Dreams in the Dark (Destroyers Book 2)

by A. R. Case

  I sipped Nirvana and tried to soak in the forest. It felt good to be home. My heart still hurt a bit, but my head was clearing. Inside I flipped on the computer to check on orders.

  There were new comments on my blog page.

  Three to be exact. The oldest one was rather rude. It called the model in the photo fat. I deleted it.

  The next one was worse. “These clothes are crap. Get a life you dumb nerds.” Posted by the same jerk who’d called one of my best customers fat. I deleted it and blocked the user.

  The last post was a different name, but the worst one yet. It wasn’t so much what it said, but how it was said. “The best lingerie is no lingerie.” Followed by a winky face, eggplant, and water. Ugh. Delete number three. I debated blocking this user as well. My finger hovered over the mouse, ready to click. At the last minute, I decided not to. I couldn’t afford to lose a potential customer. At least not until I got the deposit on my shoe line. If Indy followed up on it.

  My brain had finally given up trying to keep me from thinking about the fight.

  The flight with all its horrors had allowed me diversion from the memories. But there were details nagging at me.

  The way Indy was flexing his hand. His eyes when I stood up to him. The ease he let me go.

  The drink in his hand.

  The way he’d called me his lady less than forty-eight hours ago.

  The men who he called brothers out there.

  The look he had on his face when he kicked one. There was no remorse.

  His hand shook just enough to move the ice.

  My heart hurt because I felt guilty.

  Eddie had made me feel guilty, too. With that, I shut down the memories. I fixed lemonade for Fin and focused on my life. Here.

  Indy

  The lawyer had all the paperwork. I paid his retainer out of the four percent. It left me with nothing, but that was all I wanted.

  Let’s be fucking honest, it wasn’t what I wanted. But it was a step in the right direction. I never wanted to make a profit off Edie. I meant it when I told her she doesn’t work on her back. Now to get the details straight in Maryland. I dialed Walt’s number at his office.

  He got on the line after a few minutes.

  “What the fuck you calling me here for?”

  “Some greeting.”

  “Call your mother then.” He fired back.

  I scrambled to catch him before he hung up. “Business dammit, Walt.”

  “So?”

  “So, I got to get you the lawyer info for Edie.”

  “What lawyer info?”

  “The contract lawyer I hired for her business. But she doesn’t need to know who pays it, okay?”

  “Fin tells me she came home early.”

  “Fin is a fucking gossip.”

  “Ha ha, neat trick, isn’t it?” Walt laughed a second or two. “What the fuck did you do? And, do I need to get on a plane to kick your ass?”

  “Fuck off, Walt.”

  “That ain’t a god-damned answer. Why aren’t you calling Edie your damned self?”

  “None of your fucking business.”

  “I’m making it my business. Edie is ours whether you got your shit figured out or not.”

  “Then you’ll be happy to know her new lawyer is going to make her rich, okay?”

  “And your cut?”

  “Fuck off Walt. This is legit. I’m out.”

  “Out?” He asked.

  “I’m staying here.”

  “The fuck you are.”

  “Just give Edie this information, please?”

  “No.”

  “Walt.”

  “Get over your fucking self and call her yourself. I know you don’t take god-damned orders very well, but I’m getting good and fucking pissed now, and I don’t know why. Call that woman and make it right. Otherwise I’m on a fucking plane. If that happens you know who I’m calling next, don’t you?”

  “You do not need to make that call.”

  “You will call her now.”

  “I might.” He was pissing me off.

  “Fine, don’t call her. I need to get off this call, fuck off, asshole.”

  “Fuck you very much.” The line was dead before I’d finished. Figured.

  Dammit.

  First, Fin for damage control.

  “Fin. Call Walt and get his ass off the phone okay?”

  “What the fuck did you do now?”

  “Done fucked up. Calling Edie now. Tell Walt that.”

  This time it was me doing the hanging up.

