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“You watch too much of the Discovery Channel.”
“You have ADD. Let me finish. As detectives, we do the same thing. We sift through pieces of a person’s life. What they’ve left behind. And eventually, we find the fragments we need to figure it all out. Crystal left behind all the clues we’ll need. What am I saying? All the clues I’ll need. You keep out of it.”
Near dawn, just as the sun was rising, I kissed Rob goodbye, promising to talk to him later, and packed a suitcase, also grabbing Crystal’s things, which I had hidden from the police. After making sure Crystal’s Ferrari was still safe in the garage, and then setting the alarm for the house, I got in my car to drive to the ranch. My car is an old—I prefer “classic”—Cadillac my father had gotten for free when he and Uncle Deacon did their commercials. It was still in beautiful condition, and she was my most prized possession.
I was beyond exhausted as I headed out the highway to the ranch. Few cars were on the road, and I turned on the radio. Crystal’s death was the lead story, in the true fashion of news—if it bleeds it leads. I turned off the radio, not wanting to hear it. I tried to remember the first time I met Crystal. She was the ring card girl, the woman in a bikini who walked around the boxing ring, holding a big placard pronouncing what round it was. She and I hit it off, and we became fast friends.
I looked in my rearview mirror and squinted. A shiny black car with no front license plate was a respectable distance back from me, but if I switched lanes, it switched lanes. If I sped up, it sped up.
“Christ,” I muttered. I thought I should ignore it, but I didn’t want whoever it was to follow me all the way to the ranch. If I suddenly sped up, they’d know I’d spotted them. I decided I didn’t care. I’d give them a run for their money.
Years before, my father’s Cadillac had needed a new transmission. My father got some great idea that he’d soup up the engine a bit, too, at the same time it was at the mechanic’s. So I knew my car would hold up on open road. I floored it, watching the speedometer hit 120. Luckily for me, I think the national speed limit should be about 90, anyway, and I was used to letting her fly. I headed down the flat expanse of highway, looking in my rearview mirror to see what the black car would do.
Sure enough, it was gaining on me, riding dangerously close to my bumper. Just like the evil scum who had killed Crystal and tried to take Destiny, the two guys inside looked massive and mean. They wore dark sunglasses. If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear they were federal agents. But I did know better. They worked for either Perrone or Bonita, and my money was riding on Perrone.
I gunned the car harder, taking it to speed limits not even registering on the speedometer. I prayed the desert highways would stay empty and that I wouldn’t get into an accident. At that speed, my adrenaline was causing my heart to race. I was tired, very tired, and I needed to stay on top of my game to get away from these two creeps. They nudged still closer, and taking a chance, I drove a little faster, and then spun my wheel. With a screech, I left the highway and drove into the desert, doing a tight 180-degree turn, the steering wheel fighting against me all the way on the shifting sand and pebbles, and then I drove back on the highway again.
They were still with me. I spotted a cactus up ahead. One of those big, tall Joshua trees, right out of an old Western movie set. I aimed straight toward it, as if I was playing a massive game of chicken with a twenty-foot-tall cactus. The guys in back of me followed right behind. As I left the road again, my tires spun, then I lifted my hands, as if I’d panicked, and let the car fishtail a bit. I let them think I was going to plow right into the cactus—an out-of-control female driver. But at the last minute, I grabbed the wheel and took a sharp left. Then I screamed with delight as I watched them smash their black BMW into the cactus, exploding the air bags and wrecking their car.
“Sayonara, boys,” I sang, then drove steadily down the road to the ranch, the sign over the long, sandy drive proclaiming Rooney Training Camp.
Chapter 3
The first time I met Terry Keenan, I was punching a heavy bag in my uncle Deacon’s gym—which was technically half my father’s, though we’d transferred the title to me to avoid anyone trying to come after it to pay legal bills.
“I’m looking for Jack Rooney,” he had said, surveying the gym full of fighters. The scent of stale gym socks and sweat permeated the air. I’d grown up in the stench of windowless gyms, and I was used to it after all this time.
