by Chiah Wilder
Kissing her gently, he stroked her cheek. “Me too,” he murmured against her lips.
“Can you please close the door now? I feel like we’re tempting fate. I really don’t want Jerry to see me half-naked.”
“Neither do I.” He zipped his pants, winked at her, then strode over and shut the door. “What time do you get off work?”
“At five. Did you want to go out to eat? It’ll be my treat.”
“We can get some barbecue. And I’ll pay. No arguments about it. You know I’m old-fashioned that way. No way am I gonna have a woman pay for me.” He held his hand up and came over to her, his finger tracing her jawline. “Having you in my life is a treat. I’ll pick you up at six thirty. I got some shit to do right now.”
Shaking her head, she leaned forward and hugged him. “You’re too sweet. Six thirty is good. I better get back to work. I have all these boxes to unpack and inventory.” She swept her hand over a stack of boxes to the left.
“I’ll see you later, sweet pea.” He brushed his lips across hers and left the room.
As he walked down Main Street, he bumped into Goldie. “Hey, dude. What’re you up to?” Goldie said.
“I just stopped by to see Fallon. I’m going to get her something for her birthday. It’s coming up soon and I have some time to kill, so I thought I’d get it today.”
“I don’t have shit to do. I’ll hang with you and afterward we can grab a beer. I just got back from visiting my grandma.”
Diablo’s face softened. “How’s she doing?”
Goldie raked his fingers through his thick blond hair. “About the same. She still recognizes me, so that’s a plus. Alzheimer’s a fucking awful disease. I can’t believe she got it. I mean, she’s always been the nicest, sweetest person I’ve ever known. If it weren’t for her, I don’t know where I’d be. She took me in when my mom bailed.”
Diablo clasped Goldie’s shoulder. “It fuckin’ sucks when bad shit happens to the good ones and great shit happens to the fuckin’ assholes. Life can be a twisted puppet master. Fuck.”
Goldie nodded. “What’re you planning to buy for Fallon? Before you answer that, I gotta admit I never thought I’d live to see the day where you’d be shopping for gifts for a woman. Dude, you’re so hooked.” He chuckled.
“I’m shopping for Fallon, not just any woman. And… yeah. I’m fuckin’ hooked in a big way.”
They went into a shop at the end of Main Street. Lace ’N’ Things catered to women and had a little bit of everything, from beautiful stationery to naughty lingerie. The saleslady’s eyes widened when the two bikers entered. “May I help you?” she said, the lines around her eyes deepening when she frowned.
“Need to get something sexy for my woman,” Diablo said as he glanced around the store.
“Like lingerie? We have some very pretty pieces and they go from sweet to… well… to not so sweet. The ones we have are against the back wall.”
Diablo turned to where she pointed. “I’ll check ’em out.”
“Do you have stuff that has cutouts, like where the tits and pussy are?” Goldie said.
The woman’s face blanched and Diablo chuckled. Goldie didn’t have filters. “Uh… no. We don’t carry that kind of lingerie. Maybe you’d have some luck online.” She turned away quickly and started rearranging a stack of lace scarves on one of the display counters.
“What the fuck’s her problem?” Goldie asked.
“You’re fuckin’ clueless, dude. Let me check out what they got.”
The two men looked at the different teddies, babydolls, and two-pieces. “I like them with the cutouts. I think it’s sexy as fuck.” Goldie had a black teddy in his hand.
“I like where you can untie shit. Covering up can be sexier than showing everything right off.” Diablo pulled out a sheer lilac teddy with pretty satin ribbons over the breasts and crotch. He knew Fallon would love that the ribbons had tiny flowers on the end, and he loved that the back was a thong. They could have some real fun with that one. “I’m gonna get this one. Let’s go.”
As they exited the shop, Goldie laughed. “I bet we’re gonna be the topic of discussion at that uptight lady’s next potluck. Now let’s grab a beer.”
“I need another gift that’s all for Fallon. If you were a woman, what would you want?”
