The Funeral of a Good Girl
By – TempestRaces
Chapter 13 – Absolute
"I've seen this one before, the girl she gets away. Everybody knows it but no one tries to stop it.
Cause she barely even knows him but if she could see inside, everything is quiet as she waits to tell him who she is."
There was a lot he wanted to say to her. Things he needed to say—to explain. But he could see where she was coming from, being overwhelmed. So he'd give her the space she thought she needed. For now. He followed her to the truck and climbed into the driver's seat when she unlocked the doors. She wasn't in a fit state to drive yet, so he'd give her another half hour to get a grip. She gave him a dirty look for his trouble, clearly unwilling to concede the point but cognisant of the fact she couldn't over rule him even if she wanted to. She handed over the key without a word. "What is it you want to do this afternoon?"
"Why? You gonna tell me I don't have shit all to do in L.A. or tell me not to do what I want to too?" She sneered at him expressively, irateness showing as flashes of green fire in her eyes.
"Jesus, chill out! I was just making conversation. And for that matter, Vince is just worried you're going to land yourself in trouble. He's never got anything but your best interests at heart, even when he is heavy handed and clumsy about how he goes about things."
"Yeah, clumsy and heavy handed is right." She sighed. It really wasn't Bryce's fault she was in such a mood. He was only trying to help. "I've got some people to see. I need to know what went down. Why the heat is so hot. You and I might know that he's the instigator, the main force behind this. But the cops should be blaming Dominic and I need to know why they're so interested in where Vince is and not more interested in getting the rest of the idiot squad back from the Federales."
"You figure the rest of them ran to Mexico?"
"They've gone south of the border, that much I'm sure of. Exactly where I don't know. But Letty's got 'Rican on one side and Dominican on the other, and I'm betting she'd know people who could hide them somewhere, if not in Mexico than somewhere down south."
"Who do you figure is going to know for sure?"
"No one. But I want to speak to Hector. I want to know where their cars are. I need to decide what to do with them if they're still around. I need to do something with the garage and the store because they're not just Dom's. I won't let them all screw over Mia. And Jesse might want to open the garage. If they get to come home someday, I don't want it to be to having nothing at all left. Even if it would be because they were stupid."
"You asking a lot of questions about things might attract the heat onto you. People might start wondering who you really are to be asking all those questions in the first place."
"I follow you but they'd have to be tailing me. They're not gonna know who Hector is. Are we being followed? You seem like the kind of guy who'd notice."
He sighed. He hated to give her being right but she was. "I been watching but far as I can tell we're not."
"So we'll drop you at your bike and I won't go back to the fort until I've asked my questions. And after today I'll leave well enough alone just in case they start keeping me under eyes. But today I need some answers. I want to know where Letty and Leon's cars are."
"Why?"
"They were just following the leader. They don't deserve to lose things they can't ever replace."
"What about V?"
"Now Vincent does deserve to lose what he can't replace," she snarled, surprising herself with how angry she still was.
"I think he already has," Bryce answered. Clearly his brother was going to have his work cut out for him paving a way back into this woman's heart. Love him or no, she hated him too, with an intensity that Bryce had rarely seen. She was fucking incensed.
Tempest just gave him an enigmatic look and kept anything else she had to say to herself. They reached the bar and both hopped down out of the truck, which Bryce left idling in park. "You want my number?"
"No, because I don't think your phone getting calls with L.A. area codes is going to help support your alibi if it ever comes down to it."
"It's a throw away cell that Angelo gave me. Not my real phone."
"Okay, give me the number then." She did so and he saved in into his phone book. "When you want me to ring? We're gonna need to sit down and work this stuff out."
"Gimme a day. Let me get my head on straight with Hector and Edwin if need be. Then we'll work it out."
"Ok, I'll ring you tomorrow." Impulsively he hugged her quick and hard before letting her go. "Take care of you. Be careful T. I mean it. You gotta watch your back. Just because we didn't think we were being tailed doesn't mean we weren't. And if we were, now they've put us together with him, and they might start asking questions about who you really are."
