Four
The funniest thing about fear, Rook discovered, was the feeling of his gums peeling back from his teeth and the flutter of sharp cuts running up and down his lungs and chest when the terror of his life finally hit him.
It hadn’t taken him a lot of effort to sneak into his place. Once his grandfather’s lawyers got him cut loose, he bolted for his place to wait out the crime lab team swarming through the building. Someone at LAPD boarded up the front of his shop and wreathed the devastation in do-not-cross stickers, and for some reason, the cops thought a realtor lock on the back door was somehow going to keep people out. Or maybe they were thinking it would keep out the general shambling hordes of thieves and opportunists running around in Hollywood, but the truth was, a three-year-old with a plastic hammer could break apart a lock box in a matter of minutes.
It’d taken him about a second and a twist of his wrist, but Rook wasn’t one to brag.
Or at least not when he had fear choking his throat as firmly as Montoya’s fingers had been around his neck.
“That wasn’t your neck Montoya had his hand around, fuckwad,” Rook scolded himself as he mounted the stairs to his apartment. “It was your goddamned dick. Okay, almost your dick. Through your jeans, but still, dick.”
He’d tried not to look at the store itself, but there was no avoiding it when he walked past a windowed wall to get to the stairwell leading up to his apartment. Avoiding the elevator itself was key. That particular horror was smack-dab behind the main showroom, and there was no way he could get to it without doing a full waltz across the ground floor.
Still, the police tape—the cursed yellow plastic shreds left behind in the rubble of Rook’s life—was fucking everywhere, and there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it.
Including ignore it.
His legs were wobbly from his waning adrenaline rush by the time he walked onto the slick wood of his living room floor. At the time, he’d thought leaving the former dance studio’s polished planks intact was a good idea, especially after he’d removed a wall of mirrors and practice rails. Now he was worried if the noise of his squeaking new sneakers would carry out of the open windows facing the street and down to the uniforms squatting in a cop car in front of the building.
It was a stark place, despite the warmth of its aged golden brick walls. He’d left most of the space unfurnished, mostly because he had no idea what to do with it. A long wall of ten-foot-tall black lacquer bookcases cordoned off the back third of the loft and hid the one piece of furniture he had purchased, a king-sized bed soft enough for him to bury himself in and not care if he slept the day away.
He’d miss that bed, but he didn’t love it enough to risk jail for it.
Enormous mullioned crank-levered windows dotted the loft’s three walls, allowing a fair amount of light into the space. Certainly enough light for him to scrape together a meal or two out of the kitchen he’d had installed against the space’s one solid wall, and blackout curtains took care of the sun and nightlife when he wanted to sleep. Left open, the windows pulled in the noise of living on the boulevard, and he’d fought many a losing battle with Hollywood’s erratic temperatures and breezes, usually giving up and shutting the windows to turn on the air-conditioning.
Much like he’d done when he’d planned to be away for a whole day. So Rook was slightly alarmed to find all of the drapes pulled back, leaving the windows bare—and Rook vulnerable.
He knew he didn’t leave the drapes open. Hell, he could barely remember his name at the moment, but he was pretty certain he’d closed every single swinging pane, locked them down, and pulled the blackout curtains before he’d gone gallivanting up and down the California coast.
“Cops?” Rook sniffed, nearly tasting the scent of authority muddling the air. “Why the drapes? Unless they were looking for something else.”
There was cop spooge everywhere. A stack of papers lay on the kitchen counter and, at the top of the pile, a boldly marked warrant authorizing access to Rook’s life and property. If he read the fine print, he was pretty sure there was a disclaimer the LAPD could shove a hand up his ass and use him to teach the alphabet to drooling children if he looked hard enough.
His wall safe was definitely pushing up daisies. Torn apart and nearly ripped clean out of its brick hidey-hole. Bits and pieces of it lay strewn on the floor with the faux crayon brain splatter painting he’d placed over it leaning brokenly against the wall. The lock box was stone-cold empty, missing the few thousand dollars and a couple of rare action figures he’d stashed there for good measure. He hadn’t expected any different, and Rook didn’t know what offended him more—the cops ripping him off or the thug smash-and-grab they’d pulled on him to do it.
