Then something occurred to me and I put the phone down and stared at it.

If Lee and his boys could disable the alarm, get into my store, wire it, install cameras and re-enable the alarm, then they could bug my phones too.

Crap.

I looked out the window and saw Matt sitting in his SUV. He wasn’t leaving.

Crap again.

Maybe I was being paranoid but I wasn’t going to take any chances.

I ran upstairs. Two bedrooms separated by a bath, my bedroom in back had a door to a balcony that was half the roof of my kitchen, half overhanging my brick-paved backyard. The front room was the TV room and where I kept my desk.

I wrote a note for Lee and ran downstairs and put it on the ottoman that sat between my sofa and chairs and served as a coffee table.

The note said, “Something came up. Rain check?”

I had no idea if he’d come into my house, but if he did, he’d see it. If he didn’t, I wasn’t going to put the note on the door for Matt to see it now. Lee would just have to think he was stood up. I’d explain later (or find a believable lie).

I ran back upstairs, went out to the balcony and jumped the small railing to my neighbor’s balcony and then banged on their outside bedroom door.

Tod and Stevie lived next door. They were both flight attendants. They had a chow dog named Chowleena who gave more attitude than either Tod or Stevie, and as Tod was the top drag queen in Denver, this meant Chowleena threw a lot of ‘tude. I watched Chowleena when they were both on flights and I loved that dog, I understood attitude, admired it, respected it and encouraged it. Her two Dads were of her ilk. Stevie made eggs benedict from scratch and always smiled and kissed your cheek when he saw you. Tod could lip sync to “Time and Tide” like nobody’s business, could make me laugh so hard tears rolled down my cheeks and we shared the same dress size. They kept the yard tidy and were quiet. They were the best neighbors ever.

Tod opened the door and stared at me.

“Girlie, what in the hell are you doing? And what happened to your face?”

I pushed into their bedroom, shut the door behind me and ran it down for him.

I told him about the shooting, diamonds, coffee guy, stun-gunning, kidnapping, Lee’s sex extortion plans and the love-of-my-life business and even Tex with the goggles. I explained I needed to hang out at their house until Lee came and went or I’d likely be charmed out of my panties and have my heart broken by seven o’clock Monday morning.

Tod blinked.

Then he said, as he linked arms with me and walked me out of his room, “Stevie’s barbequing chops. I’m sure we have extra.”

They always had extra and not much fazed Tod. We’d been living next to each other for years, he was used to my escapades, not to mention he was a drag queen. I’d have to add murder and perhaps an international incident involving royalty to faze Tod.

* * *

At eleven o’clock, I jumped the railing back to my house.

Stevie had interrupted our Yahtzee marathon, played nosy neighbor and saw Lee come and go. Somehow, Lee had gone into my house, opened the door with what Stevie said appeared to be a key, and left with the note in his hand.

“Uh-oh, gorgeous hunk is unhappy,” Stevie said.

My stomach lurched.

I decided I’d worry about that later.

While Stevie was still looking out the window, he asked, “Tell me again why you don’t want him in your panties?”

Jeez.

For my evening’s activities, I pulled my hair back at my nape in a ponytail and put on a black turtleneck, black jeans, black cowboy boots and my black belt with the tiny rhinestones in the buckle (because if I was gonna get arrested, I was gonna go in looking good, regardless of my shiner).

I grabbed my bag and keys and jumped the railing again. In an effort to avoid a tail, I made a deal to trade car keys with Stevie and Tod for the night, so I took off in their CR-V.

The whole way, I checked for a tail, spending more time looking in my mirrors than at the road. I was looking for any car that might be following me but looking especially for Lee’s Crossfire, a motorcycle that looked like it was being driven by an unhappy hunk or an SUV. Since nearly every car in Denver was an SUV, I was panicked throughout the drive to Tim’s but I couldn’t see anyone following me.

By the time I turned down Tim’s block, no one was behind me, not for blocks.

I didn’t waste any time. I wanted to be in and out of there as fast as I could. I had no idea what I’d find, but I hoped it would be Rosie hiding in the basement and this whole mess would be over.

I got out of the car and walked right up to the house.

