Rock Chick 07 Regret (27 page)

When his eyes came to me, the surprise was gone and he was smiling his close-to-laughter, white, glamorous smile.

“Don’t you smile at me, Hector Chavez,” I snapped, not sounding like myself, not sounding like Any Sadie That Ever Existed. Sounding weirdly like Attitude Sadie and, if you asked me if I could even be Attitude Sadie, I would have told you, “heck no”.

“We’re in the bathroom,” Hector told me, still smiling.

“We are. I don’t want Ralphie and Buddy listening in,” I told him.

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want them to hear what I have to say.”

He started laughing softly (yes, laughing!) and said, “I got that,
mamita
, but why not?”

“I didn’t want them to know about the phone call. You’ve got to go out there, say something that’ll make them not so worried and then… I don’t know…” I stopped because I
didn’t
know, my mind was racing and I couldn’t catch a thought.

Hector was still laughing softly. “Say something to make them not so worried about one of the Balducci brothers threatening you over the phone in the middle of the night? Tell me how I’m gonna manage that?”

“I don’t know!” I cried, losing it in my panic. “Make something up. You’re a private investigator. Veronica Mars is a private investigator type person too and she lies all the time!”

“Veronica Mars is a character on a TV show,” Hector informed me.

“So?”

Hector’s stared at me a beat, read my panic, his smile faded and his face got serious. “Sadie, I’m not gonna lie.”

“But –”

He came in close (or
closer
, we couldn’t
not
be close as we were in a powder room).

“What I wanna know is; why do you want me to lie?”

Oh darn.

This was a sharing situation, as in, me sharing my private thoughts. I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t tell Hector that I’d never had any friends and I’d grown to love Ralphie and Buddy and I was terrified of losing them.

People were, well… people. In my experience they had only so much to give before they expected something in return.

I didn’t have much to give in return. Heck, I didn’t have
anything
to give in return.

But I couldn’t tell Hector that. He’d think I was pathetic.

When I didn’t answer, I watched in alarm as Hector’s face got
more
serious and he closed the minute gap that was still between us. He put a hand to the side of my neck, sliding it up so his fingers went into my hair, his thumb resting along my hairline, his other arm curled around my waist and he pulled me into the heat of him.

“I don’t wanna say this,
mamita
, but I have no choice. It’s understandable, you not thinkin’ clearly with all that’s goin’ down. But I have to remind you what’s at stake here,” Hector said.

“I’m thinking clearly,” I informed him and I certainly knew what was at stake.

He shook his head. “You aren’t.”

“I am!” And I thought I
was
.

His face dipped closer and I watched his eyes go a weird mixture of warm and intense. I’d never seen anything like that before and I had a feeling it did not bode well for me.

I was right.

“Sadie, a month ago, I got back to the office after finishing a job with Luke and walked into a stairwell to see you, literally, fall on your face because you didn’t have the strength to hold yourself up.”

I pulled in my breath so sharply, my lungs started to burn.

He kept talking. “You were
wearin
’ nothin’ but a torn nightgown and you were covered in blood. I carried you to the Explorer and you couldn’t even hold your head up. You passed out in my lap after you told me there was no one to care if you woke up. I live to be a hundred,
mamita
, I’ll never forget it. Not one fuckin’ second of it.”

I closed my eyes and tried to turn my face away, hateful, humiliating memories charging through my brain and making my blood run cold. I didn’t want these memories but more, it was unthinkable that Hector shared them with me.

His hand at the side of my head put gentle pressure there to keep me facing him, foiling my mini-escape Hector plan. I opened my eyes again and he was still looking at me with that warm intensity.

“The next day, the two men in your kitchen walked into your hospital room, they took one look at the state of you and it rocked their world.”

The burning in my lungs intensified.

“Stop talking,” I whispered.

He didn’t stop talking. “Then they did everything in their power to take care of you and help you heal. And, from what I can see, they did a damn fine job of it.”

“Please stop talking.” I was still whispering.

Hector still didn’t stop talking. “A few nights ago, I watched you walk away from a bartender who hadn’t finished your order, you went down the hall, past the bathroom and then you disappeared out the backdoor. I followed you only to find you’d walked right into the hands of Harvey Balducci. He had you clean off the ground, you were
fightin
’ him and you were
losin
’. Daisy didn’t stop me, I would have squeezed the life out of him and you didn’t stop Daisy, she would have kept on
beatin
’ him.”

“Hector –”

He shook his head to stop my interruption and kept talking. “You don’t have a lot of experience with this kind of thing, so I’ll explain it to you. Sadie, these are the actions of people who care about you. What happens to you happens to you but, in a way, it also happens to the people around you that care about you.”

I felt tears start to sting my eyes and I clenched my teeth to stop them.

Hector saw it and his face dipped even closer. “If you’re in danger, they got a right to know. You keep it from them, somethin’ happens to you and you end up –”

“Enough!” I snapped.

My finely honed defense mechanism clicked into place and Sorceress of the Antarctic made an appearance precisely when I needed her.

Finally!

My back straightened, my chin lifted and, even though I couldn’t see them, I knew my eyes weren’t warm and they were no longer filled with tears. They were shards of ice.

 
“Fine,” I clipped, my voice cold.