“Well, fuck. They killed the safe. Hope they at least documented what they took. Fuckers.” The damage was pretty extensive, and if he’d given a shit Rook would take pictures and call in lawyers. But he was past giving a shit. He’d moved on to running until he found a place the LAPD couldn’t find or reach him. Taking a fast look at the safe, he toed the bent door. “Guess fucked-by-cops isn’t going to be covered by the warranty.”
The safe wasn’t Rook’s only hidey-hole. Not by a long shot. He’d put it in plain sight to seed the belief it was all he had on him, but there were larger, more secretive stashes around the apartment, and he’d come to clean himself out. He just had to grab what he could get his hands on and get out before LAPD’s forensics and burglary department came back around for a second look. Come dawn, his place would be swarming with cops again, and he wanted to be a speck on the horizon before that hell rained down on him.
A burbling tidbit of a song wafted out of the back of the loft, and he slowed his pace, stealthily creeping up on his intruder. It couldn’t be a cop. Not with lights off. No, it was someone using Hollywood’s neon glut and sparkling signs to provide them with enough light to see by—which explained the open drapes.
But not who opened them.
Rook had his answer when he stole around the screens and found a buxom, platinum-bleach blonde opening the door to one of his walk-in closets, her generous hourglass figure nearly tilted off balance by the red six-inch heels she daintily balanced on as she robbed him blind. The heels made her almost as tall as he was, bringing her up to nearly six feet. Which was good for Rook, since it made it easier to grab her.
Rook slid up behind his assistant, then clamped his hand over her mouth. “Hello, Charlene.”
Her scream would have been terrific. She’d once made her living from screaming at the top of her lungs while jiggling her generous assets. Built like a sexpot voluptuous enough to star in a movie about Amazonians on the moon, Charlene knew how to work her audience. No one did wide-eyed innocence like Charlene Canada, especially while celluloid monsters were ripping her clothing. But then no one could also con a mark like Char either. It was just a pity she didn’t have the brains to hold onto a con for the time it took to catch.
She’d spent most of her time on the circuit like he had, but unlike Rook’s stint as a rigger, Char worked the show, usually tied to spinning wheels while heavy daggers were thrown dangerously close to her body, then skipping out when her sleazy agent scraped up yet another B-movie role for her to die in.
When Rook decided it was time to go legit, she’d tagged along for the ride, hoping her proximity to Hollywood would help her lackluster career. He hadn’t the heart to tell her she’d gone the Norma Desmond route, a bit too old and dried up to compete with the newer crops of plastic dolls and pouting lips. Char still had fight in her, and he got a full dose of it when her teeth sunk into his fingers. She’d bite down hard enough to draw blood and then scream blue bloody murder when he let go, leaving him mostly deaf and nursing a migraine. He’d been around Charlene long enough to learn that lesson the hard way.
He also knew Charlene well enough to dodge one of those killer heels when she brought a stiletto tip up to pierce his balls, hoping he’d let go.
“Char, it’s me.”
She mumbled through her fingers, and he sighed. Charlene was a soft, round warmth in his arms, but he wasn’t stupid. Where the stiletto might have missed, the steel-hard fake nails she sported could blind him just as quickly if she was given half the chance.
“Which me? Rook. The guy who pretty much pays your bills. I’m going to take my hand away now. Do. Not. Scream.”
He lifted his hand a few centimeters away from her mouth, his palm and fingers sticky with the bright red lipstick Charlene called her signature look.
“How do I know it’s you?” she accused in a hot whisper. “You could be anyone just saying you’re Rook.”
“Char, if you knew how much to shit and hell my life has gone to right now, you’d know no one would want to be me.” He gently pulled away from Char, tugging the hem of her nearly too tight T-shirt back down over her butt. “How the hell did you get inside? The back door still had a lock box on it.”