“I know what I wouldn’t want—you. I’d prefer a blond, blue-eyed stud like me.”
“Fuck you,” Diablo said as they headed to Eldorado Street.
They walked down the street and a small shop with different shaped perfume bottles caught his eye. Twenty minutes later he came out of the shop with a perfume bottle of a bejeweled woman dressed for a masquerade and a bottle of Chanel perfume Chance Eau Fraîche. When the lady had spritzed it on a piece of paper and he smelled it, he knew it’d be perfect for Fallon. Its scent reminded him of her, and he knew she’d love the light, airy perfume that had a woody lemon-infused fragrance.
“Are you done spoiling your woman? I need a beer.” Goldie said.
“Done. Let’s go to Bulldog Pub.”
The pub was a mass of people and noise as the two bikers took the booth next to the front window. They placed their order for two drafts, two orders of buffalo wings, and a basket of fries. They talked about Goldie’s new Harley and the customizing Diablo wanted to add to his bike as they scarfed down the wings and fries, ordering another round of draft beer.
“Whoa,” Goldie said as he set his glass down. He motioned the waitress to come over. “Send that cutie a drink.”
“Do you want me to tell her it’s from you?”
“Why not? I may get lucky.” He laughed and the waitress walked away to fill the order. “She’s a looker.”
Diablo looked over, but from where he was seated, he could only see the back of her. He turned back to Goldie. “She’s a citizen. You know how you regret taking up with one of ’em.”
“Yeah, but it’s fucking fun while I’m with them. Oh yeah, she’s smiling at me. Wait, she’s coming over here. Now don’t scare her away.”
Diablo jerked his head back. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Don’t give her the evil eye. You do that a lot, you know. It intimidates the hell outta citizens.”
“This is the way I fuckin’ look.”
“Here she comes.”
The woman came over and smiled at Goldie; then she turned to Diablo and her face fell. He took in her tight jeans, low-cut top, and heavily made-up face and shock tore through him. “Taya? What the hell are you doing in Alina?”
“Diablo,” she said as she brought her hand to her mouth.
“You know this delicious-looking woman?” Goldie smiled at her.
“Lay the fuck off. She’s my younger sister,” Diablo growled.
Goldie pushed back. “What? Seriously?”
Diablo nodded. Looking at Taya, he said, “Let’s go back to your table. I wanna talk to you.” He followed her back and slipped into the seat across from her. “Level with me. Why’re you in Alina?”
“How are you?” she asked as she picked up her paper napkin and began ripping it.
“Cut the small talk. What the fuck are you doing here?”
Avoiding his gaze, she looked at the napkin in her hand. “My boyfriend got a job here so we came out. Nothing was happening in Salt Lake City, so we decided to see if this job panned out. So far so good.” She giggled.
“Why didn’t you call me? How long have you been here?”
“We’ve only been here a few days. I thought you lived in Pueblo. I totally forgot it was Alina. If I’d remembered, I would’ve called for sure. Now that I know you live here, I want you to meet my boyfriend. You’ll like Tae. He treats me real well. We’re really serious.”
“Is this the one who’s your pimp?” His eyes narrowed.
She shook her head vigorously. “No. No way. Tae is great. You’ll like him. I want you to meet him. I’ll call you and we can get together for dinner or something. This is gonna be so much fu
n living in the same town. We can catch up on the years we’ve spent apart.”
“Where you living?”
“We have a place at Empire Apartments. It’s not fancy, but it’s perfect.” She glanced at her phone. “I’m sorry but I have to go. I didn’t realize it was so late. I got a job as a dog walker, so I have to go get the dogs. I like it, and the pay is way more than I thought it would be.” She stood up and took out her wallet.
“I got it,” Diablo said.
She smiled. “Thanks. I’ll give you a call.” She rushed out of the eatery.
When Diablo came back to the table, Goldie shook his head. “Man, what a fucking small world. Imagine you seeing your sister in Alina of all places.”