  I’m a man of my word. But it was a difficult thing to make the next call. I had no plan. None.

  I needed one.

  Or was that the problem? All my planning, and I’d forgotten the most important thing. It’s not like me to have a huge blind spot like that.

  She answered.

  “Indy?”

  “Hi Edie.”

  Silence, then, “You okay?”

  I closed my eyes. Damn this woman and her heart. “Will be. I …” what? What did I want to tell her first? Should it be business and risk driving the wedge in-between us further? Should I bare my heart, and risk her taking that for being manipulative?

  “... I was an ass.”

  More silence.

  “You with me, baby?”

  “I think I was an ass too.” Her voice was soft,

  “Not at all, baby. Trust me. You ever need to get gone, it’s on me.”

  “It’s not always about you. Sometimes it really is me.”

  I laughed. “Sweetheart, is this some ass backwards breakup or are we talking?”

  “We’re not breaking up, are we?”

  “I self-destruct sometimes.” I said, being honest with her.

  “I do, too.”

  “Babe, you are perfect, don’t do that.”

  “Indy.”

  Her voice was quiet, and held a bit of reproach. If that was her way of correcting my stupid ass, I’d take it any day over a screaming, dramatic bitch.

  “Not on you, love. You got one hell of a fixer upper with me. I may sound like I’ve got my shit together, but you gotta know I’m a mess and a half.”

  “Kettle to my pot.”

  A little hitch in her voice let me know she was crying. “Sweetheart. Don’t cry.”

  “Not crying,” she lied. I could hear her.

  “I wish I was there to hold you. And before we go any further, I am sorry. I should have paid more attention to you, and not every fucking thing else.”

  “That’s what you do. I couldn’t ask that of you, I think you’d go crazy. Well, crazier.”

  It felt so damn good to laugh. This woman knew me.

  That hit pretty hard, somewhere deep.

  We talked. Not about business, or other people, just talked. And that spot that was still reeling in disbelief that a woman knew me in both the good and the really bad ways, it got filled up with all that soft.

  Maryland was too damn far away.

  Edie

  As soon as we’d hung up, the phone rang back. Thinking it was Indy, I took the call.

  The very last person I wanted to talk to was on the other end.

  “Hi my little Ed-Ed.”

  God, Eddie’s voice made me cringe. “I’m not Ed-Ed. What the fuck do you want, Eddie?”

  “You never used to swear. What in the heck, Edie?”

  “You have five seconds to say why you called. One…”

  “Edie, you don’t mean that.”

  “Two,” I said over his protest.

  “Oh, whatever, geesh, I call with a perfectly legitimate question, and you want to be a bitch. Those bikers have corrupted you good. I should tell your mother so she can stage an intervention. Are you on drugs or something?”

  “Three. I’m not on drugs.”

  “I spoke with your mother, she is worried about you.”

  “You need to leave my mother out of this. It is …” Dammit, I had gotten sucked into his games again. “
Four and Five. I’m hanging up now.”

  “Then I guess my lawyer will need to contact you.”

  “What?”

  “My lawyer. About your business.”

  I blinked at the phone. “Why would your lawyer need to talk to me about my business?”

  “Because you are using my name on it.”

  He sounded like he’d just won first prize in an ice cream contest, or the presidency or something. “I don’t follow.”

  “Of course you don’t. See, you are using my name on your business. My lawyer says you should cease and desist.”

  All my marketing was under Krupps. It was my name too, since I’d never bothered to change it.

  Who was I kidding? When I got divorced, I was too broke to finish payments to the lawyer. Let alone try to figure out all the paperwork I might need filed to change my name. “Your name.”

  “Yes. My name. I’d be willing to sell you the right to use it on your business.”

  “You would sell me the right to use my own name.”

  “It isn’t your name. It is mine. It’s almost as if you really never gave me up. While that’s sweet and all, I do have a reputation to protect. I mean, my construction business is really taking off, and to be dragged into the pornographic clothing business you’ve managed to entangle yourself in, really hurts my reputation.”