“Oh, someone left the loading bay door unlocked. I came in through there.” She smiled prettily. “I was going to lock up when I left. I just came by for a few things and saw the cops in front, so I went out back, and, woot for me, it was open.”
If it hadn’t been open, Char probably would have jiggled her way past the cops and somehow conned them to let her in. She was good at that. Cold air hit his face, chilled to a temperature meant to maintain the costumes stored inside. Frowning, he was about to close the door when Charlene clamped her hand around its edge.
He eyed her. “And what are you doing in the chill-closet? The costumes in here aren’t to borrow. It’s inventory.”
“I… um… kind of was going to borrow something to wear to a party. I found these awesome lilac shoes and some stuff to wear.” Her words ran together, a sugary stream of excuses threaded together in a practiced cutesy voice she could no longer shake. “It’s really important, Rook. Like producers being there and stuff. I have to look good—”
“You always look good.” He began to pull her fingers off the door. “You don’t need anything to—”
“It’s one of those steampunk parties. I don’t have anything like that.” Char stepped back, studying Rook in the pale light coming from the windows. “Come on. I could really use something nice. It’s very, very important. There’s this part—”
“It’s always important, Char.” Rook was about to shut the door, then stopped. He was going to bail. What did it matter if Charlene emptied out the whole fucking chill box? Hell, he didn’t even have anyone to leave the shit to. Stepping back, he threw the door open for her. “You know what, help yourself. Hell, clean the place out. And if the cops didn’t get to it, there should be a tackle box in the shoe sections. Inside one of the embroidered silk slippers, there should be a couple of burner credit cards with ten grand on them. Skip town. Go under for a while, because God knows, I’m going to.”
“Don’t you… need it?” Charlene glanced over her shoulder to the closet, obviously torn.
“Nah, I’ve got my own. I’m just staying long enough to grab a few things. Like that old Bowie knife I won from Perkins. I promised him I’d give it back to him.”
He stalked off, heading to the screens. Charlene made confused noises behind him, but Rook was more intent on finding the knife he’d stashed in an apothecary cabinet. Staring at the nearly twenty-five drawers, Rook wondered what the hell he had been thinking when he’d hidden the knife.
“What kind of fucking idiot hides a weapon someplace in this?” Rook focused on the cabinet, ignoring the increasingly louder tap of Charlene’s stilettos on the floor. “Probably five from the bottom. That’s something I’d do.”
It was the wrong drawer, but from the amount of condoms he’d stashed there, he’d obviously been planning an orgy to rival Caligula.
“What do you mean do a runner? You can’t run. What are you running from?”
Charlene’s fingers on his shoulder were gentle, and he sighed, refusing to turn and look into her bright blue eyes. They’d be watery, brimming with tears and spiking the heavy black fake eyelashes she liked to wear. And unlike every other time he’d seen her turn on the waterworks, she’d be sincere and concerned.
Rook didn’t know if he could take that worry at the moment. It would burn more than a knife to the ribs, but not answering would… hurt her, and he’d be damned if he sliced off another bit of Charlene’s tender heart just because he wasn’t man enough to look at her.
“Did you see downstairs, Char?” Rook twisted slightly and slid his arm around her tiny waist. “Did you see the blood on the floor?”
“There’s blood downstairs?” Her eyes popped open and her throat fluttered with shock. If she’d been wearing pearls, Char would have clutched them in full dramatics, unable to separate the woman she was from the caricature she’d created. “I just thought someone broke in or something. How… blood? Really?”
“Do you remember Dani Anderson?”
Charlene’s baby-doll face went full Chucky at the mention of the woman who’d nearly gotten Rook killed.
“Someone murdered her. Here. Downstairs. In the shop. And the cops think I did it.”
“Well, who would blame you?” Charlene let out a lingering hiss. “I’d have killed her too.”