Diablo scowled. “Yeah… imagine that.” He didn’t believe a thing Taya had said. She was up to something, but he couldn’t figure out what it was. He was pretty sure whatever it was involved money. Maybe she moved here so she could be closer to me to get money out of me more often.
“Maybe she’s been missing you and wanted to get closer to you.” Goldie motioned the waitress for the bill.
“Maybe.” He didn’t think that was it, but she seemed happy and clean; he hadn’t seen the scabs and sores indicative of crank. Maybe she’s telling the truth. Maybe she left Salt Lake to get away from her pimp. It seemed plausible, but he didn’t trust anything she told him. He’d never forget how she’d betrayed him when he’d only been trying to help her out.
I’ll see if she calls me. I wanna check out this boyfriend of hers.
* * *
When he and Fallon arrived home from the restaurant, they walked up the sidewalk to the front doors of her building. From his peripheral vision, he saw something in the distance. A form. A shape. Something that triggered his internal warning system.
“Go inside. Lock your door. I’ll join you in a minute.”
“What’re you talking about? Where’re you going?” Fallon gripped his hand.
Gently he shrugged it away. “I thought I saw someone. Go on, do as I told you.”
He waited until she went into the elevator, hating that precious time had slipped away. When the doors closed, he sprinted across the grass to the semiwooded area across from the complex. He didn’t see anyone so he walked around, his ears alert to any sounds: footsteps, car door closing, car engine, snapping of a twig. Nothing. He walked back around and stood behind the lilac bush, a sliver of his body partially exposed. From that position, he could see the front of Fallon’s apartment building perfectly.
The faint scent of smoke curled around his nostrils. He looked down and saw several cigarette butts on the ground. Bending over, he picked one up; it was still warm. He smelled it, noting it’d been recently extinguished. Someone had been watching them. He waited in hopes the person would come back, but after a long while, he crossed the street and went back to the front of Fallon’s building. He buzzed her apartment and she let him up.
When he got off the elevator, she was waiting for him in the hallway.
“Did you see anyone?” she asked.
“No, but I know someone was out there.”
“You’re right.” She followed him inside her place.
Stopping in the middle of the room, he spun around and looked at her. “What do you mean?”
She told him about the man with the dreadlocks who’d been spooking her for the last couple of weeks.
“Why didn’t you tell me this?”
“At first I thought he was just a random nut and it wasn’t a big deal, but when he followed and came after me a couple days ago, I knew that wasn’t normal. I didn’t want to spoil your homecoming, but I was planning to tell you about it tomorrow morning.”
Fire coursed through his veins. “He tried to attack you? Fuck! I’m gonna find this sonofabitch and teach him some respect. It won’t be too hard to get this fucker. There aren’t many guys with dreadlocks in Alina. Sounds like he’s stalking you.”
“I don’t know why. I first noticed him at the bookstore a couple of weeks ago, and like I said, it didn’t seem like a big deal. I mean, I thought he was creepy and all that, but it seemed like it was an isolated thing. But then I started getting a feeling like he was following me and watching me even though I didn’t see him a lot of the time. It was like I knew he was there. Then I would see him at places I went, and it ended with him coming after me. That time it was different because it felt like he not only wanted to hurt me, but that he wanted to do something nasty to me too.” She shivered and he drew her in his arms.
The thought of another man even touching her made his blood boil, and the fact that the asshole scared his woman put him over the top. He’d make sure to find him and make him pay for what he’d done. He rubbed her back. “I’ll find him. In the meantime, I’m installing GPS on your phone and picking you up from work. I’m also moving in.”
She smiled. “Yes, sir.”
Nodding, he led her to the couch and turned on the television, but his mind was on the man with the dreadlocks. Chances were high he was the one watching them earlier. He wished he would’ve caught him. He’d do anything to take the worry out of his woman’s eyes.
I’m gonna find this bastard and tear him from limb to limb.
He had to keep Fallon safe.
She was his world. His life. His love.
