Hell on Wheels (6 page)

Nate’s expression got even harder—if that was possible—as he asked Ethan/Ozzie, “Is this really necessary?”

The guy waved the black wand-thing over her panty case and it buzzed, sounding like a giant, angry bee.

Nate sighed resignedly and swung back to her. “Sorry. It’s gotta be done.”

“Yeah,” she said, trying a smile that must’ve looked kinda sick because Nate’s hard expression morphed into one of apprehension. “I mean it. It’s fine. I’m just going to stand over there and check on the goings-on down below.”

Before he could say anything else—because, really, what more could he say about rooting around in her delicates?—she made good on her decision to excuse herself from their company.

***

“Jesus, the woman’s got quite a collection,” the kid murmured while using his knife to snip the tiniest stitch in order to pull out the filament-thin tracking device secured in the hem of yet another pair of Ali’s panties.

Correction. Another one of Ali’s
thongs.

“Mmph,” Nate grunted, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. It appeared the woman was the proud owner of the entire Victoria’s Secret catalog.

Plus, he detected the slightest aroma of honeysuckle emanating from the pile.

Sure, it was probably just fabric softener or lotion or something, but his wayward dick started to stiffen in response to the smell combined with the feel of the satin and silk he clutched in his fist. It brought back memories of that day on the beach. A deep, visceral recollection of soft panties brushing against his searching fingers and the even softer sensation of the warm, wet flesh beneath—

No, goddamnit! He wouldn’t think of that now.
Couldn’t
think of that now. Not with her standing so close. He didn’t trust himself not to go all caveman and—

No!

Somehow he managed to wrangle some superhuman effort to pry open his reluctant fingers and throw the entire mess back down on the table.

“Did you know Grigg’s sister was so hot?” Ozzie pressed.

Uh,
yeah.

Ali’d been the feature starlet in his personal spanktrovision for the last dozen years, and after that day on the beach? After first-hand knowledge of what it was like to have her lithe arms tight around his neck, her soft breasts pressed firm and snug against his chest, her agile tongue personally introducing itself to his tonsils?

Uh-huh, he could certainly vouch for the woman’s hotness.

She was smokin’.

“I mean like
hot
,” Ozzie stressed unnecessarily. “Like she seriously gets my blood pumping, if you know what I mean. Of course, skimpy women’s lingerie has been giving me wood since I discovered my best friend’s older sister’s Frederick’s of Hollywood catalog when I was twelve, so maybe that accounts for my semi. Not to mention I’ve always been a fan of red lace.” The kid held up a red lace bra and wiggled his eyebrows.

Geez. More information than Nate ever wanted to know about the guy.

Plus, the sight of Ali’s underwear in another man’s hands, especially knowing it was turning the little shit on, made him want to chew nails.

Since there were no nails around to chew, he found himself saying something he never in his entire sad life thought he’d say, “Dude, just shut the hell up and sing.”

***

What
were
they
talking
about?

Ali flicked a glance in the direction of the two men mangling her underwear and—

Bad move.

Ozzie/Ethan was holding up her red bra and wiggling his eyebrows.

Great. Just…great. This day was going from bad to worse in pretty quick order.

To distract herself, she leaned over the heavy rail and surveyed the wide expanse below.

The distance to the first floor was dizzying, made even more so by the overwhelming fifteen-foot-tall caricatures painted all over the brick walls in colors so vibrant and saturated it would take a mind much more creative than hers to try and put a name to them all. The murals gave the huge space the appearance of some strange cross between a funhouse and workshop. Each of the cartoonishly exaggerated figures was obviously one of Black Knights Inc.’s employees. They looked like something that belonged in a graphic novel, all bulging muscles and straining tendons.

The concrete floor was a fascinating landscape of stains from old and recent oil spills—a giant Rorschach test on speed. The brightly painted brick walls were lined with mammoth, rolling toolboxes, and the main floor was dotted with highly technical-looking machines of various shapes and sizes. She wouldn’t have been able to identify one of them if her life depended on it.

What she
could
recognize was the line of gleaming custom choppers along one wall, their paint jobs varying in color from dark to vibrant, their designs alternately fierce and whimsical. They were a visual barrage of glinting chrome and sparkling paint, testament to the fact that at least
some
actual custom motorcycle work went on here.

And she might’ve been fooled into thinking perhaps Black Knights Inc. was exactly as it was purported to be had one entire section of the “shop” not currently housed a…yes, that was a helicopter.

A helicopter with a tiny blond woman straddling the rotor while a guy stood below, yelling up instructions over the din of REO Speedwagon. “You loosen that bolt and the whole goddamned thing’s gonna fall off!”

Ali assumed the woman must be Black Knight Inc.’s brilliant resident mechanic, but for the life of her she couldn’t recall the woman’s name.

Renegade, maybe? It was something like that.

“That’s the whole point!” Renegade, aka Helo Girl, or whatever her name was, called back with a healthy dose of
well, duh
.

Of course, what put the cherry on top of Ali’s incredulity sundae was the undeniable fact that that black behemoth down there was not your typical civilian helicopter. Nuh-uh, not with those menacing machine guns mounted on both sides. Although, she had to admit the thing didn’t look very scary right now considering major portions of it were pieced out and scattered around on various drop cloths.

It was obvious the bird wasn’t going to take to the air any time soon.

Still, if Ozzie/Ethan’s sidearm and the room behind her—which would make the attendees of DEF CON swoon in the computer geek equivalent of orgasmic bliss—hadn’t already convinced her that her instincts about Black Knights Inc. were spot-on, the sight of that deadly military chopper certainly would have.

