Authors: Meryl Sawyer
“N
OT WHAT
I
EXPECTED
,”
Ryan whispered to Hayley. The dilapidated building smelled fruity somehow—as if it had once been used to process strawberries or some other fruit.
“Me, either. I’ve never been to an MMA exhibition fight, but I have seen their televised fights.”
They’d driven to the City of Industry east of Los Angeles in the early evening. Their destination was an unused warehouse that had been set up with temporary bleachers around an octagonal ring for the matches. The ring was encased on all sides and across the top by double-gauge chain link.
Throngs of people—more men than women, but a lot more women than Ryan had expected—were crowded onto the bleachers. Klieg lights had been temporarily strung from the ceiling. The ring was blindingly bright, but much of the spectator area was in shadows.
“Why so much chain link?” Ryan asked Hayley.
“The fighters use lots of moves from every fighting sport imaginable—kickboxing, jujitsu, judo, wrestling and God only knows what else. Sometimes the fighters fly through the air. The chain link keeps them from landing on spectators.”
“Good to know,” Ryan said, thinking how pretty
Hayley looked in the sexy black blouse cut low enough to get a peek at the swell of her breasts and white cutoff denim shorts that showcased nicely tanned killer legs.
Sleeping with her had been both a good idea and a bad idea. He was more attached to her now and knew it wasn’t just sex. He was even more worried about her than before. Nothing suspicious had happened since she’d resurfaced, but that didn’t mean Hayley was safe. He needed to stay vigilant, watch everything, everyone, which was damn hard with Hayley so close that he struggled to keep his hands off her.
“I tried to use a jujitsu move on you the night you tackled me in the dark,” Hayley told him in a teasing tone that made him want to kiss her. Hell—everything she did made him want to kiss her.
“You need to practice that move some more.” He winked. “I’m available.”
“You think? After the fight, The Wrath is going to show me a surefire move to take someone down—even someone your size and weight.”
“This I’ve gotta see.”
“You will.” She looked around at the bleachers where not a single seat was left. A throng of late arrivals had been forced to stand shoulder-to-shoulder to watch. “Look how many of my T-shirts are out there,” she said.
Ryan nodded; he’d already noticed all the stylized Grim Reapers with The Wrath’s logo:
Kick Fear—Believe.
Other shirts had different logos on them, but it was apparent The Wrath was a crowd favorite.
“Wait until you see how many I sell at the Board Wars. I’ll have a baby line, pet collars, shorts, caps and hoodies with The Wrath’s Reaper on them.”
He didn’t like her plan to be in the booth with The
Wrath. It exposed her to a crowd of people. Anything could happen. It was two days away. With luck, this mess would be cleared up and they would be getting on with their lives.
The crowd screamed and stomped as a bare-chested fighter with dreadlocks like a nest of snakes bounded into the ring, followed by another fighter with every visible inch of his body—even his shaved head—tattooed with skull and crossbones of various sizes. Both fighters wore shorts and lightly-padded fingerless gloves. Neither wore shoes or shirts.
“How long’s a round?” Ryan inquired.
“Fifteen minutes.”
“No kidding?” He was dumbfounded. “Pro boxing just has a three-minute round.”
“True,” Hayley responded with the cute off-kilter smile she often had. “But they have twelve rounds. These guys just go three.”
Ryan couldn’t help being impressed. He’d seen part of a match on television but hadn’t paid much attention. He’d switched channels before the fight had been completed.
“There are very few rules,” Hayley continued. “No poking eyes or biting. There are weight classes like in boxing. There’s a referee but he isn’t in the cage. If a fighter wants to give up, he just ‘taps out’ and the match is over. That’s how TapouT, the most successful of the MMA lines, began.” She inclined her head toward the section next to them. “Surely you noticed the big-boobed blonde in the TapouT T-shirt.”
Of course, he’d picked up on the blonde. He’d secretly kept his eye on everyone, checking for someone who might hurt Hayley. Two-thirds of this crowd appeared suspicious. Apparently they did it on purpose.
Butt-hanger jeans or shorts on guys with enough tattoos to cover the navy. Too many had fast-food guts beneath cage fighters’ T-shirts. Women with so many body piercings they could set off a metal detector from fifty feet away. Most of their breasts weren’t original equipment. Humanity’s resale rack, for sure.
“I see the woman you mean. The TapouT logo reminds me of a bat.”