  “Pornographic?”

  “Ed-Ed. You make stripper clothes. It’s so … tawdry.”

  “You have absolutely no right to talk, Mr. Sleeps-around-with-whores.” My voice took on that tone I swore I wouldn’t ever use again.

  “I never slept with a whore, that would be you, the biker slut. I wonder how many diseases you have now. I mean that man probably had numerous partners in prison.”

  “You are such a dick, Eddie.”

  “Language. I’m trying to give you a solution, don’t you see? If you would just give me a ten percent royalty, I’ll drop the lawsuit.”

  “What lawsuit?”

  “Don’t you ever listen?” He huffed out a put-upon groan. “The lawsuit I am going to file against your use of my business name, and possibly damages for hurting my business.”

  “Designs by Krupps is not the name of your business.”

  “On the contrary, I have a custom housing line that does have that name.”

  “When did that start?”

  “It doesn’t matter, it’s damaging the rest of my business too. It’s just ten percent.”

  I gritted my teeth. Indy didn’t even take ten percent. This was so unfair. “This is unfair, and I don’t think it is legal, Eddie.”

  “No, what you are doing isn’t legal. If you can’t negotiate with me, I’ll have no choice but to take you to court about this.”

  I looked around at my little cabin and all the materials I used. The half-finished prototypes for the shoe line, my logo design framed by the window, the computer where my website was up. He was threatening everything. What was I going to do? What should I say?

  “Now, I’m sure you don’t want a bunch of legal fees, I’ll tell you what, I’ll compromise here, how does five percent sound?”

  Five percent. Indy was taking four, taxes were another twenty-plus, upcoming inventory investment for the festival line was thirty percent, I was putting away fifteen toward a retirement fund … Over three quarters of my income wasn’t mine. It wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t fair!

  I began to talk, but stopped myself. What would Indy do? He’d get a lawyer, I’m certain. He had professionals take care of the things that needed that kind of expertise. He didn’t do that work by himself. “My lawyer will talk to your lawyer. If you try to contact me directly, you won’t have any luck because I’m blocking your number.”

  “You don’t have a lawyer,” Eddie laughed.

  I didn’t, but if it took all my retirement, I would now.

  “I will. You won’t get jack shit from me. In fact, I might just sue you for using my name. I know that you didn’t have a custom build business while we were married. And if you did, I should have a piece of that as part of the divorce settlement because you didn’t declare it.”

  I was talking out of my ass, but the more I spoke, the more I convinced myself that I was right about this.

  “Nice try, but that ship has sailed. In fact, if you started your business before the divorce was final, I think I might deserve fifty percent.”

  He hung up on that parting shot.

  Dammit. Now I really needed a lawyer.

  Chapter 11: Critters

  Indy

  “Why don’t you just fucking go home?” TomTom stood between me and Vega.

  “If I go home, who is going to talk sense into her?” I pointed through him. Vega blew off a second audition I’d set up. “One fucking review isn’t going to get her where she wants to go.”

  “But if I got the job, I’d have to quit the review. How would that look?” She peeked around her man to glare at me.

  “Who the fuck cares?” I answered, losing what little of my patience I had left. “You’d be on the way to a national act and not stuck here. That was the whole fucking point of getting him those colors, so he’d be able to travel with you and have protection. You think all the markers I called in were fucking cheap?”

  “It’s always about you, isn’t it Indy?” TomTom had taken Vega’s hand while I was talking.

  “You think so? Let’s talk about you then. Running fucking errands for Henderson? You are not a fucking prospect, so stop acting like one.”

  “Everyone has to pull their weight.”

  “You pay the fucking dues, who the fuck cares?”

  “You pay the dues.” TomTom was getting quieter as I got louder. I knew I should stop pushing, but dammit, he was getting stuck. Worse yet, Vega was encouraging him. They’d both been stuck in Maryland, and now they were repeating their habits. Which was a fucking mistake. Vega was one audition from touring or stardom. She was on the brink of every dream she’d whispered to me after drunken nights at the clubhouse. I’d heard so many of them over the years.

