do you think there’s something wrong with the truck?”

The BMW pulled up alongside them and started honking. Angie stared at the phone in her hands and then out the window at the car.

“Oz, pull over!” she ordered.

“What?” Oz shouted back. “We’re on the Beeline Highway in the middle of nowhere.”

“Just do it,” Angie said.

“What’s going on?” Tate asked. “Angie, if this is a road-rage thing, the last thing we should do is stop.”

“There’s no rage…yet,” she said.

Tate sent Mel a confused look, and Mel mouthed the name
Roach
. Tate’s eyebrows rose, but she said nothing more. This was Angie’s situation; Mel would let her explain it or not, as she chose.

Marty grunted and rolled over, his nap undisturbed even as Oz pulled over onto the shoulder of the highway and slowed the van to a stop.

In seconds, Angie was out of her seat and lifting the rolling back door. Mel felt the blast of heat hit her from the scorching air outside.

She debated waiting in the truck but decided the only polite thing to do would be to go and say hello, even though she had a feeling this was going to be intensely awkward.

Tate climbed out of his seat and met Mel on the side of the van.

“Tate, we might want to hang back,” Mel said.

He wasn’t listening. As the door to the BMW opened, Tate strode forward and stood beside Angie. Mel hurried to catch up.

Roach, in all of his tattooed, long black hair and rock-star glory, climbed out of the BMW and opened his arms wide. Angie seemed to hesitate but then hurried forward to hug him.

Roach planted a kiss on her that caused Tate to look away at the saguaro cactus, creosote bushes, and large boulders that filled the landscape on this stretch of road.

When Roach and Angie broke apart, Roach glanced over her head at them and nodded. “Hi, Mel, Todd.”

“It’s Tate,” Tate said through gritted teeth.

“Good to see you, Roach,” Mel said. She glanced at Angie,
who looked troubled. “We’ll just be over there if you need us.”

Mel looped her arm through Tate’s and forcibly dragged him to the back of the van. They sat in the shade on the floor of the van while they waited.

“What’s he doing here?” Tate hissed.

“No idea,” Mel said.

“Has Angie said anything to you about moving to Los Angeles with him?”

“No, but I haven’t asked because I don’t want to pressure her,” she said. “What about you? Have you said anything?”

Tate looked miserable. “No.”

Mel rose up on her knees and glanced through the front window of the truck. Angie and Roach were talking, and it looked to be heated, as there was a lot of arm waving and head shaking going on.

Marty was still asleep, lulled no doubt by the drone of the engine, as Oz had kept the truck idling while they waited.

“Oz,” Mel said. “You’d better cut the engine. We don’t want the van to overheat.”

Oz was staring out the window at Roach. Mel had to repeat herself twice before he could pull himself out of his trance. Once the engine was off, he climbed over Marty, who napped on, and squeezed himself onto the floor with Tate and Mel.

“He’s got his own magnetic field, man,” Oz said. “I wish he could teach me that.”

“Huh,” Tate said. “I don’t think he’s all that.”

Mel had to agree with Oz on this one. Roach did have
the electric rock-star thing. The man pulsed energy like other people sweat.

The three of them were silent listening to Marty snort and snuffle in his sleep. Mel could feel a trickle of sweat run down the side of her neck over her collarbone and down into her shirt. She didn’t want to rush Angie, but this was rapidly becoming unbearable.

“It’s time, babe!”

Mel squirmed as she recognized Roach’s voice. He was shouting, but it didn’t sound as if he was angry; more that he was just determined.

“I can’t keep chasing you. You have to make a decision, once and for all.”

Mel heard Angie mumble something back. Tate looked as if he was straining to hear what was being said. There was a long silence, and then the sound of squealing tires kicking up gravel broke the quiet and Angie appeared at the back of the truck, looking sweaty and upset.

“Well, what are you all waiting for?” she snapped. “Let’s go!”

Marty grunted in his sleep and adjusted himself while the rest of them scurried back to their places.

Once they were all buckled up and Oz had turned on the engine and cool air started to pour out of the vents, Mel wiped the sweat off of her forehead with the bottom of her T-shirt and glanced at Angie.

She looked preoccupied, and Mel didn’t want to pry, but she couldn’t ignore what had just happened, either.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

Angie nodded. “You heard him?”

“Yeah,” Mel said. “Did you know he was in town?”

“No, he flew in this morning, hoping to surprise me. Surprise!” she said.

“Well, I’m shocked that you didn’t go with him,” Mel said. “It’s kind of a big deal for a guy to track you down like he did. Some might even say romantic.”

“Not really. I had texted him earlier that we were on the Beeline Highway headed north,” Angie said. “And you know, that’s another part of his whole rock-star life that makes me crazy. He’s so used to getting everything he wants when he wants it—he figured if he just showed up in his sports car, I’d ditch my business, my friends, and my life to go off with him. You’d have thought I was speaking a foreign language when I told him no. He just didn’t get it.”

“So, that’s why he gave you the ultimatum?” Mel guessed.