“It’s supposed to. Punkass uses a lightning bolt. PimpIt uses a red outline of a rattler as a logo. I came up with the Grim Reaper idea for The Wrath. It takes a little more designing but it’s way cool.”
Hayley was proud of herself and he couldn’t blame her. She had more talent than most designers, and more guts. What she needed was a break. If he could just find out who was after her. Where was the bastard? A cold-blooded killer didn’t just plant a bomb, then give up.
Didn’t make sense. He would try again. He? Ryan watched the cage fighters warm up by jogging around the ring, pumping fists at the cheering crowd. Why did he think it was a man? It could have been a woman. They had the capacity to be just as evil as men and more of them were committing violent crimes. But somehow he believed the bombing had the mark of a pro. Professionals were usually men.
Ryan scanned the crowd surrounding the ring. Most of the spectators were under thirty-five and didn’t look like pros. Not that he knew what he was looking for exactly. He was merely checking to see if anyone was watching Hayley.
There was a man in the far corner of the bleachers opposite them who might be staring at Hayley, but it was hard to tell because he wore sunglasses. Odd, Ryan
thought, keeping the man in sight without directly looking at him. The guy shoved the shades to the top of his head. He was concentrating on the ring, not Hayley.
“Did you get a look at people’s shorts?” Hayley asked.
“Sort of. Mostly camouflage stuff or denim cut short.”
Hayley smiled her approval. “Good eye. Shorts are getting shorter, even on surfers and fighters. The gangsta look with baggy shorts that flap around the knees is going out. Short is back.”
“I guess designers keep abreast of trends.”
“Not trends. Microtrends. Small changes that seem cutting edge. Most people don’t notice them or think it’s an aberration. If you’re going to be successful you catch the wave—so to speak—before it maytags.”
“Maytags?”
“Sorry. A surfer term for a wave that breaks and spins you around like you’re in a washer. You want to ride the wave, not be maytagged. That’s why my summer collection has shorter board shorts in it. I’ll repeat that in the fall line. Let other designers chase me.”
Hayley’s green eyes sparkled as if she was playing a game, but Ryan knew how serious she was about her work. She’d already told him the first thing she’d checked when she’d gone into Surf’s Up and accessed the computer was how her clothing line was selling. She had an eye for fashion and a good business sense. He wasn’t sure where this fit with her ambition to become an artist.
A bell signaled the start of the fight. With whoops like Confederate soldiers, the fighters charged each other. They went at it like lunatics on meth—kicking and flipping with astounding swiftness. One would hit the mat, then rebound to throw a punch worthy of a pro boxer followed by a karate chop. Wild grunts and
sounds like a jackal’s cry rose above the shouts of fans cheering them.
The dreadlocked fighter threw a punch and a geyser of blood shot from the other fighter’s nose. It squirted onto fans in the first row and the women among them squealed in delight.
“The ref’s not going to stop it?” Ryan asked. A bad cut would halt a pro boxing fight until it was fixed or the ref called off the fight.
“There’s no stopping unless a fighter taps out.”
“Aw, hell,” Ryan said. He’d seen enough injuries on the gridiron to inure him but most women hadn’t. How could Hayley watch? he wondered. He shot her a sideways glance and saw her eyes were squeezed shut.
Now the guy with the scorpion tattoos kicked with his leg. It snapped around like a bull whip and caught dreadlocks in the solar plexus. The guy hit the thin mat on the cement floor with a wet sound like a load of sand. But he hadn’t been knocked out. Dreadlocks grabbed his opponent’s leg and hauled him off his feet.
They grappled on the floor, now using wrestling holds Ryan recognized, and stayed there while the crowd, hyped on bloodlust, chanted, “Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill!” Neither seemed to have an advantage as they furiously battled to get the upper hand.
Ryan checked his watch. Less than five minutes had passed. How in hell did these fighters go three fifteen minutes? Just then the rattler-tattooed guy was thrown against the chain-link fencing. It gouged his back and rivulets of blood oozed out of his skin.
Ryan leaned closer to Hayley and asked, “When does The Wrath fight?”
“He’s third on the card,” she responded, now opening
her eyes. “The primo spot. Two others follow but they’ll just be beginners. After all, it’s only an exhibition, which is a glorified practice, not a real fight.”
