you know anyone that would want to hurt Diane?” Chavez asked.
I shook my head. “Not that I know of, but I wasn’t a part of her world anymore. I don’t know what she was into, outside of what I told you. But she was so deep into what she was into, who knows what else she got herself into.”
“This voice on the phone,” Hank put in. “You think you might remember who it is?”
I shook my head again but said, “I hope so. If I do, I’ll tell you. But it isn’t coming to me now.”
“It might,” Chavez said. “Things are extreme now, Rebel. Your head clears out, it might happen. My advice, don’t try too hard. Just take care of you, Diane’s parents, and let it come if it comes. No pressure.”
“Right,” I replied.
“You see anyone come, go, anything around Diane’s house when you pulled up, walked to the door, sat in the car waiting for the police?” Hank asked. “Anything, Rebel. A car, someone walking by, movement in any of the other houses?”
I had to shake my head again. “No, and I was looking. I was freaked. I was freaked sitting in my car in her ’hood and waiting for the cops. I was freaked about what might be happening with Diane. So I was hyper-alert. I still didn’t see a thing.”
Hank and Chavez glanced at each other before they looked back to me.
“That’s all we have now, Rebel,” Hank said. “Drink your water. Freshen up in the bathroom. Eddie and me need to have a chat. Then we’ll head out to see Diane’s parents.”
I looked between them both and stood up.
But I ended my look on Chavez.
“I’ll tell you what I told Hank. That wasn’t her, what was in her house tonight. She was good. Diane Ragowski was a good person. A good woman. A good friend. A good daughter. Until she wasn’t. But that part was always with her. It was just who she was. It was the drugs that made her something she wasn’t.”
“She doesn’t have to be good for me to work my ass off to find out what happened to her, Rebel,” Chavez replied. “But I’m glad to know she had people who loved her and at one point in her life, earned that.”
She had that.
People who loved her.
Okay, time to deep breathe again.
“Thanks,” I mumbled.
And having said my piece, I decided to let them have their chat so we could move on to the next bodacious part of this fabulous late-night party.
“Bathroom?” I asked.
“I’ll show you,” Chavez said, pushing off the desk again.
He showed me. I drank my water, threw the cup in the trash in the bathroom, freshened up as best I could, went out and met them again at Hank’s desk.
Then I led them to Paul and Amy’s house and we moved on to the next bodacious part of this fabulous late-night party.
It was seven million times worse than what had come before.
It was also a time I’d never forget.
And then there’d come a time I was glad for that.
Because I would need to remember just how hideous it was in order to make sure I got the job done.
Hank had been right.
I surprised myself with the stuff I could do.
The good.
And the bad.
You Got Balls After All
Chew
Seven months later . . .
He stood with his shoulders against the back gate. She’d come out. He’d watched. She always came out, pissed off and grumbling to herself because her man did not keep things the way she wanted them kept, and that was somehow her man’s fault.
Chew did not get that shit.
If a bitch wanted something her way, she should just fucking do it. Don’t ride your man’s ass about it. He doesn’t want it that way. He doesn’t give a shit the trash was taken out every night so you wouldn’t smell it. Who gives a fuck?
You don’t like the smell, haul the trash out your own self, bitch.
Well, she did. And there she was, looking ticked as shit and grumbling about what a loser her man was.
Sure, it was the middle of the night after a long shift at a roadhouse. She was probably tired. And her man hadn’t shown for work, as usual. Chew had staked it out and he’d seen. So she was probably seriously tired since she had to do her shift and his.
But it was her that wanted the trash out, for fuck’s sake.
She’d run a bar for decades.
It didn’t take her but a couple