1980
“Are you sure you can go? Why don’t you let someone else go?” Grizz asked Kit as they stood in the small living room of number four.
“I’m fine. The nausea isn’t as bad as it was,” she said as she looked up into his green eyes. They looked worried.
“What if you feel sick while you’re driving? You know what? Give me your keys. I’ll drive you.”
“Grizz, you are overreacting. I think I can handle a drive to the grocery store. Just the fact that I’m feeling like I can cook again must mean the worst has passed.” She cringed when she thought about how the smell of any kind of meat cooking made her want to empty her stomach. But she hadn’t thrown up in three days. That was something. Maybe the morning sickness—or in this case, the all-day sickness—was finally gone.
She wrapped her arms around his waist and stood on her tiptoes to kiss him on the mouth. “I love how much you love me, and I love you even more, but it’s just the grocery store.” She laughed at herself. “Hey, I made a rhyme!”
He pulled her closer and deepened the kiss. “There is no way you could love me more than I love you, Kitten. And, if you really are feeling better, maybe you can stay here for a little while longer,” he said in a teasing tone.
“Let me go to the grocery store and maybe I’ll make it worth your while when I get back,” she teased back.
He became very serious then. He gently took her face in his hands, rubbing her cheek with his right thumb. “I’m only teasing, you know.” He nodded toward the bedroom. Without waiting for her to answer, he added, “As much as I love making love with you, Kitten, it’s not about that with you. It never has been.”
His brow creased as he tried to come up with the words that could describe how much he loved her.
As much as she wanted to hear the words, she knew how difficult this was for him. She smiled and grabbed his wrist, slowly turned it so her lips met the inside of his palm. “I know, Grizz. I know.”
He was so overprotective. It was just the grocery store. Her heart swelled with love for him as she grabbed her purse and keys. Soon they would be moving into their new home. They were going to have a baby, and to top it off, Grizz was going to be finished with the gang. She couldn’t have been happier.
He reluctantly let her go and watched as she walked out the door. He stepped to the window, and his eyes followed her as she strolled down the motel sidewalk, disappearing around the side of the office.
It was then that he noticed a car. Chowder was talking to the person behind the wheel. He squinted to see if he could make out the driver. He watched Chowder step back from the driver’s side of the car and point to the highway. He must have been giving a lost motorist directions. It wouldn’t have been the first time an unsuspecting traveler had accidentally turned into the motel.
As the car made its way around the pit and started to pass in front of number four, Grizz stepped back from the window so he couldn’t be seen. But not before he recognized the driver.
What was Matthew Rockman doing at the motel?
Immediately, Grizz went to the telephone and dialed a number. “I have someone I need you to check out.”
Less than a week later, Grizz pulled into the overgrown parking lot of an abandoned building in an older section of Hollywood. It looked like it had been some type of factory in better days. His contact had run a check on Matthew Rockman, then set up this meeting for him.
Two minutes later, an expensive luxury car pulled up next to him. The man got out and slid into the passenger side of Grizz’s car.
“What do you need, Grizz?” The man, Cary Lewis, was dressed in a pricey, well-tailored suit. He reeked of confidence, expensive cologne, and maybe a little arrogance. Grizz was the only person he would ever meet in this type of circumstance. He wasn’t a cloak and dagger kind of guy, but Grizz was different. He required special attention and he paid well for it. Cary had three ex-wives, five kids, and a twenty-two-year-old girlfriend. He was only too happy to comply.
Grizz handed him an envelope. “There’s a kid coming out of law school soon.”
“You need me to give him a job?”
“No,” Grizz said slowly. “Not a job. I need you to get close to him, though. It’s still too early to tell for sure, but I might need you.”
“What’s his name and what do you need me to do?” Cary asked.
“His name is Matthew Rockman.”
“Okay, sure, Matthew Rockman. Do you know any more details? What kind of law he’s studying, anything like that?”
“It’s all in there,” Grizz nodded toward the envelope now resting on Cary’s lap.
“Okay, what else? What do you need me to do?”
Grizz looked at Cary hard. “You need to earn his trust.” He paused. “And when you’re certain that he trusts you implicitly—”
Cary waited. “Yeah, what?”
“You need to make certain he thinks you hate me as much as he does.”
**********
After the meeting with Cary, Grizz drove to The Red Crab. He went inside and headed for his office. Chicky spotted him out of the corner of her eye and signaled him that she needed to talk to him. He switched directions and started walking toward her. He liked Chicky. She was one of the few women he’d slept with who he might actually consider a real friend.
He remembered how Chicky, who used to go by Rhonda, had tried years earlier to rope him into some kind of relationship. He never minded that she offered her body. It was when she tried to make it into something more that she used to piss him off. He was relieved when she set her sights on someone else. He even smiled when he remembered how Chicky had eventually passed the torch to Willow and how hard Willow vied for his love. How did that whore think he could possibly even like her, let alone love her?
Then his smile faded as he recalled something else. The night Monster had brought Kit to the motel. How Willow had lunged for her. And later, Willow’s involvement in Kit’s rape. He should’ve broken her fucking neck that very first night.
Chicky interrupted his thoughts. “Hey, Grizz. Listen, just wanted you to know Guido’s been looking for you. He stopped in here earlier and said he’s been paging you and calling everywhere he can think of.”
Grizz grabbed the pager off his belt and looked at it. “Didn’t get a page from Guido.”
Just as he said it, the pager went off, displaying a digital number with “911” next to it. Urgent. He headed for his office and dialed the phone.
“It’s me.”
“It’s about time, boss. I’ve been trying to get a hold of you for hours!”
“Page just came through. What’s so fucking important?”
“There’s something you need to know. Her mother, your wife’s mother—”
“What about Kit’s mother?”
“I think she’s looking for her.” Guido took a breath. “Actually, I think she’s looking for you.”