There was a certain satisfaction in finally knowing, without a shadow of a doubt, she’d been right all along. Grigg had been up to much more than playing grease monkey in a motorcycle shop. Unfortunately, along with that piece of gratifying knowledge returned the hard wedge of sadness she first experienced when she’d pulled up to Black Knights Inc.’s front gates. The frustration and remorse because Grigg hadn’t felt he could tell her the truth.

What
gives, Grigg?

She should’ve asked that question when he was still alive. She should’ve made him share that portion of his life with her. She should’ve insisted she actually get to
know
him instead of constantly biting her tongue, waiting for the day when he’d finally trust her enough to come clean.

It was too late.

The boulder of remorse, lodged in her throat since Nate walked into her parents’ home and told them they’d never again lay eyes on Grigg’s handsome face, grew until it threatened to choke her. She blinked rapidly and tried to swallow it down.

Which never worked.

Crap.

Don’t cry. Don’t cry.

She’d never been the stoic type. Far from it. She’d once bawled so hard on a flight to London while watching the movie
Marley
and
Me,
the man beside her got up twice to go to the bathroom and come back with a handful of toilet-paper to try and help her mop up the mess. But this bursting-into-spontaneous-tears-without-the-slightest-warning thing had become a recent talent of hers. One she hoped to lose PDQ, but she wasn’t sure that was gonna happen. Not when the loss of Grigg was still so fresh…so unbearable…

“Heard it from a friend whooo…heard it from a friend whooo…heard it from another you been messin’ arounnnddd,” Ozzie/Ethan finished with dramatic vibrato.

The sudden silence caused by the end of the song was shattered when the opening bars to Rick Springfield’s “Jessie’s Girl” blasted through the speakers. Obviously Ethan/Ozzie was a big ’80s music fan, although the guy didn’t look old enough to have lived through much of that decade.

“Meerreow!” Ali nearly jumped out of her skin when something warm and furry brushed against her calves—which didn’t do a thing to steady her jittery nerves or assuage the feeling of having suddenly fallen down the rabbit’s hole. But it did succeed in keeping her stupid tears at bay.

“Well, hello,” she murmured to the biggest, ugliest cat on the planet.

She crouched down to stroke patchy, ash-colored fur. The tom was the size of a small horse, with enough scars around his face and notches in his ears to earn him the look of a battered warrior. When his big, yellow eyes blinked up at her in weary, feline sympathy, as if to say,
I
understand. I’ve seen the ugly side of life, too,
the tears hovering behind her eyes threatened to spill all over again.

Oh, double crap.

To comfort herself, she pulled the mammoth cat into her arms and stood.

Or tried to…

It was a bit difficult given he seemed to weigh as much as a St. Bernard. Finally, she was able to pull herself up by the railing, only to have to spread her feet in order to balance under her furry load.

She heard a deep rumble and thought someone started up one of the Harleys down below. She chuckled when she realized it was the deeply contented, terribly unattractive gray bundle in her arms causing the racket.

“Now you’ve done it! Peanut will expect everyone to carry him around, and I, for one, don’t have the strength for it,” Frank Knight, a giant of a man who, contrary to his words, looked strong enough to bench press a Volkswagen, yelled over the booming music as he appeared from one of the side doors to come and lean on the rail beside her.

“Peanut?” She pulled her chin back and glanced down into a furry, gray face only a mother could love. The cat’s golden eyes were half-closed in satisfaction, and she was blessed with the rather dubious honor of his kneading nails pricking through the thin cotton of her T-shirt. “He looks more like a Goliath, or Brutus. Peanut? Really?”

“Yeah,” Frank laughed as he ran a hand through his curling mop of brown hair and watched the progress down on the shop floor. His smile quickly faded as his eyes zeroed in on the woman doing a pretty fair version of a bronco rider—only her steed was made of steel instead of flesh and blood.

Ali thought she heard him mutter “sonofabitch,” before he physically forced himself to look away. “When we moved into this building, it was home to rats and this guy here,” he reached out a giant mitt of a hand and scratched under the cat’s chin, eliciting a resurgence of purring that vibrated through Ali’s chest like a lawnmower, “who’d made his bed on a pile of old peanut bags—hence the name. We managed to get rid of all the rats, and we shipped Peanut off to live with a sweet local lady who takes in strays, but within two days he’d found his way back to us. I’m Frank Knight, by the way. I’d shake your hand except both of them appear to be full.” He winked and a delightful web of wrinkles gathered at the corner of his eye.

“I know who you are. Grigg spoke very highly of you. He had a great deal of respect for you.”

The big man’s face contorted. “The respect thing went both ways. Grigg was…well,” he ran that giant paw back through his hair again and grimaced slightly, flexing his shoulder as if the motion hurt, “…there’s just no words. He was the best. I’m terribly sorry for your loss. We were all devastated.”

And…triple crap. The tears were threatening again.

Just when she thought she’d have to turn away or lose it right on the spot—she’d turned into the Queen of Blubberingtown today—all hell broke loose in the madhouse.

Chapter Three

“Got it!” Becky Reichert crowed as the last bolt finally twisted loose and the bent rotor fell to the floor with a resounding
Boom!
The sound bounced and echoed around the warehouse like a cannon explosion.

Deafening silence ensued, sufficiently informing her the earsplitting ruckus had resulted in the switching off of ol’ Ricky Springfield—which was fine by her. Ozzie had deplorable taste in music. She’d tried to enlighten the man to the salient fact that quite a lot of really fantastic stuff had been written in the last twenty years, but he seemed immune to her attempts at musical edification. That he
occasionally
allowed her to pipe in The Killers was about the only victory she’d ever won, which meant she usually had her iPod earbuds screwed in tight, blasting her own music into her brain to drown out Ozzie’s less than discerning taste.