Chapter Thirty

Roz tried to make me put on a black leather ensemble too but let me off the hook when I admitted that I didn’t want to be compared to her and found lacking. I did change into jeans and put on a fresh coat of bright red lipstick though.

Westley was easy to spot at Fizz. He sat stiffly at the bar, nursing some sort of clear drink, and he constantly scanned the room. The dumbass actually rested his eyes on my face for a moment before continuing his scan.

Five, four, three, two, one. His gaze popped back to me. I cocked my head and nodded at him in recognition. He launched himself off his stool in my direction.

Behind the bar, Micki straightened like a soldier. I gave her a reassuring wave. At my side, Roz bounced on the balls of her feet. “Go sit down,” I whispered. She looked so disappointed to be cut out of the action I threw her a bone. “I’ll signal you if I need backup, OK?” She nodded importantly and marched to a table at the corner. I hoped to God she wouldn’t tase somebody by accident. Or on purpose.

Striding toward me, Westley’s facial expression underwent a metamorphosis. Sitting at the bar, he’d tried for a casually pleasant look. But Micki had read him right. An undercurrent of anger had tensed his jaw and temple too much for him to look casual or pleasant.

Now though, as he headed straight for me, he forced the tension away, melted his features into the cocky, flirty guy who’d hit on me five years back. Man, that was a long time ago. It seemed like a different life. Hell, it kind of was.

As he approached, he held up his arms as if to give me a hug. “Do you remember me? It’s been a minute. It’s so great to see you, pretty girl,” he exclaimed, looking at me from head to toe. “Don’t you clean up nice! I almost didn’t recognize you.”

I sidestepped his arms. I didn’t want him to touch me for one second. Beneath my cool exterior and exultation at being the bringer of the Sex Ghost’s legal doom was a burning, molten layer of pure fire at how he’d used me and all the other poor girls on his site. And wow. That anger wanted a chance to come out and play before the cops arrived. “Hello, Westley.”

Beaming, he put a hand over his heart in a sort of “aw shucks” gesture. “You do remember me!” He pointed toward the bar. “Can I buy you a drink?”

I was tempted if only to have something to throw in his face. “No thanks,” I said. “Being drunk would definitely make it easier to spend time in your presence, but I can get my own.”

His eyebrows shot up and then down, as though he didn’t know if I was joking or how he should respond. Finally, he arranged his lips in a mock pout. “I seem to remember you having fun.” His expression tried for jovial, but his voice was icy.

I snorted. “We have different definitions of fun then. Because for me, having unenjoyable sex only to find out that it was posted on the internet years later without my permission is not my idea of fun.”

I gave him a cheeky grin and spoke in a whisper I was positive no one else in the bar could hear. “For fun, I like to play with servers. Offshore ones are my fav.”

His eyes narrowed. “You did do it then, didn’t you?” If I were the type of girl to shiver at the sound of a pathetic man’s rage, I would have done it then.

Instead I marched myself to the bar, and Micki handed me a bourbon without being asked. “Thanks,” I mumbled to her without moving my lips. “Cops’ll be here soon. I’ll get him outside when I know they’re coming.” Her lips turned up in an approving grin, and she moved to the other end of the bar, whistling.

A few stools down, Joe looked between Westley and me, eyes narrowed. “You all right, GK?”

My lips twitched at the new nickname. Ghost Killer. I liked it much better than Tessie, but it was a little inaccurate. Tomorrow I’d have to tell him that I’d only hired the Ghost Killer. It didn’t have quite the same ring to it. “I’m fine.”

I watched Westley in the mirror behind the bar. He looked furious, but he took a deep breath and pasted on that same fake smile and walked over to stand behind me. He tried to order a drink, but Micki ignored him. Finally, he perched next to me and met my eyes in the mirror. When he spoke, his lips were so close to my ear I could feel his disgusting breath. “Look, we can fix this. Now that I know you are…” he paused, obviously unsure how to give a compliment to a woman “…a person to take seriously.” He cleared his throat. “My bad, OK?”

I flicked my eyes over his face dismissively. “Yes, Westley. It was definitely ‘your bad.’” I’ve always hated that expression. I took a swallow of my bourbon and grinned at Micki’s back. She’d given me a free double of Woodford Reserve.