"I hear you. But I think my ID will hold up under some scrutiny. And if I know Angelo, he built fail safes into it that will let him know if anyone's looking with too much interest. And if that happens, he's got my number. And likely has the truck bugged up with GPS too. Don't figure he let me come down here not able to keep his eye on me."
"I like the sound of Angelo more and more every time you bring him up in conversation," Bryce answered seriously. She needed a keeper.
"Yeah? Tell it to Jesse, who can't stand the guy even though they never met."
"Why doesn't he like him then?"
"Cause of the same thing that causes all ya'll men to not like each other. Angelo hacks better than Jesse can so he doesn't like him." She laughed softly.
"Like I said, I don't know shit all about computers so I couldn't care less who uses one better'n me."
"That's you."
"Yep, that's me." He shoved her gently toward the truck. "Get the fuck outta here. I'll call you tomorrow. After lunch."
"Better be. I might be sleeping off tonight until then."
"T," he started warningly. The last thing they needed was her making a big deal out of her presence, getting attention they didn't need.
"I know I know! Be careful, keep a low profile, don't go talkin' to strangers. I can drink alone up in the house you know?"
He rolled his eyes and didn't answer, just pointed toward the Escalade. She went, laughing throatily about managing to frustrate the fuck out of him, fully aware she'd managed. He shook his head, smirking. He'd love to know what it was about her that made him like it when she drove him crazy. The fact she was so hot it should be a crime likely didn't hurt, but since he wasn't into her like that, no matter how hot she was, it wasn't likely the answer either.
.
She put the truck in drive and left the lot, programming the sat-nav for El Gato Negro on the fly and hoping Hector was in his club. She didn't want to try and figure out where he was if he wasn't there. It was early in the day for clubs and she didn't know if the Latin man had another day job or not. She was guessing his 'day job' was something he did from the club anyway as she doubted he did very much that was on the up and up.
She parked in the almost empty lot and found the front door unlocked at least. Hector's beloved Civic was present, surrounded by a handful of other tuned and pimped rides. She hoped that either the Latin bartender from the first time had moved on or at least didn't start until much later in the day. The last thing she needed was for him to recognize her. She figured everyone else's paranoia was rubbing off on her now. As many people as that guy saw in the run of a day he was hardly likely to remember one girl from two years ago. Was he?
No one was in the main room when she walked in so she started to wander the perimeter, looking for an office. When she found it, she found Hector, and several other men sat together. She cocked a hip into the door jamb and leaned, waiting to be noticed. They were talking in rapid fire Spanish so she didn't catch much of it, only some of it being similar enough to Italian for her to reason out. One of the posse around Hector noticed her first, gave her a dirty look and made a move to stand up. Following the look his friend was giving someone, Hector turned around. When he saw who it was, he quickly slapped his friend upside the head and admonished him harshly in Spanish. Whatever he'd said to the man had them all quit the room quickly. The man who'd moved to stand up and come her way muttered "lo siento" on his way past.
"Who'd you tell them I was?" she questioned Hector with a smirk. "He sounded awfully worried about his conduct when he said sorry."
Hector grinned. "He's been getting too full of himself for a while chica. I told him you were one of the bosses of the Italian crowd we've just started dealing with. He's scared he just messed up a major deal for us, yo."
She laughed. "Do I even look Italian? You should have told me you were gonna do that. I could have took him down a few pegs in Italian."
"Really?"
"Si. Imbarazzate la vostra sporgenza con le vostre azioni!" She said with her best snarl on her face.
"You're good," Hector. "What did you say?"
"You embarrass your boss with your actions."
"Why'd you ask me if you look Italian when you actually are?"
"I'm not, well, not totally. I've just spend a lot of summers there. Grew up with a friend who's from there."
Hector nodded. "Was wondering if I'd see you."
"Yeah. Likely not the smartest thing I've ever done, coming in here. But I just need to know if you know more than you said on the phone about what went down."
"Not really chica. I heard what I heard second hand from Harry. He was too scared they were bugging his lines in the shop and at home to call you himself so he asked me if I would do it."
