“Right, you in the middle of one of the movies?” he asked when she’d dropped the beer.

“Always,” she answered.

“Okay. Give notice. Tomorrow.”

That made her look at him. “What?”

“Dad reckons Valenzuela considers this a professional relationship,” he explained. “The legal kind. And we can hope that’s true. So, give notice. Say you’ll finish the film you’re doing now, but once that’s done, you’re out. You realized porn isn’t for you and you got an offer of a job you couldn’t turn down.”

She turned her head to stare at the potato chip bags again.

“You got a contract that says you can’t do that?” he asked.

“I have a contract that states what my credits will be on the films I make, and I don’t use my real name, so it doesn’t matter anyway. I didn’t want royalties for obvious reasons. Valenzuela was suspicious of that, but considering it’s porn, he let it go. I’m employed by Luxe Films, Limited, I’m salaried, not hourly, I get paid a shit-ton of money I don’t use, and that’s it.”

“Okay, then give notice tomorrow. In writing.”

She reached out and touched the potato chip bag with the tip of her middle finger like she was carefully stroking the cheek of a sleeping infant.

Okay.

What in the fuck?

With fingers gunked to shit, he stopped forming a hamburger patty.

“Rebel—”

Her focus cut to him, and when it did he knew instantly she was back.

And just as instantly, he wasn’t sure that was a good thing.

He’d find he was wrong.

But first he was right.

“Don’t be mad,” she said fast. “Rush, please don’t be mad. But I’m not pulling out.”

She could ask.

But she wasn’t going to get that.

He wasn’t mad.

He was pissed.

“We decided this,” he growled.

“I can’t pull out.”

“You can’t stay in,” he bit off.

She shook her head, sharp and fast. “Really, really, baby,” she slid a hand across the counter toward him, “I have to keep at it.”

Oh no.

Fuck to the no.

She wasn’t gonna call him “baby” for the first time trying to get her way to keep doing something that might get her dead.

“We’ve been together twice, had two conversations about this, and came to a decision. I’m not talkin’ about this every fuckin’ time I see you, Rebel.”

“Maybe we can discuss how we can work together to bring down Valenzuela and Chew,” she suggested, sounding desperate, looking it too, leaning toward him across his own fucking kitchen counter.

She sat in his car trying to decide how to broach this with him.

She walked into his house, not the least curious where he fucking lived, working that through her head.

And now she was trying to play his ass to get him to agree not only to let her risk hers but help her do it.

“I’ve answered that question,” he stated, dropping the meat and going to the sink to clean his hands.

“Rush—”

“Rebel, this is dinner. Talking. Getting to know the woman I thought I might like. I thought was interesting and cute and sexy and funny. The woman who is not all about Diane Ragowski and Benito fuckin’ Valenzuela and shit-for-brains Chew Lannigan and all that other garbage—”

“Diane isn’t garbage,” she snapped.

He tore the dish towel off the hook and swiped his hands, turning to her and firing back, “You know what I mean.”

“I’m sorry I’m all about my dead friend, Rush,” she said sarcastically. “My raped and murdered friend.”

“First, don’t lay that fuckin’ guilt trip on me. And second, it’s been nine fucking months, Rebel. It’s time for you to find a way past it.”

She leaned over the counter and spat, “I am!”

“A healthy way.”

She reached out to the purse she’d put on the edge of his counter.

“Maybe I should get a Lyft home,” she suggested.

“Maybe that’s a good idea,” he agreed.

Her head snapped up from looking in her purse, something moved over her face he felt sear low through his gut, then she turned her back on him and walked quickly out of this kitchen, by his dining room table, and into his living room, her head again bent to her purse.

Rush tossed down the towel and followed her.

“Babe.”

She whirled on him, and he stopped.

That look was not moving over her face.

It had settled there.

And the weight he saw there was heavy.

So heavy it was a wonder it didn’t rip the flesh from her skull.

Seeing it, he froze to the spot.

“This isn’t going to work,” she declared.

“Rebel,” he whispered.

“Maybe if . . . maybe if . . .”

He watched her look around, seemingly randomly. The wall to her left. Her boots. Behind him into the kitchen. Her boots again.

Then her eyes came back to him.

And he was at once glad they did and hoped like fuck he’d never see that look in them again.

Jesus, fuck.

“You have a beautiful voice,” she whispered.

Why did she tell him that?

Where was she now?

Wherever it was, he had to get her the fuck out.

“Baby, come here,” he whispered back.

“Maybe if—”

“Rebel, please come to me.”

“I got that call.”

“What call?” he asked when she didn’t keep going.

“In the middle of the night telling me if I cared about Chantilly, I needed to go to her.”

Chantilly was Diane’s porn name.

That he knew.

But . . .

She got a call?

Hawk’s file didn’t say dick about a call.

Rush had a different feeling in his gut, one that tightened his chest and the muscles in his neck, but Rebel kept talking.

“I went. The door was . . . I went. And called the cops. And waited as they went in. Sat there in my car and waited. And then to the station. And Hank. And Eddie.”

She wasn’t making any sense.

He didn’t say a word.

He just stood there, holding her eyes, and listened.

“We went to Paul and Amy. We told them.” She nodded her head. Shook it. Nodded it again. Christ, she was gone. “We told them,” she repeated.

But her voice cracked.

That he got, without her words making much sense.

He couldn’t imagine being there when cops told two parents their daughter had been murdered.

Raped and murdered.

He didn’t want to imagine.

But Rebel didn’t have to imagine shit.

She’d been there.

“Sweetheart, come to me or I’m comin’ to you. Serious.”

He didn’t move when the new look hit her face. The wet hit her eyes. Hovering there.

“You have such a beautiful voice, Rush. Maybe if you’d been there. Maybe if you’d been there to go to. Maybe after we told Amy and Paul that Diane had been killed, if I could have gone to—”

Fuck it.

He took the three steps to her and yanked her into his arms.

He was just in time.

She dropped her phone and purse to the floor, face-planted in his chest and lost it.

He gathered her closer.

She clutched his shirt into her hands and pressed it to her cheeks like she was trying to hide from him.

But she did this sobbing and begging, “Talk to me.”

His voice.

He dipped his head to put his lips to her ear and tightened his arms further, using one hand to stroke her back.

“I’m right here,” he murmured. “Get it out.”

“I can’t stop.”

“Then keep crying.”

“No,” she wailed. “Valenzuela.”

Goddamn it.

“Just feel what you’re feelin’ now, baby. We’ll deal with that later.”

“Mom a-sked us t-to Thanksgiving. It w-was after that. A-after I’d started my p-plan o’ vengeance,” she stuttered. “I w-was d-deep in my p-plan o’ vengeance.”