I stopped punching the bag and turned to face him, out of breath, my arms aching slightly. I clumsily pulled the mouth guard out from between my teeth. “You’re…looking…at her. My name’s Jacqueline, but everyone calls me Jack.”
Keenan’s blue eyes narrowed. “Son of a bitch! No one told me you were a girl.”
“Woman,” I corrected him, less winded. “Wouldn’t be the first time someone set up a fighter like that as a joke. Miguel Jimenez came looking for a guy, too.”
“Well, I sure as hell am not training with a woman,” Keenan seethed. He stood about six foot two and was in superb shape, from what I could tell as he crossed his arms across his chest, his T-shirt sleeves bulging at the biceps.
“Suit yourself,” I snapped, and turned back to what I was doing, punching the bag more forcefully. As he walked away, I muttered under my breath, “Fine, asshole, don’t train here, then. You and that pretty face of yours will soon regret it.”
And regret it he did. Terry Keenan was back three months later, his beautiful face—big blue eyes, two dimples, a solid chin and a smattering of boyish freckles across his nose—now just a tad less beautiful since his nose had gotten broken, twice.
And that was how Terry Keenan came to train with me and Uncle Deacon, and now we were poised for the biggest fight of all our lives—the heavyweight championship of the world in four weeks.
“Get off the ropes!” I screamed at Terry. I looked at my uncle. “Can you see what happens when he gets backed up against the ropes like that?”
Deacon and I were standing on the ground, looking into our boxing ring, where our best chance at a title was sparring with a fighter by the name of Rock Morrison. Deacon had his arms folded, his face stony as he studied our two boxers. Deacon wasn’t a screamer. I was. I would yell from the corner or scream “fake left,” “jab right” or even a desperate “just fucking hit him!” Deacon, as befitted his nickname, which implied a near-biblical wisdom in the ring, studied fighters and videos of matches, and taped sparring sessions, poring over them time and time again until it became clear what our boxer was doing wrong. Then he made a pronouncement, like Moses coming down off the mount with two tablets of stone.
“All right, guys,” I shouted at the fighters. “Break it up. Catch your breath.”
Deacon finally spoke. “Son…” He motioned to Terry Keenan, wanting him to come closer to the ropes.
“Mmph,” our fighter responded, his mouth guard still in place. He walked to us and leaned over the ropes, sweat dripping down his face.
“The good Lord gave you two legs, Terry. Both of them work just fine. But you’re always relying on just one. Change up your footwork.” End of pronouncement. Deacon was done for the afternoon.
“Terry, you heard him,” I said. “Work out with the jump rope and then shower up. We’ll look over some tapes tonight before dinner.”
Terry nodded at me. That pretty face was unusual for a boxer, and his upcoming opponent, Gentleman Jake Johnson—whose face was decidedly less pretty—had offered to permanently make Terry’s face ugly in all the prefight trash talking. Now Deacon and I both, privately, wondered if Keenan had also gotten another kind of offer—to take a dive. Benny Bonita couldn’t be trusted, and though we believed in Terry, he had an enormous family. His seven brothers—and one sister—all seemed to think Terry was the ticket to the big time. We wondered if that meant that an even bigger paycheck, courtesy of a bribe from Bonita, was awfully enticing.
Deacon and I headed out of the gym and over to the ranch house, walking over sand and passing small cacti and scrubby-looking bushes. The ranch house was a rambling building with ten bedrooms. It had been a brothel once, and after that, it had been an actual ranch of some sort. I think the former owner had gone from hustling hookers to rustling ostriches.
I opened the front door and went into the large den, where Destiny sat watching a show with a bright purple dinosaur.
“Hi, Destiny,” I said, sitting next to her and reaching out to brush a stray hair from her face.
“Hi, Auntie Jack.”
“How are you doing, kiddo?” Dumb question. How was she supposed to be doing? Her mother was dead, and she was stuck with me and Deacon at a boxing camp while we figured out what to do.
“Okay. Uncle Deacon says Mommy went up to heaven.” She said it very matter-of-fact. Deacon said children didn’t grasp the permanence of death until ten or eleven.
“Yeah…Mommy is in heaven, sweetie pie, which is really sad. But you know what?”