“I didn’t, though. Kill her. From what I can tell, they did a full Rasputin on her. Knife. Everything.” Rook tilted his head back, slightly shocked at Char’s blasé acceptance. “You think I’d kill her?”
“Like I said….” She shrugged. “Who’d blame you?”
“Well… I didn’t. Kill her.” Rook let her go so he could find Perkins’s knife. “There’s a suitcase in the other closet—well, a couple of them—if you want to pack up some of the stuff to take with you—”
“I can’t believe you’re running. You didn’t kill her.” Charlene sat down on his bed, wrinkling its dark red duvet. “You weren’t even here.”
“Yeah, well, I walked in, and then the bitch fell on me. It was like her final fuck-you-Rook. Damned cops stripped me naked because I had blood all over me.” Rook pointed to the T-shirt and jeans the lawyer brought him to change into. “Do you really think I’d buy a pair of four-hundred-dollar jeans?”
“They’re nice. You’ve got a really good ass.” Charlene barely blinked when he shot her a dirty look. Waving away his disgust, she pouted. “Besides, you can’t run. You’ve got to fight this. You can’t let them take away everything you’ve done. It’s just not fair.”
“Done? What have I done?” The knife was elusive, but he did find a few vintage Chinese finger puzzles from a mail-in-box-top campaign from the fifties. “Shouldn’t you be packing shit up instead of talking to me here? Wonder if the cops found the damned knife and took it to match up to Dani’s wounds. That would be fucked-up.”
“Are you really going to let them take away your normal?”
Charlene’s words chilled his spine, and he stopped pulling out drawers to look at her. This time there were no tears in her big baby blues, just pity and sadness.
“Think about it, Rook honey. Here… this place… downstairs, it’s the first place you could call home. It’s your home, and I know you haven’t gotten around to accepting that because, I mean, look around you. It’s not like you’ve put down roots, but you could. If you tried. If you wanted to.”
“I—”
“Are you going to let Dani take this from you too?” she asked in her whispery, sugarcoated voice. “Don’t you want to have someplace where you live and everyone knows you? Like the coffee shop guy who flirts with you while he makes your order? Or the Chinese food delivery guy who knows you like wooden chopsticks instead of a plastic fork? Aren’t you sick of running, Rook? Of living out of trailers and suitcases because that’s all you think you’re worth? Because that’s what she’s taking from you, baby. Your normal.”
He wanted to protest, wanted to say something witty or even to tell Char to fuck off, but Rook found his throat closing in on his words, muffling his fear and anger. The loft was bare, boasting only a bed and a few plastic lawn chairs he’d gotten at a drug store down the street. His dishes were mostly Melmac pieces he’d found in estate lots he’d blind purchased at auctions. Hell, even his coffee machine had been one of those free-when-you-order deals online.
It was all disposable.
Just like he was.
Like he’d been.
Rook stood in front of what felt like a hundred open drawers and laid bare by Charlene’s words. His stomach did a final turn before settling into a lump in his guts. Honesty was never something he’d believed in. It got in the way of too many things he needed to do, grew too many morals and ethics if allowed to nest in his life, and the last thing Rook Stevens ever wanted in the past was to be burdened by an overabundance of right and wrong.
Except now when he hadn’t done the unthinkable—when he hadn’t crossed the one line he’d stood firm on in the past—taking another person’s life.
And he’d be damned if he was going to run for something he hadn’t done.
Not and lose everything he’d gained by turning his back on the life he’d had before. He’d worked past the itchy feeling of owning a building, of creating a life that wasn’t made out of smoke and mirrors, and even choked down the sick coming up from his stomach when he’d filled out paperwork to start a legitimate business and paid an aging starlet a decent wage so she could audition for parts she had no chance at.
Charlene was right. He’d earned his fucking normal, and neither Dani Anderson nor Los Angeles’s finest were going to take it from him.
He closed the drawers one by one, setting them back into place, then turned around to lean against the cabinet, nodding slowly at the woman on his bed.