And there was no way he was going to lose her.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The following morning, after Diablo made Fallon promise to call him before she left the apartment, she sat at the kitchen counter and unwrapped the Alina Post. One of her favorite things to do in the mornings was read the local paper while she sipped on a big mug of coffee laced with hazelnut creamer. As she sipped, her eyes scanned the headline “Skeletal Remains found in Mesa County.” She skimmed the article, then stared at the computerized images under the caption “Do you know this man and woman?” Her breath caught in her throat as she stared at the woman’s image.
All of a sudden, the room became hotter and stuffier, and it was like she was going to choke. She went over to the sliding door and opened it, a welcomed rush of air calmed her down. The scent of crisp apples, firewood, and earth wafted around her as she watched the red, yellow, and gold leaves shiver in the wind. After taking in the cool air for several minutes, she went back to the counter and looked at the images in the paper. The computerized rendition of the man and woman haunted her, especially the woman’s. There was something familiar about her, something tugging at the back corners of her mind.
She looked at the next set of pictures, which were the clothing and some items found near the bones. When her eyes landed on a gold locket with a Victorian floral pattern on it, she covered her mouth, gasping. Her skin tingled as a clear image of her mother wearing the locket popped into her mind. “Oh my God,” she cried aloud.
Her mother had bought a locket very similar to the one in the paper at an antique shop in Durango. Fallon remembered it clearly because her dad had been out of town and her mother had decided that they’d have an adventure. For some reason—she really didn’t know why—her mother had sworn her to secrecy. She hadn’t wanted Charlie to know they left Tula. Fallon recalled that it had been a wonderful day and that her mom had fallen in love with the locket. She’d bought it and when they’d returned home, she promptly placed Fallon’s picture in it.
Fallon’s heart lurched as she remembered that day, and she stared at the picture in the paper. She couldn’t be a hundred percent sure, but the minute she’d seen it, it’d jogged a lost memory. Clutching her arms to her chest, she rocked back and forth, the monotony of the movement calming her. Then she remembered the pictures she’d taken from her home. The pictures she’d kept hidden for years, too afraid to look at them for fear her father would find out she had them and take them away from her.
She went into her walk-in closet and pulled out a shoebox. Sitting on the floor, she opened the box and stared at the images piled on top of one another before dumping them out on the floor and si
fting through them. They were all mixed up: pictures of her mother when she was a teenager, when she was a little girl, when she first had Fallon, older pictures of them as a family. Fallon didn’t know a lot of the people in the pictures, though she guessed some of them must’ve been her grandmother and grandfather. They were in a lot of the pictures of her mother when she was a teenager.
Then she found the pictures of her mother wearing the locket. In many of the photos, she had it on.
She grabbed those photos and went to the kitchen, comparing the locket and her mother to the pictures in the paper. Her pulse pounded as the blood rushed to her head, the room spinning. This woman is Mom. Oh God. Someone killed Mom. The thought was surreal, and in an instant, Fallon’s world had been turned topsy-turvy. She glanced at the man. Is this Rich? She couldn’t really remember what he looked like.
Picking up her phone, she plugged in the phone number listed in the article.
“Detective Contreras.”
“Uh… I’m calling about the article in the Alina Post. The one about the bodies you found.”
“Do you have any information about them?”
She took a deep, shuddering breath. “I think it’s my mother.” Her voice cracked.
“What’s your mother’s name?”
“Joanna Richardson.”
“How long has your mother been missing?” he asked.
“We thought she ran away with Rich. That was about twelve years ago. I recognized the locket. The article didn’t say if there was a picture in it. My mom had a photo of me in it. Does the locket you found have a picture of a little girl?”
“It does. We didn’t release that information because we wanted to be sure that anyone who called wasn’t just an attention-seeker.”
“So someone killed my mother?”
“I’m afraid so. I’m so sorry. I need to talk with you. When can we meet?”
“Anytime. All this time I thought she left me behind. I should’ve known better. I knew she loved me even though my dad kept telling me she didn’t. How did she die?”