“What?”
“You get to have a guardian angel. Honey, she is going to watch over you.”
Destiny leaned into me, burying her face near my belly. I’d never spent much time with kids. In fact, though I felt badly for her, inside I was realizing the enormity of hiding her. I expected at any moment a phalanx of cops and FBI agents to come swooping down to grab her—and I would get a nice cell to match my father’s.
“Destiny, honey…do you miss Tony?”
“Uncle Tony? Kinda. Did he go up to heaven, too?”
“No.” Though I suppose to some people, Vegas is kind of like heaven. “He’s back at your house.”
“Did you know I have a pet tiger at our house? I couldn’t pet him, but Uncle Tony let me name him.”
“What’d you name him?”
“Tigger.”
“Cute.”
“He’s huge. As big as one in the jungle. Uncle Tony told me he could eat me in one big gulp.”
“Probably could. Did you spend a lot of time with Uncle Tony?”
She shrugged her tiny shoulders and shook her head. “Uh-uh. He was always very busy, Mommy said. I wasn’t s’posed to bother him. But sometimes the three of us did stuff together. Or Mommy would take me to his work to visit him.”
“Did you like visiting him at work?”
“Kinda. I drew pictures on paper in his office, and then the three of us would go out for dinner.”
“What’s your favorite dinner?”
“Chicken nuggets.”
“I think I know how to make them,” I said without enthusiasm. “But Big Jimmy does the cooking out here. I’ll ask him if he can make you some.”
“Big Jimmy and I made cookies.”
“Really?” I knew he was a softie.
“Uh-huh. He used to be Mommy’s boyfriend. She always talked about him.”
“She talked about him? I didn’t know that.” I thought about how Crystal left Big Jimmy. She wanted the lights of Vegas to shine on her, and Big Jimmy wasn’t part of that scene. If she hadn’t left Big Jimmy, she’d be alive and holding Destiny instead of me.
The phone rang. I leaned over to the end table and picked it up.
“Hello?”
“Jack, it’s me.”
“Hi, Rob.”
“Listen…Babe, what I’m hearing…the syringe…it had a fingerprint on it. Not Crystal’s.”
“How long can I keep hiding you know what?” I looked down at Destiny.
“I’m not sure. Not long. But for now, keep that kid safe, while I figure it out.”
I stroked Destiny’s cheek. “Like I said, you’d have to kill me first, Rob.”
“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of.”
Chapter 4
Benny Bonita made Don King look modest. And, quite frankly, he made Don King look like he had a better hairdresser.
However, expensive, flashy suits and ugly pompadour aside, the reason I hated Benny Bonita was he had worn a wire two years ago in a sting that made it appear as if my father was taking a bribe to have one of his fighters throw a match. But my father wasn’t doing anything of the sort. My father was trying to catch Bonita in his little scheme. It was just Dad’s unfortunate luck that he had a cop named Conrad Spiller on his side—a drunken oaf he played poker with who screwed up the entire matter. And Benny Bonita had the chief of police on his side—a slick son of a bitch named Lawrence Dillard. Which meant Dad got busted and Conrad got a desk assignment prior to early retirement, and I got broke hiring attorneys. It also meant I hated Benny Bonita with every fiber of my being.
And that evening, about an hour after I tucked Destiny in bed, Benny decided to show up at the ranch. With five bodyguards.
Perhaps bodyguards isn’t the right term. Donald Trump has bodyguards. Dumb blond pop stars have bodyguards. Benny Bonita had five linebackers who served hard time in prison. At least that’s how they looked. And they didn’t ring the doorbell like the Avon lady. They sped up to the ranch in two black Hummers and almost drove through the front door.
Deacon, Big Jimmy, Miguel, Terry and Eddie the Geek, another of our trainers who insisted on wearing glasses like Buddy Holly, hence his nickname, were sitting in the den watching a TiVo’d episode of All My Children. Don’t ask. Deacon got all the guys hooked on it years ago. He has a thing for Susan Lucci. Now they all have a thing for Susan Lucci.
“Good Lord Almighty! What was that?” Deacon jumped up, hearing the Hummers crash into a fence.