"Why would they be bugging the Racer's Edge?"
"Harry was forced into the investigation on the team. They caught him receiving stolen property and used it to force him to let them put one of their undercover guys in the store. Made Harry pretend he'd hired him to work the counter."
"Brian was working at the Racer's Edge? Harry knew he was helping a pig sent in to bring down the team? To send my cousin to jail?"
"Harry had no choice." Hector must have seen the anger at Harry on her face for what she perceived as his assistance to the cops getting the team in trouble. "They had him on enough to send him down for 5 years and there was every chance he could take more than just himself down with him. But I guess we should ask my cousin Jorge what you'd know about that, huh?"
She had the good grace to blush when it was pointed out she wasn't innocent of the trouble in which Harry found himself. That she knew he could have implemented Vince, Bryce, Jorge, to say nothing of herself. "So how is Jorge anyway?" she asked with a cheeky smile, recovering herself.
"He's good. How's Jesse?"
"He's gonna be ok. It's gonna take awhile. It's Vince I'm worried about."
"I'm sorry I didn't have the balls to tell you about him but well, I like them attached to my body and everyone around knows enough about what happened two summers ago to find it dangerous to mention him to you and you to him if you catch my drift. Harry wanted me to tell you but I chickened out of it in the end."
"Don't worry. If you'd told me about Vince I'm not sure I would have come down here, and Jesse needed me to come down."
Hector nodded at her honesty. "It's good to see you again girlie, and know someone is here to take care of their shit, but there really isn't much I can tell you."
"You know what happened to their cars?"
"Harry took care of it but he didn't tell me what or how. He said the fewer people who knew, the better."
"I can see where he's coming from but damn. How'm I supposed to go talk to him if he's that paranoid and I really need answers to these questions? I'm here under an alias and the last thing I want to do is blow it and have the bloody cops asking questions about why they think I'm one person but really I'm another."
Hector pointed to her truck on the CCTV monitor on his desk. "Rolling in that? I don't think anyone is going to question why you're at the Edge. If you rolled up in the Skyline you might have problems. That's a ride that people still talk about round here."
She smirked. "Well, can you blame them?"
"That car with you behind the wheel? Hell no. I'm not sure who Harry's more in love with. You or the Skyline." Hector chuckled.
"Not you too. Harry is not in love with me."
Hector turned a bit more serious than he had been. "Well, no he's not. Not in that way. But believe it or not, he does really care about you. He's been worried sick."
"Well, I'll take your word for it and drop in on him then. Get the answers you can't give me."
"Might be for the best."
"Nothing that's happened in the last two years has been for the best." She frowned. Understatement of the fucking century!
"Maybe not, but if you want to start sorting it out now, you need to speak to Harry."
"I needed to anyway. I've been wondering why it was you that called not him. Even if Leon couldn't have, I would have expected it to be Harry before you or Edwin."
"Yeah, he wanted to. Go see him. Give the old man a few of the years he lost over this whole cluster fuck back."
"Ok. Thanks for the time. Want me to give your boy another dirty look on the way out?" She grinned.
"Yeah, and call him something rude in Italian too." He watched her leave the room, wondering what she'd do when she locked eyes on his hot headed cousin who'd shown her the attitude in the first place. He stood up and took his turn leaning on the door jamb of his office. Watched as she pointed at the crowd his posse made.
"Tua madre si da per niente! Vada via in culo!"
Hector watched her stalk out like she owned the place after telling his cousin Raul his mother was a whore and he should go fuck himself, trying very hard not to bust up laughing. It was a serious situation, and Raul was hot tempered. That was why he was watching, to step in if his cousin took it in his head to forget his place. But Raul had been forgetting his place a bit lately and Hector knew he'd just used Tempest to help him reassert dominance over his crew. But it was still funny that a female who was mostly hair and attitude had managed it.
