Kristen Ashley - Rock Chick

“Barolo Grill.”

For a second, I forgot about my vow to avoid all things Lee.

“Oh. My. God! How did you know? I love it there!”

“Honey, you demand your family birthday dinners are there every year. It’s not hard to figure out you love it.”

Then he disconnected.

Something about his calling me “honey” and processing my desired birthday destination made my stomach flip over in a happy way.

“What’s this about not sleeping with Lee?” Ally asked.

I stared at Grizzly then looked in my rearview mirror. Matt was taking a call and shaking his head.

“You know how I’m saying Lee and I are taking it slow?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I’m taking it slow, Lee wants things to go a little faster.”

“I see.” Ally was grinning.

“What’s with the grin?” I demanded.

“Girl, you are so not gonna go slow.”

Great.

We got out of the car and walked up to Grizzly’s house. Ally forged ahead without a care in the world. I drug my heels and looked back at Matt. He’d gotten out of his SUV, pulled a handgun out of the back waistband of his jeans and tucked it in full view at the hipbone in the front. He leaned against his SUV and crossed his arms.

“They come back, sportin’ a bodyguard,” Grizzly said by way of greeting, not looking at us but looking at Matt. “So now, I suppose you want me to think you’re serious. Especially now with you and a shiner. Jeez. You knee him in the nuts?”

“How do you know it was a him?” I asked.

“Girls don’t go for the cheekbones.”

“Oh.” I didn’t know that.

“Did you?” Grizzly persisted.

“What?”

“Knee him in the nuts?”

“I bit him.”

“Bit him!” He threw his head back and laughed. “Next time, go for the gonads.”

“Good advice,” I said.

He looked at Matt. “Let me guess, trainee PIs.”

“No,” I said.

Grizzly swung his big head to me. “Bounty hunters?”

“Nope.”

“Not cops,” he said with derision.

“Un-unh.”

“Feds?” This was said with incredulity.

“I own a bookstore.”

Grizzly didn’t answer. Grizzly was staring at me as if a second head decided to sprout out of my neck at that moment.

“I’m a bartender and back up barista,” Ally put in.

Grizzly still didn’t answer. I noticed he had a cat in his lap and was stroking it. Two more cats sat on the cement railings of his porch and another one was curled up on his welcome mat, a welcome mat that had kitty-cat footprints printed on it.

“You like cats?” I asked.

“Who doesn’t like cats?” Grizzly returned.

“I like cats,” I assured him, and it was no lie, but I would have said it anyway because he also had a shotgun sitting across his lap.

“Me too,” Ally said.

Grizzly looked at Matt then back to us. “Who’s the guy?”

“Just ignore him, we are,” I told him.

Grizzly shrugged, it was all the same to him, then said, “Good thing you did for Mr. Kumar, he has it rough. Told me you were the biggest score he had all day with your cupcakes.”

I looked down the street to the corner store. Mr. Kumar was standing outside it, waving at us.

We waved back.

“We gotta take care of the little guy, you know? Franchises are takin’ over the fuckin’ world. In ten years this great nation is gonna be wall-to-wall franchise and every mom and pop shop is gonna be out of business. The franchise was the beginnin’ of the fuckin’ end for America. That and being able to turn on red. It’s red, man, don’t turn on red. Fuckin’ Nixon.”

I wasn’t sure what Nixon had to do with franchises and traffic lights but I wasn’t going to disagree with a guy who had a shotgun on his lap and weird goggles on his head.

“We’re looking for a friend of Tim Shubert’s, Tim lives across the road.”

“I know Tim. I know who you’re lookin’ for too. Mr. Kumar told me. Tim’s had lots of visitors the last couple of days. Seen him before,” he nodded at Matt then looked to us, “seen you before too.”

“His friend’s name is Rosie, little wiry guy, dirty blond hair?”

“The Coffee Man? Yeah, Tim brings back coffees for me. That guy is a genius.”

“Well, Rosie is my coffee man, he works at my bookstore.”

“No shit?”

“No shit.”

“That’s a great bookstore, used to be you could read all day and not be disturbed. The old lady was cool. It still like that?”

“That old lady was my Gram. She left me the store when she died, I just added coffee,” I replied.

“You thinkin’ of franchisin’?”

“No way.” I threw up my hands for emphasis, just in case he had any doubts to my sincerity.

