Page 46 of Avenging Kelly

London tackled me and kept shaking his head before he started tickling me. We were both laughing hard, and I was about to piss myself when there was a banging on the door.

“Shit,” London commented as he pulled on a pair of sweats and went to the door. I hurried to the bathroom and closed the door—mostly—listening through the crack.

“I went to FedEx and sent that sample you gave me. It’ll get there this afternoon, they said. You sure he’ll do it?” It was Dallas. Apparently, he’d sent off the sample of Poker Chips to somebody. I was damn curious to hear London’s response.

“He fucking owes me for the way he cheated on me, so he’ll do it,” London insisted.

So, there was a man from the past who’d broken his heart? I wasn’t sure I liked the idea of London calling in a favor from the cheater for me, but time wasn’t really on our side, so I couldn’t afford to be picky.

After I finished my bathroom business, I hopped into the shower, turning the water to cold to tame my London-seeking hard-on. When I came out, clothes were resting on the vanity for me.

I hurriedly shaved, shot up, and dressed, opening the door to see Duke Chambers and a man with long hair I’d never seen before. They were sitting at the table with Dallas.

“Uh, hey?”

Duke and Long Hair glanced up, both of them grinning. “Hey, Kelly. How are you, man? This is one of my partners, Ace Hampton. He insisted on coming along to meet you,” Duke introduced.

Ace stepped around the chair and extended his hand. “You’re a fucking rockstar for killing that asshole. I wanted to do it, but we needed to get Mia back to New York. I hoped the stupid douche would come to New York so I could do it there.”

We shook hands, and I glanced around the room, missing the one person I really wanted to see. “Where’s London?”

Dallas spoke up. “He stepped out to make a call. We sent that vial to his old boyfriend, Ryan, whose the best chemist Lon knows, and he wanted to make sure the guy looked for it. The sooner we know what’s in it, the sooner we can figure out how to help you.”

I wasn’t exactly thrilled to learn I was becoming a fucking group project. “I, uh, I need to run an errand. Tell London, will ya?”

With that, I grabbed my wallet and my duffel, reaching under the mattress to get the money London had taken from the pimp. It was my responsibility to take care of Mia and Daisy, not London and his friends. Maybe it wasn’t the most rational decision I’d ever made, but maybe that money could be a down payment on the fifty-grand my sister had taken from whoever was coming for my niece. I still had my doubts that Mia ended up with any of the money, but I was running out of people to ask. It was time to trust my instincts and get to the bottom of this shit, and it wasn’t going to be a group effort.

* * *

I was at the airport trying to figure out how the fuck to get on a plane with a bag of cash and a gun. There was absolutely no way I could see that the TSA wouldn’t put me on the ground right there in the security line. I pulled out the burner phone and did the only thing I could. I exhaled when it was answered, hating myself.

“Hearts?” Her voice grated on my ears.

“I need a way back to New York. I’ve got money to give the people who want the baby, and I can’t take a commercial flight. I’m in San Diego,” I told The Gambler.

“I’ll be there on a private plane in a few hours. I’ll call you back with where to find me,” the woman—Frances Ritchfield—responded.

“Frances, don’t fuck me over on this. I mean it.”

“Kelly, don’t you fuck me over on this,” she responded before the line went dead.

Hiding out was the best idea while I waited to hear from her, so I took a cab from the hotel over to Ramada Drive where Dare Ya was located and parked my ass in a diner across the street.

The front door of the bar was propped open by a keg. The skanky barmaid was sweeping debris out to the sidewalk and into the street. Classy.

Answers were what I needed, and if she wouldn’t take money from me, maybe she wouldn’t want to die like Rick Fleming? It was worth a shot… no pun…

An older woman with a gold front tooth walked over to the table with a pot of coffee and a glass of water. “Coffee?”

“Please. Uh, where’s the men’s room?” I asked her. She pointed to the sign, which any idiot could see, but my mind was racing and my attention hadn’t caught up. I’d just shot up with Poker Chips, and I was ready to roll, but I needed to focus. Stashing my shit for a few minutes would be helpful.

“I’ll have three eggs over easy, bacon, fried potatoes, and biscuits or toast, whichever you got,” I told her as I stood, handing her a hundred-dollar bill. “Be right back.”

I grabbed my duffel and went to the bathroom, locking the door. Thankfully, there was a drop ceiling, so I dug out the bag of money, counting out ten hundred-dollar bills and shoving them into my pocket. I put the gun behind my back and adjusted my jacket.

Climbing up on the toilet seat, I shoved one of the water-stained tiles aside to see there wasn’t enough room for my duffel to fit, even though it wasn’t that big. Fuck you very much to every action movie I’d ever seen. The best I could do was stash it behind the commode and lock the stall so nobody could get inside. I’d think about how fucking disgusting that might be later.

I looked into the far stall to see there was a small window, so I hopped down and opened it, happy to see it faced an alley. Problem was, it was too small for me to slide out of the opening. I was left with one alternative.

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