“So, listen,” Westley said, vibrating on the stool next to me. I marveled at how diminished he was since I’d seen him last. He couldn’t sit still, and there was a layer of sweat on his pale face. Either he was financially devastated by the loss of his seedy livelihood or he had substance abuse issues. Probably both. “How ’bout we come to some sort of arrangement? Like a partnership?”

Oh, I just couldn’t resist. I licked my lips and cooed at him. “You mean, you would want me for a real partner?” My voice was ridiculously breathy and high. He didn’t seem to notice. He just nodded quickly. I batted my eyelashes. “So I would make money too whenever you record girls and put them on the internet?”

He bobbed his head up and down. “That’s right! You give me back my videos and remove all the viruses or whatever’s all over my system and I’ll share the profits of my business with you.”

My phone buzzed in my pocket. I glanced down at it surreptitiously. It was a text from Natasha Long. Two cop cars and myself en route. ETA five minutes. Perfect.

Westley was too busing waxing on about our future partnership to even notice that he’d lost my focus. “What do you say, Good Time? Fifty/fifty, OK?” God, he was stupid. Did he actually think I’d want to be referred to by his sex tape name for me?

“Why don’t we talk about it a little more outside?” I suggested in my baby-doll voice.

He held out his arm. “Lead the way.” He opened the front door for me, and we stood on the sidewalk. This stretch of Ashland was always busy during the day because of all the auto repair and other small businesses. At night, though, Fizz was the only bar on the block and it was much quieter.

Westley opened his backpack and showed me the laptop inside. “OK, partner. What do we need to do to fix my system and get back online? We’re losing money every second the site is down.”

I couldn’t even pretend anymore. My eyes and voice went back to normal. “Fuck you.” I laughed. “As if I would ever be party to such a shitty and hurtful and criminal enterprise. Do you have any idea of the pain you’ve caused people? The lives you’ve derailed, maybe permanently?”

Oh, I wished every single one of his victims were here with us right now. There were more than seventy recordings on the site when Max took it down. I pictured seventy angry women on this dark street all bearing down on him. It was a beautiful image.

Westley’s face went still and cold. He took a step closer and shook a finger in my face. “Listen, bitch, I didn’t force anyone to have sex with me. And I didn’t force anyone to make a recording. All of the women made that choice on their own. All I did was share them.” He grunted and shrugged. “If you girls don’t want the consequences, you should make better decisions.”

I wanted to kill him. Put my fingers around his throat and squeeze until his eyes bulged and his face turned purple. If those cops didn’t show up soon and I had to listen to any more of his victim-blaming, I was going to give in to my baser instincts.

I threw back the rest of my bourbon with one hand and waved my other around his movie-star face. “What a waste of good genes you are.”

Westley caught my hand by the wrist and squeezed. Hard. I didn’t let myself wince or flinch. “You better fix my system or you’ll be sorry you ever met me.”

Ha! I leaned forward. “Never going to happen, tough guy, and I was sorry thirty minutes after you bought me a drink.”

His handsome face darkened and folded in on itself, and he showed his teeth. This was the real Westley, the ugly one he’d never video. He kept squeezing my wrist as hard as he could. It hurt like a mother and I’d have a monster bruise tomorrow, but I didn’t lose my smirk. The cops would arrive any minute, and they’d pull up to see the elusive perp in person, manhandling one of his victims. This couldn’t be going more perfectly if I’d had weeks to plan it. But then…

“Let her go.”

Westley and I both froze.

I whipped my head toward the familiar, beloved voice. Max stood on the corner, breathing hard and sweating, as though he’d been running like a maniac. I almost laughed. He’d put remote GPS trackers on as much of the Sex Ghost’s equipment as he could. The laptop Westley was carrying must have been emitting a signal. What must Max have thought when he saw it pinging from Fizz?

“I said, let her go,” Max said through clenched teeth.

Westley shook my enclosed fist at him. “Not a chance in hell. This whore stole something from me, and I’m not letting her go until I get it back.”