He nodded. “Then you’re the little guy too. I’d come to support you, ‘cause I read a lot, but I don’t leave this block. Need to keep my eye on things.”

“Sure,” I agreed.

This guy was nuts, but I liked him anyway.

Ally gave him our card and he put his hand in his shirt pocket and gave Ally one in return.

All it said was, “Tex, Cat Sitter” and had his number.

“You have a cat and go on vacation, you know who to call. Though, I warn you, I do both dry and wet food. I’m not into doin’ just wet or just dry, they need a treat but they need to keep their teeth clean. It’s important.”

We nodded our agreement and then jogged down to see Mr. Kumar.

“Me and Tex have been looking for your Rosie, but we haven’t found him,” he assured us when we got to the door.

“Thanks Mr. Kumar,” I said.

“No Tim either. Now I’m worried and I think Tex is getting worried too. Lots of people coming to knock on Tim’s door. He’s never been this popular.”

“Rosie had a following, he makes good coffee and people miss him,” I told him.

“I can see this,” Mr. Kumar said.

I bought milk, corn chips, two diet pops and all the ingredients for the macaroni salad and brownies I needed to make for Dad’s barbeque. This cost me twice as much as it would if I’d just gone to King Soopers but Tex was right, we had to watch out for the little guy, especially me as I, too, was a little guy.

Mr. Kumar’s eyes filled up with tears as I brought all my stuff the counter.

“You are an angel from heaven,” he breathed.

Ally and I went to my house and unloaded the groceries then back to Fortnum’s where we sent Jane home and worked the last couple of hours before shutting down at six.

Ally took her car and I walked the two blocks home, Matt following me at a crawl.

On the walk home, I formed a plan. Rosie couldn’t go up in a puff of smoke and he wasn’t smart enough to hide so well, if Lee hadn’t found him, then something was up. If he got the diamonds and went to San Salvador, then where was Duke?

Unless something had happened to Rosie and Duke (which I hoped it had not), or Rosie had gone off looking for Duke (which would be stupid therefore not unheard of), Rosie had to be hanging out, waiting for Duke. If he was camping out near Duke’s house, waiting, then there would have been a forest fire by now (I didn’t imagine Rosie paid a lot of attention to fire safety).

Rosie was a bit of a loner, came to parties and went to concerts only when asked and without an entourage. I was certain Tim and The Kevster were his only friends.

Except me.

I boiled all these things down as best I could considering I was not a spy, a detective or a criminal mastermind.

What I came up with was that Rosie had to be somewhere close. He had to be taking advantage of a friend’s kindness. And, to my mind, since he wasn’t with The Kevster, and Tim had also disappeared, then Rosie and Tim were holed up somewhere. Maybe at Tim’s house, in the basement, with copious amounts of cheese puffs, coming out only when the coast was clear (or to bake a frozen pizza).

Or even if they’d stayed there for awhile and then cleared out, there may be evidence or a clue to where they went.

I needed to establish a pattern of Rosie’s movements. His car wasn’t at his house and he’d been to Duke’s yesterday morning. These were the only things I knew.

I decided I needed to search Tim’s house for clues. We were coming up with a big fat zero everywhere we went and I might as well.

Since it was illegal, first, I didn’t want Ally involved, and second, I didn’t want to do it in broad daylight.

I sent Matt a jaunty wave then I blew him a kiss for good measure before I went in the front of my house and closed the door behind me.

I stood there in happy oblivion at being home for the first time in two days.

I loved my duplex. Gram had died six years ago and it had taken me that long to make the place, which had been stuffed full of all her and Gramps’ crap (and there was a lot of it), my own.

The living room and dining room were one huge room though it looked like at one time it was two. The kitchen was in the back, obviously added on sometime after the house was originally built.

I’d painted everything a soft peach, I had chartreuse arm chairs and an electric blue sofa with clean lines and a kickass dining room table that could fold out to seat twelve people (though in a little bit of a crush). All of this gave off a feel of light, airy, modern and uncluttered. The floors were new hardwood and gleaming and I wanted to throw myself on them and kiss them.

Instead I ran to the phone and grabbed it. Lee would be at my place soon and I didn’t have a lot of time. I was sacrificing Barolo Grill for this, not to mention what was to be my first-ever “date” with Lee. If I didn’t hurry, I’d lose control and give in, give up and go with Lee.