Rock Chick (Rock Chick #1)(34)

A hand came over my mouth and the goggles were torn from my head.

“Keep quiet, for f**k’s sake.”

It was Lee. He’d turned on the kitchen light and when he was certain I wouldn’t yell again, he took his hand from my mouth.

I turned and looked at him and he was staring down at the body, his face tight.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“Yeah? What’re we? Havin’ a party?” Tex asked.

Lee turned cold eyes to Tex and Tex said no more.

Then Lee turned to me.

“I followed you.”

“No one followed me, I kept checking.”

He gave me a look.

Fucking Lee.

“You with her?” Tex ventured.

“Yeah,” Lee answered.

I wanted to scream I was not with Lee and he was not with me, but the situation kept my mouth shut. Instead, I turned back to the body and there he was, in the not-eerie-green-night-vision but lit up and easy to see not only him, but all the blood and gunk that had come out of the back of his head to splatter all over the kitchen wall.

Not Rosie.

It was disgusting. I’d never seen anything so foul. It was a nasty, awful, horrible, smelly, sad death.

I gulped, almost sure I was going to hurl. Lee heard it, grabbed my arm and pulled me through the house and out the backdoor.

“Lean over. Deep breaths,” he ordered.

We were standing in the backyard and he pressed his hand to the back of my neck to force me over. I put my hands on my knees and gulped deep breaths of fresh air, leaving the Death Air behind. With some effort, I fought back the nausea and stood up straight.

Tex had followed us out.

“Was that Tim?” I asked Tex.

“Yep.”

“Ohmigod.”

“Please tell me you didn’t touch anything in there,” Lee said to me.

I shook my head.

“Please tell me you didn’t break that window,” Lee went on.

“I did the breakin’ and the enterin’ for both of us. After I did the breakin’, I threw her through the window,” Tex offered this information and Lee’s eyes cut to Tex.

“I’m sorry?” Lee asked and his voice was scary.

Tex seemed not to notice it. “She was gettin’ second thoughts.”

Lee stared at Tex for a beat.

“Jesus,” he muttered then he pointed at me. “Stay here. Don’t move.” His finger moved to Tex. “You come with me.”

Lee tossed the goggles to Tex and they re-entered the house. I was a little surprised that Tex followed Lee’s command but then again, Lee was using that “brook no argument” tone again.

I sat down on the grass, too freaked out to stand any longer and I put my forehead on my knees.

I feared this did not bode well for Rosie and I feared more that this did not bode well for Duke.

They came back out, Lee closed the door, fiddled with the handle and then walked toward me, removing surgical gloves.

“No Rosie,” he told me.

“Thank God,” I said on a whoosh and didn’t realize I was holding my breath.

He put a hand on my upper arm and hauled me up.

“I’m callin’ Hank in on this one.”

My eyes nearly popped out of my head.

“You can’t! He’s gonna freak that I’m here!”

“You weren’t here, Tex was here. Tex, the concerned neighbor,” Lee replied.

“That’s me. Everyone around here knows I’m a concerned neighbor. Gotta go make a call.” Tex put his big hand on top of my head. “You did good, for a girl, didn’t puke or nothin’.”

“Thanks Tex,” I said on a shaky smile not quite sure that was a compliment but willing to accept it as one all the same.

Tex ambled off and Lee dragged me to a Mercedes sedan. He’d hit a button on his cell phone and was waiting for it to ring through.

“Lee…” I said.

He pulled me to a stop at the passenger side, opened the door and pushed me in. He stood in the opening of the door while his call was picked up. I sat in the car too freaked out by the dead body to fume at him pushing me around.

“Hank, a call’s gonna come into 911 soon. I need to talk to you about it.” Pause. “Yeah.” Then he disconnected.

Lee slammed my door and got in on the driver’s side of the car.

I turned to him. “I have a car here, it’s my neighbor’s, my bag’s in there, I have to –”

Lee held up a hand and I stopped talking.

“What you have to do is keep your mouth shut until we get back to the condo so I can take that time to talk myself out of strangling you.”

Yikes.

I felt it prudent to do as he requested. I’d had a rough couple of days, I didn’t want it to end in strangulation. And anyway, Lee was such a badass, even if it didn’t end in strangulation, he might come up with some more creative punishment.

Lee didn’t say word one until we were in his condo. He dragged me by the arm into the bedroom, pulled out a drawer and threw me a t-shirt.

“Get ready for bed,” he said to me.

I immediately saw red.

It was not surprising. I wasn’t one of his boys, I wasn’t one of the troops, I wasn’t a child, he couldn’t tell me what to do. I’d had a tough night, I’d seen a dead body, for goodness sake!