“Don’t worry, Max,” I said, giggling. Giddy because I was so happy to see his face, even if it was tight and anxious. Even though he probably would have shown up to be a white knight for anyone, not just me. “I’m totally fine.”

Max glared at me, and I suddenly realized there was a fair bit of fear mixed into his mad. “You’re not fine! You’re alone with this asshole and he’s got a grip on you. He could drag you into a car or down a side street. This situation is the polar opposite of fine!”

OK, that was a touch dramatic, but he didn’t know about my friends inside or the lawyer or the cops arriving soon. Out of context, perhaps my situation did seem dangerous.

Max wasn’t finished. “Hasn’t he hurt you enough?” he demanded. “You’re always going on and on about how you can take care of yourself, and then I find you like this?”

Westley seemed to like that I was getting harangued. “Stupid bitch,” he added.

I’d had enough of them both. With my free hand, I smashed my empty bourbon glass on the sidewalk. The sound surprised Westley enough that he loosened his grip on my wrist and I was able to yank it away. Quickly turning so that my ass was to Westley’s front, I raised my knee and brought the heel of my big, black boot down as hard as I could on his toes. I crushed those suckers. One or two might even have broken.

Westley grunted and leaned forward. I whirled again to face him, grabbed his shoulders and kneed him the balls. There was a month of emotion built up in that knee, and he went down howling. Excellent. It wasn’t the first time I’d used the sequence of moves I’d learned in self-defense, but it was certainly the most satisfying.

As I straightened and smoothed my shirt, I heard one of the best sounds of all time. Max’s firecracker laugh. Again and again he laughed, eventually leaning against Fizz’s brick exterior for breath and balance.

When he finally got himself under control, he gasped. “And to think, I was coming to save you.”

That wasn’t really funny. I frowned. “You already did,” I reminded him. “The night you shut him down. If not for you, my life would have been over. I would have lost my job. I would have been an embarrassment to everyone I know. You absolutely did save me.”

He shrugged, a twinkle in his eye glinting behind the lens of his glasses. He pointed down at Westley, who lay curled on his side, twitching. “I had something more physical in mind.”

“Do you want to hit him?” I asked helpfully. “The cops are still a few blocks away. You can probably fit in one good sucker punch.” For some reason, that set him off on another peal of laughter. I reveled in it. The sound bubbled over me and washed away all the ugliness of the night.

The door to Fizz opened, and Roz poked her head outside. “Oh.” She looked down at Westley’s crumpled form. “Nice. Guess you don’t need my Taser then.” She looked up at me hopefully. “Unless you want me to give him one quick zap?”

“No,” I said firmly. “But thanks.”

She waggled an eyebrow at Max. “The hacker’s here too. Interesting.” She squinted down the street where two cop cars were one block south, waiting at a red light. “I’ll go tell Mohawk that everything’s fine.”

Seconds later, the police cars pulled over, and Natasha Long jumped out of the passenger side of the one in front. “Are you all right, Tess? What happened?”

I cleared my throat. “He said I was going to be sorry we’d ever met. He called me a stupid bitch. He grabbed my wrist and squeezed.” I held up both wrists. For once, my fair skin was doing me a favor. A hideous bruise was already forming on my left wrist, and you could see how swollen it was compared to my right. “I stepped on his foot and kneed him in the crotch to defend myself.”

Natasha took over then, reminding the men with her about the outstanding John Doe warrant. Westley was shoved into the back of the second squad car, and the officers took his laptop into custody.

Before she climbed back in the first car, Natasha pulled me aside. “We’ll take it from here, Tess, although you will be called in to make a statement at some point. I’ve already notified the attorneys in the other Sex Ghost cases. How did you know he was here?”

I decided to ignore Max’s GPS trackers and go with only my story. “The bartender is a friend of mine, and some of the regulars are on the Sex Ghost mailing list. They’re how I found out about the whole thing a month ago, and they called when they recognized him tonight.”

She patted my arm and gave me a wide smile. “You’ve given me my most exciting case in a while.”

I laughed. “Glad to help.”

I watched the cars drive south and disappear. I wanted to do a little dance, imagining Westley in lockup tonight. And I would—later.

But right now, Max stood five feet away from me.