“Yeah, when I get back from the rodeo, I have to tell him whether I’m moving to LA or not.”

“Wow.” Mel didn’t know what else to say.

“Yeah.”

They were silent for a long stretch of road. Finally, Angie returned to their earlier conversation.

“So the lawyer functions with Joe,” Angie said. “How do you like those?”

“I don’t, particularly,” Mel said. “But it’s an important part of Joe’s life, and Joe is important to me.”

Mel felt what she could swear was a knuckle digging into her lower back. She didn’t need to turn around to know that it was Tate registering his disapproval at her comments. Too bad. She was just being honest with Angie, and she wasn’t going to skew her opinions his way when he didn’t even have the courage to tell Angie how he felt.

“I suppose,” Angie said. “I do care for Roach, and when it’s just the two of us, he makes me feel like I’m somebody, like I’m the most important person in the world. But with all that comes with him, I just don’t know if that’s the life for me.”

“Have you told him this?” Mel asked. “He might be willing to make some changes for you.”

Now the nudging in her lower back turned into an insistent pinch. Ouch! Thankfully, Angie’s phone began to chime. Mel reached behind her and caught Tate’s fingers in hers, crunching them as hard as she could.

“It’s a text from Sal,” Angie said, looking relieved, probably because it wasn’t Roach continuing their argument. “He says good luck.”

“Oh, that’s nice,” Mel said. She released Tate’s fingers and made her face a mask of pleasant.

“I think you’re right, Mel,” Angie said. “I need to talk to Roach about his lifestyle. Maybe we can reach a compromise.”

She popped out her keyboard and began firing off another text.

Meanwhile, Mel felt Tate try to pinch her again, and she smacked his hand away.

Angie looked up at the noise. “You okay?”

“Yep, it was just a fly,” Mel said. “I think I killed the pesky little bugger.”

“Oh.” Angie went back to her text while Mel gave Tate her most fearsome “quit it” look.

He glowered back at her and turned away. Mel rolled her eyes. What was it going to take for Tate to tell Angie how he felt? She had almost died a few months back in an
accidental poisoning, and Tate had been beside himself—or, more accurately, beside Angie, maintaining a constant vigil until she pulled through. If her near-death experience couldn’t get him to profess his feelings, what could? With Roach putting the pressure on Angie to make a decision once and for all, it was do-or-die time for Tate. Mel hoped that, for his sake, he didn’t blow it.

Mel shook her head and opened the cozy mystery she was reading. The Poisoned Pen, a mystery bookstore down the street from the bakery, had had a Fourth of July Firecracker sale. All paperbacks were 50 percent off. Needless to say, she had stocked up; naturally, the foodie mysteries were her favorites. She hoped to have this one finished before they landed in Juniper Pass, because she doubted she’d have time once they got there. She had a feeling, with twenty-five thousand people in attendance, there was not going to be a lot of downtime at the rodeo.

They took a quick break for lunch when they were halfway to Juniper Pass. Mel was happy to get out and stretch her legs. The air was already cooler this far north of the Valley, and she was looking forward to it being downright chilly at night in the pines of northern Arizona.

They topped up the gas, and everyone resumed their seats in the truck, only this time Tate drove, giving Oz a break.

“Now, you don’t want to stomp on the gas pedal,” Oz was lecturing. “You want to be nice and gentle.”

“Oz, I was driving when you were just a twinkle in your mother’s eye,” Tate said. “I think I can handle it.”

Oz looked nervous. Tate put the truck in drive and stepped on the gas. The truck lurched and then evened out.

“I told you so,” Oz said with a shrug.

“So you did,” Tate conceded. “Anything else I need to know?”

“That’s it,” Oz said. They were silent for a moment; then Oz added, “I’m pretty sure.”

Tate followed an old two-lane route through the winding hills of red earth covered with scrubby green juniper trees that led up onto a long stretch of grassland.

Mel handed her book to Angie, who had been cursing since the battery in her phone died. The rocking motion of the van made Mel woozy, and with fifty pages of the mystery to go, she gave up the fight, tipped her head back, and dozed.

A high-pitched whimper roused Mel from her slumber, and she opened her eyes to find they’d left the grassland behind and were now winding their way up a steep mountain. A glance out the window made her light-headed as she took in the sheer drop, the only barrier between them and certain death being a metal guardrail.

Oz was making strange, strangled noises in his throat, giving away the identity of the whimperer, as Tate hugged the curves of the two-lane road.

“Dead Man’s Curve,” Angie said. She was studying the map. “That’s what they call this stretch. See all of the white crosses along the roadside? That’s where people have driven off the edge and died.”

“Thanks for sharing that,” Marty snapped. He was awake and looked tense and pale.

Mel reopened her book and refused to look up. Even
when a sports car passed them on the left, pushing them even farther toward the treacherous edge as the van wobbled ominously, she refused to look up or acknowledge the sweaty palm prints she was getting on her book. She read the same page three times before the van finally left the deadly stretch of road behind.