“Yeah, you’re right. Screw running.” Even saying it out loud made his nerves tingle and curl up into themselves. “I’m going to fight this out. I’m worth that much, right?”
“And more, baby.” Charlene clapped, her voice hitting a high note sharp enough to pierce his eardrums. “Um, just one thing—hope you don’t mind if I take the cards and the costume anyway. I mean, I love you and everything, Rook, but I ain’t that stupid.”
The taxi cab driver pulled up in front of the looming castle the Martins called home, and Rook silently bore the hushed whistle from the driver when he caught sight of the brick monstrosity his great-great-grandfather paid to lug over from the British Isles. The place was a Pick-Up Stix game of brick and windows, laced with creeping ivy and set in a polished setting of formal gardens, house-sized fountains, and barricaded behind bristling wrought-iron fences.
Rook liked to think of it as Barad-dûr because if any place deserved to be called The Dark Tower, it was his grandfather’s looming mansion.
Rook’d been surprised when the taxi was waved through the fortified community gates once the security guard got his name, and he caught an even bigger surprise when the guard carded the driver’s till, paying for Rook’s ride with a flash of black plastic.
He was too tired to argue with the driver over a tip, pressing a twenty into the man’s hand and waving him off. Rook barely heard the cab pull away, and, suddenly confronted by the enormity of what he was doing, he wondered bleakly if it was too late to simply throw himself into the gigantic pool of geysers and statues someone’d thoughtfully left in the middle of the castle’s driveway.
But he wasn’t so tired that it didn’t shock the shit out of him when his grandfather opened the front door a second after he rang the bell.
Archibald Martin was everything Rook was not. A chiseled-from-stone despotic patriarch of a wealthy family, Archibald grew up with privilege, money, and a firm philosophy the world owed him its obedience and worship. Sporting a shock of thick white hair and a beaked nose built to intimidate, the man probably once would have towered over Rook, but time crimped his shoulders downward, and he used a cane to support an iffy back and hip. Still, Rook’s mismatched eyes looked back at him from under Archie’s wooly caterpillar eyebrows, hardened by resolve and age without a hint of tenderness for the young man standing on his doorstep.
“So you’ve come home, then?” Archibald barked, stepping slightly aside to let Rook in, a black velvet dressing gown swishing around his pajama-clad legs. “Not taking off to the wilds like your mother.”
“Nah, thought I’d spit in their fucking eye for once,” he commented softly, hefting a duffel of clothes and toiletries onto his shoulder. Rook still hadn’t crossed the threshold, held back by the pressing finality of it all. It was one thing to let a pack of lawyers chew him out of jail, but to tuck himself up under Archibald’s wing stuck something hard and sharp in his throat. Instead he stood still, silently weighing his actions.
“In or out, boy. Worse than a goddamned cat, you are,” Archibald grumbled. “I don’t have all night to stand here. I’m old. I need my sleep. You probably do too since those damned cops kept you for so damned long. Ought to fire those fucking lawyers if they couldn’t get you out before midnight. What’s the use of paying those vultures if they take that long to pick a corpse clean to the bone. Get in before I change my mind and shut the door in your face.”
That brought Rook up, and he cocked his head, staring at his grandfather. Something in Rook’s expression must have tickled the last remaining shred of decency in the old man’s soul, because his hard face softened, and Archibald shook his head with regret.
“I shouldn’t have said that. You don’t deserve that kind of shit from me. Bad enough you got it from your mother. I’m just—”
“A fucking asshole?” Rook supplied smoothly, shifting the pack’s strap until it lay more comfortably across his shoulder.
“I was going to say old, but fucking asshole works too,” his grandfather huffed. “Come in. We’ll find a place for you. You stay here and fight. I’ll have your back, boy.”
“Name’s Rook, old man,” he muttered, finally stepping across the threshold, and his grandfather sighed while closing the door.
“Yeah, I know, kid. It’s already bad enough you look and sound like me,” the old man muttered. “But did she have to name you after me too?”