Hector’s eyes went even more intense as they scanned my face.

Then he murmured as if to himself, “Fuckin’ hell, I lost her.”

I ignored his words because there was no point in responding. He had, indeed, lost
her
.

New Sadie was a memory. She had to be, this was no place for her.

“I’ll talk to Buddy and Ralphie. You do,” I hesitated, “whatever you have to do.”

“Sadie –” he started, giving me a gentle squeeze.

“No,” I interrupted him and pulled away. Yanking out of his arm and jerking my head from his hand, I took a step back. “It’s fine. You’re right, perfectly right. Thank you for the lesson in kindness and morality. You’re right about that too, I don’t know much about that either.”

His eyes flashed and he clipped out a, “God damn it,” but I was already out the door.

I marched back to the kitchen so fast my robe flew out behind me.

I halted inside the kitchen and looked at Buddy and Ralphie who were both sitting close together at the island, Buddy’s arm was around Ralphie’s shoulders. When their faces turned to me, I noticed they looked worried.

Blooming heck!

I felt Hector enter the kitchen but I ignored him. I prepared to make an Ice Princess Speech, something I’d never really had to do before but I figured I could pull it off.

It was time to be mistress of my own destiny or I’d lose everything. I was sick of losing and I was going to put a stop to it, right
fucking
now.

I took a deep breath and charged in. “Last night, a couple of hours after Hector left, Marty Balducci called me and he was angry about me pressing charges against his brothers. He said he was going to take care of Harvey and Ricky and I’d been a stupid bitch,” I announced.

Buddy’s arm dropped from around Ralphie’s shoulders, they both straightened and I kept talking.

“He told me I was going to pay.”

Ralphie’s eyes closed slowly. Buddy’s face went tight.

I went right on talking. “He called me the c-word.”

Ralphie’s eyes flew open and he gasped.

“Twice,” I went on.

“The c-word?” Ralphie breathed, his face getting red.

“Yes,” I clipped then continued. “Hector’s people are monitoring my cell calls. One of them heard it, told Hector and he came back around.”

“Why didn’t you come to us last night? We’re just across the hall,” Buddy asked me.

“I didn’t want to wake you,” I answered.

“You…” Buddy’s eyes were wide then he shook his head in disbelief. “You didn’t want to
wake
us?”

“That’s right,” I told him, my voice pure ice but I watched with a sinking heart as Buddy started to look mad and I knew he was mad at me.

I hated it that he was mad at me but I kept going and this time my glacial gaze slid across the whole room including in its frosty path Hector, who was now standing by the island, leaned against it, taking in my performance with a blank face and his arms crossed on his chest.

“Now, what you all don’t understand, but I’ll explain to you, is that this isn’t unusual for me. Dealing with these kinds of people, this kind of behavior, it doesn’t faze me. It’s been my life for twenty-nine years. I will admit that I’ve never been the target but I also know how these people work. These are my people, this is my world and you have my sincere apologies for dragging you all into it with me.”

“Sadie, sweetie –” Ralphie was getting up but I lifted my hand and shook my head. He took one look at my face, blinked slowly and settled, wordlessly (a miracle!), back on his stool.

“I don’t know what to do but I’ll figure something out and I’ll inform you of my plans when I’ve come to some conclusions. In the meantime, I know that the situation is grave and I appreciate all your help in keeping me safe.” I was barreling toward my grand finale and I swept across the room, snatched my coffee cup from the counter and started toward the door. “Now, I’m getting ready for work.” My eyes went to Hector. “Enjoy the brioche and have a nice day,” I finished.

Then on that I made the best exit I could on bare feet with no makeup, my heart in my throat, my stomach in a knot and while wearing silky, lacy pajamas and a robe that, I realized belatedly, I should have tied closed.

I got to the foot of the stairs thinking I’d made a clean getaway and no one would hear me if I cried in the shower when an arm sliced around my waist, laying waste to any hope of a successful exit.

In a smooth move that had to be in contention for the Smoothest Move in the History of Man, Hector curled me around to face him, took my coffee cup out of my hand, leaned to the side, placed it on a stair (without spilling a drop!), came back to me and locked his other arm around me, both of them going tight.

When he was done with this, my heart was hammering, I looked up at his blank face, Sorceress of the Antarctic thankfully still firmly in place.

“Let me go,” I demanded.

“Not a chance,” Hector returned instantly, the blank look disappearing as his eyes flashed with annoyance. Then he said what I personally thought was bizarrely, “Spent a year
hopin
’ you’d give me the opportunity to try this. Now that you have, I’m gonna take it and we’ll see how it plays out.”

Before I could ask what he was talking about or demand him to let me go again or, better still, tear out of his arms and make a run for it, one of his hands slid up my back into my hair, his head lowered, I opened my mouth to protest and his mouth was on mine.

I put my hands to his shoulders to push him away at the same I pulled my head back but his head came with mine, his tongue slid inside my mouth and (damn and blast!) my Sorceress of the Antarctic disintegrated right on the spot.

His heat hit me (and another kind of heat hit me in other places) and my hands stopped pushing at his shoulders. I went up on tiptoe, my casted hand curled around his neck, the fingers of my other hand slid into his thick hair.