  Fine women told me those damn whispered dreams in the dark. Each and every one had one, but a star like Vega only comes along once or twice in a lifetime. I wanted her whispers to become real. Not just for her, but every damn woman who cried on my shoulder. For every girl who dreamed big, and landed on her ass. Vega was their Polaris, and she was giving up on the dreams for a half assed one here in the glittery armpit of the desert. And TomTom? Too damn young, and on the wrong path. And I’d helped put him there.

  “Fuck you. Be a man and pay them your fucking self!” My frustration exploded on him. “Take her fucking commission and be her manager, and fuck up everything okay?” I glared at them both.

  “You leaving then?”

  Was I?

  Who was I here? Was this really where I wanted to be, what I wanted? “Vega, do you, or don’t you want to be a star?”

  She cowered behind her man.

  Behind her man, when she could have anything. Love like that is fucking stupid.

  I said so.

  With that, I grabbed a handful of rings out of the tray that sat on a fancy dresser which set next to the front door, and I got gone. One good thing about the fucking desert is any day is bike day. I rode south, then east, then more south and east, not knowing anything. No plans, no goals. Just me and my fucked-up self.

  That, well, it’s a dangerous thing.

  Some odd hours later, I crossed into Arizona. The land got interesting. Trees, mountains, a lot of open space. I meandered on the smaller roads, and spent the night at a motel. The next morning, I headed farther east. After getting damn lost, I decided I might need to check the map on my phone. What had been a nice highway along one of the few rivers I’d seen in these parts, dumped me off into gravel. It took almost everything to hold on and keep the bike upright.

  That stopped me dead. I had to go west. I didn’t want to go that direction. Part of me had a compass magnet, and it knew west wasn
’t where I was supposed to go.

  Checking the phone was a mistake. There were calls to answer, and no fucking signal. I was in a forest, according to the map. But for being in the middle of the Coconino Forest, there were no trees. Just scrubby little things that held the sand down. By the river there were decent sized real trees, and there was even a marsh. Two turns right and this shit. Funny country.

  My phone died.

  Giving up, I backtracked, and followed some signs. Doing that, I ended up in a crazy hippie town on the side of a mountain. I parked near a glass blowing studio. Tucked under a staircase, an oddity store sold patches with funny sayings on them. You could sew the patches on your coat, and pretend you were a badass. Or express what you wanted without having to talk. I’ll admit, I had a couple of the more vulgar ones. I picked up one, I hadn’t seen before. The old coot who owned the place was family. Road family. Washed out along the highway and crawled up this mountain to die, but his blood still flowed to the wind of the open road and bled grease. He pointed me to a good place to stay for the night. I plugged in and turned off.

  The next morning dawned, and I headed west.

  Every mile felt like a weight on my throat that settled deep inside when I swallowed.

  Edie

  Twenty-three comments. At first, I was excited. After the first two, I rethought the benefit of having any kind of commentary on my site. It was the same poster I’d given the benefit of the doubt, and two more creeps who commented on every photo.

  It took an hour to turn off all commenting, go back through and delete everything. Then I changed all the settings so I would have to approve any comments. It was something I should have done when I first set the site up. No one could say I wasn’t learning a few new things.

  Then the phone rang. I let it go to voicemail. If it was Indy, he’d text. Fin or Betty Jo also knew enough to text. It wasn’t Mom’s ringtone. I worried it was the lawyer Indy had recommended. I’d left a message with them to see if Eddie had a case or not. Probably not the best start of a business relationship, but I was worried.

  The phone rang again. Once it stopped, I turned the ringer off.

  Out of curiosity, I checked the messages. None. Okay, maybe they were wrong number. It lit with a call again in my hand. Because I was so startled, I managed to accept the call.