A tragedy, for sure. Ryan would hate to see a real fight. Whoever called it “human cockfighting” was dead-on. “The fighters make money?”
“Absolutely. Not on an exhibition fight, but real fights have huge cash prizes. MMA is the darling of payper-view sports right now. Megabucks.”
Ryan was about to say more when his cell phone pulsed. A quick check of Caller ID revealed Meg Amboy was trying to reach him. “It’s your aunt,” he said before he answered. “Ryan Hollister.”
“Ryan? Where are you?” Meg asked.
He put his hand over his other ear. “Hold on a minute.” He stood up and signaled Hayley to let him out. They were near one end of the makeshift bleachers. He jumped to the warehouse’s floor from the third row up. That put him behind those standing to watch the fight.
“Can you hear me now?” he asked. He went to the back wall where he could still keep his eye on Hayley. He doubted she was in any danger. A killer who took such pains to hide an explosive device probably wouldn’t attempt to hurt Hayley in front of so many people. But you never knew.
“Yes. I hear you fine. I wanted you to get a message to Hayley.”
Ryan leaned against the wall. He was positive Meg knew that he and Hayley were together. She may have even guessed they were staying at his father’s home, but she pretended that she didn’t suspect a thing.
“What kind of message?” He heard the wary note in his own voice.
“A man named Steve Fulton came to see me.”
Uh-oh. Lindsey’s abusive husband. “What did he want?”
“He claims his wife didn’t know Hayley. He believes his wife is still alive and wants to know why Hayley made up the story.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I had to calm him down. Poor man was beside himself with grief. I think he’s in denial. He knows his wife must be dead but can’t admit it. He insists she didn’t know Hayley.”
Hayley had told him all about Lindsey’s relationship with her husband and how Hayley had encouraged her to leave many times. Hayley had met the husband at a gallery in San Francisco, as Ryan recalled. What man wouldn’t remember Hayley?
“Steve Fulton wants Hayley to call him at this number.”
Ryan memorized the number. “I’m not sure Hayley talking to this guy is a good idea.”
“I’m not, either,” Meg told him. “The man seems… I’m not sure how to put it. Unstable, I guess is the best word to describe him. Should I contact the police?”
“Let me call them. I need to talk to Detective Wells anyway.”
The fight was over apparently. The guy with snaky dreadlocks was parading around the ring, pumping his fist. Ryan looked at Hayley and saw she was watching him. He held up one finger to let her know it would be another minute. He scrolled through his call list to retrieve the phone number for Detective Wells.
“Dave Wells,” the deep male voice said after the third ring.
Ryan started to explain who he was, but the detective immediately recognized his name. He could tell by Wells’ tone that the guy was busy. Ryan quickly explained about Meg’s call. “She’s really concerned that Steve Fulton might harm her niece.”
“The man’s damn upset. He has no idea who Hayley is. Claims his wife never knew her.”
It sounded as though Detective Wells agreed with Steve Fulton. “Lindsey was trying to get away from him. Wasn’t Lindsey on the bar’s security tape? Didn’t you show it to him?”
“True. Fulton claims the woman isn’t his wife. The tape is pretty grainy. It’s hard to be sure.”
Yeah, right. And pigs fly.
“Can’t you make Fulton stay away from Hayley—a restraining order or something?”
“No chance. Not unless he threatens her personally. Just looking for her and wanting an explanation isn’t enough.”
“Okay, but you’re on notice.” Ryan figured he’d have to take care of Fulton himself. Although it might not come to that. Hayley wouldn’t be that easy to find.
He was set to thank Wells and hang up when the detective said, “Interesting report came in today. Seems the cleaning service that services the Fordham house on Linda Isle reported a robbery.”
“What was taken?” Ryan asked, although he had a fairly good idea what the detective would say.
“Electronic gear. Television, Blu-Ray, computer and color printer.”
“Umm-hmm,” Ryan responded. He’d guessed correctly. Someone wanted Hayley’s mother’s computer. Probably discovered the computer hadn’t been totally wiped clean and didn’t want to chance incriminating
evidence being found by one of the high-fliers from Washington who were circling the case like vultures.
“Doesn’t the house have an alarm system?” Ryan asked, recalling Hayley resetting the alarm after they’d wiped the computer.
“It does, but some thief was smart enough to cut out the glass on a sliding door to the water side. Came and went from there without triggering the alarm.”