I raced to the front of the house and peered out a window. We had security lights that were activated when someone drove up the driveway, so the front of the house was lit up like the Vegas strip. “It looks like Bonita and several of his choirboys.”
Deacon, Big Jimmy and the rest of them joined me in the foyer. Big Jimmy was packing a gun of some sort he always wore strapped to his ankle. Deacon opened the front hall closet and pulled out a rifle, and I looked for something big and heavy to beat someone over the head with—should it become necessary. And with Bonita, there was a good chance of that. I settled on a nine iron out of Deacon’s golf bag.
“Not my lucky nine iron!” he shouted at me. “Are you crazy, girl? Grab the wood club.”
I traded out the nine iron, and Terry and Miguel adopted fighter stances. Eddie the Geek, all five foot two of him, opened the door cautiously. Benny and his goons strode in like they owned the place.
“Well, look what the cat dragged in. Six oil-slicked rats.” I sneered at them.
Bonita turned to face me. He had pockmarked skin and wore his trademark black Ray•Bans so I couldn’t see beady little eyes. “Jack…Jack…still a little girl in a man’s game. Haven’t you learned your lesson yet, like your dear old dad?”
I raised the golf club and considered just slicing at his knees. I wanted to see him fall to the ground and beg for mercy. Deacon raised his rifle and pointed it right at Bonita’s chest, causing the well-built bodyguards to all draw their weapons out from beneath their suit jackets.
“Looks like we have an old-fashioned standoff, Bonita. So why don’t you and your boys get lost?” Deacon said.
“I’ve come for something that’s mine, and I ain’t leavin’ till I get it.”
“Not a chance,” I snarled. I just wanted him to give me an excuse to club him. At that moment, I had never hated another human being so much in my life. I had visions of Crystal sprawled on my bed.
Terry Keenan was the voice of reason, coming to stand between Bonita’s thugs and Deacon and me. “Come on, fellas…Jack. Let’s leave the fightin’ for the ring. Everybody put away your weapons.” He stretched out his arms and looked from one to the other, urging calm with his steady blue gaze.
Slowly, Deacon lowered the rifle. Bonita nodded almost imperceptibly at his guys, and they reholstered their weapons. I lowered the golf club—only slightly.
Bonita’s voice was gravelly. “Now, look, sweetie, your friend Crystal took something that wasn’t hers to take. And I just want it back.”
I was completely confused. He obviously hadn’t come looking for Destiny, then. What had Crystal taken? Money? Drugs? I had to keep an advantage over him by pretending I knew what he was talking about.
“You’ll get your…stuff…back when I have assurance that Destiny will be left alone. I’m not having her raised by Tony Perrone.”
“You think he wants that brat? This is a lot bigger than your pretty little head can understand. You have no idea who you’re messing with.”
“In fact, I do. A lying, cheating snake.” I walked closer to Bonita, and raised myself to my full height to stare him in the eyes—or at least in the Ray•Bans. I could smell faint garlic on his breath.
“I’m only an honest fight promoter.”
“Spare me your sarcasm.”
“Look, it’s an ugly business, Jack. And it’s no place for a lady.”
“You referring to me or Crystal?”
“Both,” he snarled.
That’s when I’d had enough. I punched Bonita in his soft belly as hard as I could, twisting my fist upward and making sure I landed in the vicinity of his diaphragm, knocking the breath out of him. Bonita was a fight promoter. And unlike my father and uncle, he really wasn’t a fighter—not a very good one at least, even in his prime. And he was soft. Too many women, too much booze and cigars and good casino buffets. Too much time surrounded by big burly guards who did his dirty work so he didn’t have to do it himself. Just had to give the order.
Quick as lightning, he reached out a fist and grabbed hold of my hair, pulling me close to him. “Wouldn’t bother me one bit to watch you die. You’re just another Rooney in my way.”
He released me and shoved me toward my uncle. Deacon wrapped a protective arm around me. “Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord.”
“Yeah.” I glared defiantly at Bonita. “What my uncle is saying is you’ll get yours, Bonita.”