No lights on at Tim’s, no lights on at the neighbors. It was nearing midnight and even though the next day was a Saturday, it seemed like no one was keeping a late night.

I knocked on the door, waited for an answer, listened for any sound at all to come from the house.

Nothing.

“It’s Indy Savage, if Rosie’s in there, I’m just here to help. I swear,” I whispered as loud as I dared.

Still nothing.

I tried the door and it was locked.

I did the same with the backdoor and then I went around the house, trying to look in the windows and checking to see if they’d slide up. I couldn’t see much and every single window was either painted shut or locked.

“Fuck!” I hissed, under my breath, standing next to a window at the east side of the house.

Then something settled on my shoulder.

I gave a little screech and whirled, not knowing who I’d see. It could be Lee, Wilcox’s goons, the shooters, a police officer or Dracula.

Instead, it was Tex standing there with the goggles no longer on the top of his head, but over his eyes.

He put his finger to his lips, then, a scant second later, put his fist through the window.

I stared at the window, then back at Tex, then back at the window.

“What are you doing?” I whispered.

“B and E, darlin’,” he answered casually. He was wearing a flannel shirt and work gloves and pushing all the glass away from the window pane.

“You can’t break someone’s window! We should have tried to jimmy one open.”

“Quit your squawkin’ and get in there.” Then he grabbed me by the waist, picked me up and threw me through the window like I weighed no more than a bag of flour.

“Careful of the glass,” he called.

Too late, I’d landed on the glass and rolled away, hoping nothing cut me but I was too wired to feel a thing. I got to my feet and looked around in the darkness a little hysterically. Something smelled seriously funky and not in a good way.

Tex heaved himself in behind me and I spun around to glare at his hulking shadow.

“Are you crazy?” I asked a crazy man. “You just threw me through a window.”

“You looked like you were gettin’ second thoughts.”

“It’s dark, you can’t see me.”

He tapped his goggles. “Night vision.”

Shit.

Shit, shit, shit.

“Don’t like that smell,” Tex remarked, and I could hear him sniffing the air because I couldn’t see a thing. “That’s not a good smell.”

He was right, it was a terrible smell.

“You stay here, I’ll have a look around.” Then I saw his shadow move off.

“Don’t leave me here!”

“Don’t be such a girl,” he returned, already somewhere else in the house and I found it odd such a big man could walk on such quiet feet. He barely made a sound.

I stood in the dark, thinking we’d probably made an awful lot of noise breaking the window and I listened for the sirens that would mean my doom. Dad would be seriously hacked off and Malcolm would make sure Kitty Sue didn’t invite me to the Fourth of July barbeque. I didn’t even want to think what Hank would say.

Then I wondered if one of the other teams in the Rosie Hunt would have the same and come, say tonight, say at that exact time. Say that team was the shooters, say it was the shooters with guns drawn.

“Tex, where are you?” I whispered. Loudly.

I started to make my way through the shadowy rooms and the further I got into the house, the funkier the smell was.

“You don’t wanna come in here.” I heard Tex say when it seemed I’d hit ground zero on the smell.

I put my hand over my nose and mouth. “What is it?”

His shadow was still as a statue and the way he was holding himself scared me.

“Is it Rosie?” I asked, looking around the dark room which I could tell was a kitchen but not much else.

Tex moved, he took off the goggles and then settled them on my face. My hand fell away from my mouth and everything went green. I could see much better, but unfortunately this included the body of a man, his butt on the floor, back to the cupboards, legs splayed out in front. He had dark stains on his face, the origin of which came from what appeared to be a hole in his forehead.

“Oh. My. God,” I breathed and then everything went bright, so bright it blinded me and I cried out in surprise.

A hand came over my mouth and the goggles were torn from my head.

“Keep quiet, for fuck’s sake.”

It was Lee. He’d turned on the kitchen light and when he was certain I wouldn’t yell again, he took his hand from my mouth.

I turned and looked at him and he was staring down at the body, his face tight.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“Yeah? What’re we? Havin’ a party?” Tex asked.

Lee turned cold eyes to Tex and Tex said no more.

Then Lee turned to me.