When she parked up at the Racer's Edge she took a deep breath trying to prepare to go into the shop and see Harry again. She wasn't even sure he was in, or who would be around. She could be making the biggest mistake of her life going into the place when the cops could still be watching it. She knew they might find it interesting that the sister of the one person on the team not implicated in the heists was visiting with the guy they tried to use to infiltrate the gang but damned if she could help herself. Promise to Bryce to watch her back or no.
She pushed into the store and had to check herself from looking around for Jim. She walked up to the counter, and stood in front of the Asian female using one of the terminals. "Can I help you?" the clerk asked, never looking up from the screen.
"I need to see Harry."
"He's busy," she answered, still without breaking eye contact with the screen.
"How do you know? You haven't even checked."
"He's too busy to come hear you offer yourself to him for sex to get your car built, or get into the import modeling circuit," the girl retorted on a sneer.
"Wow, is that generally what people do to get him to sponsor their cars? Funny, all I had to do was ask real pretty. But since my car's already built, I guess that ain't what I'm after huh?" Tempest pulled the power cord out of the back of the flat screen monitor, effectively eliminating whatever was distracting the other woman on the screen. "Now is he here or not?" She was so mad she didn't even realise how stupid it was to admit Harry had built a car 'she' didn't own until the statement had already left her mouth.
"Hey! You b—."
"Finish that sentence and you'll be looking for a new job," Harry growled as he came out of his office. He walked around the counter and just stood looking at the young woman in front of him. "It's been a long time."
"Too long. Can we go talk somewhere a little more private?"
"Yeah, come through to my office."
Once the door was shut behind them Tempest sighed at her own stupidity. "How many people is that stupid bitch likely to tell that some out of towner came in here looking for you, bragging about having a car you sponsored?" She didn't even know who the girl was to Harry, but she still didn't think twice about her profanity. For reasons she'd always played close to her chest she was sure no matter who the other girl was, she wasn't as important to Harry as Tempest knew she was.
Harry raised an eyebrow. "Bit late to be worrying about it now, though I question why you even are. Is it a secret, your car?"
"It is when I'm pretending to be Jesse's sister from New Mexico, not his Canadian cousin who's Skyline you drooled over two years ago."
Harry cocked his head to the side. "How'd you manage that?"
She waved a hand through the air dismissively. "Long story, not important. How'd you come to have Brian the pig working in the store trying to bring down my cousin?"
Harry sighed, ran a hand through his hair. "You heard about that huh?"
"I've just come from Hector's."
He nodded. "It was that or jail. And jail would have meant a trial. A trial at which details of how I was managing to get the stolen property I was selling would have come out. I might have had to implicate Vince, his friend," he paused. "You. I picked the best of the worst options I had. I never figured Brian for smart enough to figure out what was going on. It took him a long time to do, and he only managed because he really did fall for Mia and really did get close to Dominic. Not the easiest thing to do, as no one should know better than you," he reminded gently.
"Yeah, I'm sure Brian the traitor cop was a real saint," she retorted on a sneer.
Harry shrugged. "He ran and gave up his badge rather than stand his ground and testify. He gave them time to escape. He gave up his career and ended up a fugitive as well to try and keep them out of jail. I'm sorry it didn't work for Jesse and Vince, but Brian was just trying to do his job and the team were doing illegal things. In the end he still let them go."
"I know that Harry, but Jess is my family. He was trying to put my family in jail."
"Yeah kid, it sucks but they did what they did."
"Um," she answered noncommittally, not willing to keep debating the point but not willing to agree with his point either. "So, Hector tells me you took care of the cars."
"Yeah, I had them picked up and stashed. Why?"
"Worried they're safe is all. That and I want V's. And a trailer for it. And some new VIN placards and tags wouldn't go wrong either. It's safe to talk in here, right?" She realized she was a bit late with the question but if it wasn't, at least she could start with damage control.
"Yeah, I had the place swept for bugs after the cops stopped watching me, and the place, for Brian to make contact. Took awhile but they gave up eventually. What do you want with Vince's car?"
"I'm going to kidnap him and I figure eventually he'll want the car back. I'll tow it home with the truck."
Harry's head reared back in shock. "Excuse me? You're going to kidnap him?"
"Yeah, it's that or he goes to jail. Which hardly seems fair when Dom and Leon got to run to some nice warm south of the boarder location."
"Maybe not, but damn. Do you know what you're setting yourself up for if you get caught?"
"Yeah, but I don't have much choice. Two years Harry. I've already been waiting two years for him to fix what he broke. It was supposed to be him who fixed this. We agreed I should wait for him to make the first move, after everything. We agreed it was supposed to be him who fixed it. He broke it!" she roared at Harry, even though she knew it wasn't his fault. But god damn it, it was true. Vince had broken them, and it was supposed to be him who took the first step to fix them. And then when he did she was supposed to get to move here, take Harry's offer. But yet, here she was, being the one to take all the steps, all the risk and make all the concessions. Again. She started to sob again, hating herself for her inability to control herself. But when she and Harry talked about the future, theirs together always started with Vince coming to admit he'd been a moron. And yet, here she was. And yet, he was a moron, he'd just never had to admit it. But he'd left her to chose yet again between her dream job, or him. And it was again her who had to give up something she really wanted over something stupid he'd done.
Harry pulled her into a hug. "How do you think I feel? I've been waiting those two years too you know? Waiting for him to make up with you so I could have my star mechanic and open my garage. Now you're telling me you're going on the run with him and I'll never convince you to come work for me."
The touch of humour was the right way to go and it calmed her into a watery laugh. "Yeah, you definitely have the worst of it in this comedy of errors. You still don't know I'm that good."
"Modest to a fault. You were good enough I would have had a huge fight on my hands with Dominic if I stole you away from him. He was already planning where to put your bay."
"Me, work with Dominic? You must be delirious. Besides that, I never woulda been able to boss him around his own shop the way I woulda ran you around."
"I'd like to argue but I know it's true," Harry agreed with a wry chuckle. He turned serious, held her at arm's length by the tops of her arms so he could look her up and down. "It's good to see you. You look good, all things considered."
"Thanks, I think. I should get back to the hospital. I don't want to leave Jesse alone too long, and I've been gone for hours. Can you hook me up with the car?"
"Yeah. I'll have to take the graphics off it, at a minimum. It's a custom blue. Damn this is a bad idea T. If you get stopped, it's going to be a dead giveaway. New tags and VIN or no."
"Risk I have to take. He won't be fit to live with if he doesn't have the Maxima." She stood up to leave.
"Let me come get you at 7. I'll take you for dinner. You look like you need a meal," Harry offered on impulse. She had to be spending all her time alone or in the hospital. She was going to crack if that carried on.
"How much trouble is you and I together going to cause Harry? How should I even know you if people ask?"
"Same way as you clearly know Vince I suppose."
"Only a few people at the hospital know about that though."
"Well, I'm not under surveillance anymore, and if you're not either, it should be safe enough, yes?"
"I guess." She really wanted his company, she was sure it was a bad idea, but lately she hadn't been acting on too many good ones, so what was one more bad one really? A thought checked her at the door of his office. "How long did you know they were doing what they were doing Harry?" If he'd known all along and hadn't told her, she didn't know how she'd ever forgive him. She wished she had never even thought of it. If he told her he'd known all along, she'd have to start hating him, and she really needed all the people to lean on she could get.
"I didn't know. Not until near the end, when Brian ruled out Tran and Hector. Once he'd ruled out Tran, I sort of knew it had to be them. There was no one left who could pull it off. Hector was always just a red herring. A criminal with a liking for Civics. Tran was a real potential player but when Brian had him busted and it came to nothing, that was when I figured it had to be the team."
She looked at him over her shoulder. Needing him to be being truthful. "You swear to me, on my life, that you didn't know until then? That you didn't keep this from me when I could have done something about it, before now?"
"T, I swear I would have told you. Who do you think has more of my loyalty? You, or Dom Toretto?"
She nodded to show she believed him. "I'm glad I don't have to start hating you Harry."
He chuckled. "Me too T. Go visit your cousin, be ready for 7. He's at St. Francis right?"
"Yeah. See you at 7."