by Evelyn Glass
Joanne shook her hands before drying them on a washcloth and leaned her hip against the counter.
"This is all very good of you to say, but I know you better than that, remember? I'm your friend."
I rolled my eyes. "Which is the only reason I'm still in this damn club. You know I don't fit in."
"Yeah, but you have the most interesting stories. Come on, you can't tell me you didn't notice how they were hanging on your every word in there."
"Because I was talking about a man that was sexy. Lela eats that stuff up."
"I knew you thought he was sexy."
She had me in a corner again. She was too clever for this. Maybe it would have been better if she were the lawyer and not Lela. Joanne was a force to be reckoned with. I always felt stupid when I was next to her even though she insisted my kind of intelligence was just different from hers.
"I have to get out of here. I want to see if I can still write a little tonight."
"You're fine getting home, or would you like me to drop you off?"
"I'm fine, thanks." I wasn't going to let her drive me around like she was my mom just because it was easier and cheaper to not use my car.
"I'm coming past you in the morning, though. Drive with me then."
I agreed. If it wasn't out of her way I didn't mind.
-----------------
I woke up and got dressed, ready for Joanne to pick me up. She looked crisp and fresh and I knew she'd had a whole morning behind her by the time I got into her SUV.
She drove right past the library on her way to work and it saved me a few dollars when she did.
"Thanks."
We got into her SUV and drove the short distance from her house to the Branciforte Library.
"He's not here yet," I said absently.
"Are you waiting for him?"
I looked at her. Her face was straight with no emotion but her eyes were laughing at me. I shook my head but I couldn't help smiling.
"It's for research, you know?"
"Right."
I shook my head and leaned over to hug her. "I'll see you tomorrow. Do you want to go out for drinks or something afterward?"
She nodded. "Sounds good. I'll talk to you later."
I got out of the SUV and waved at her before she pulled off. The library parking lot was empty. I walked up to the door and unlocked it, disabling the alarm and walking to the counter. I started up the computer and put my manuscript on the counter. I put my phone on top of it and sat down in the chair where I spent most of my day.
I had to train at home because I sat down all day, but I didn't stick to it enough to justify it and the chocolate I ate. Thank God I had a fast metabolism, which meant I hardly picked up weight even when I ate badly.
I glanced at the clock. It was almost eleven. The library was officially open. I walked to Alicia's office and found the wallet in the drawer where I'd left it last night. I put it in a drawer behind the counter instead and looked at the door that led outside.
Chapter 4
Logan
I stopped at the library at five minutes past eleven. I had a slight headache - I'd hardly slept last night. The meeting had only finished at half past twelve and we'd talking until three in the morning before going home. I'd been up at five again because I kept getting calls from an unknown number and someone on the other side of the line not saying anything.
It didn't scare me but I had the idea that someone was after me or the boys and I had to make sure they were okay. I'd let Saul know something was up. In the Club, he was my right-hand man, a huge badass bastard who didn't take no for an answer and would protect me and my boys with his life.
I rubbed my hand over my face before I got off my bike. I'd put on a fresh set of leather pants and a black jean jacket that had the sleeves ripped out and it looked like someone had shot pointed studs into it with a shotgun. It was all over the place without a pattern.
Yes, I'd dressed up especially for Selena. I wanted to look good for her, even though I was pretty sure she wouldn't be interested. It made me want to win her over that much more. I wanted the only girl, possibly in the whole world, who didn't want me. It was a thrill. I couldn't remember when last I'd gone through this much effort for a woman.
Definitely not for that bitch of an ex of mine. May had been a pain in the ass and I hadn't bothered with her long before we'd ended our relationship. It was the crazy that had done it for me, though. She'd lost her plot very early on in our relationship - if she'd had it at all, to begin with - and I'd lost interest because no one could deal with someone as unstable as she was.
That was a relationship I definitely didn't miss. The only thought I ever gave her was one that was tainted with a hell of a lot of relief. I liked to use her as a bar to measure other women against. The more different they were from May, the better. It was cruel in a way but she didn't know and the girls didn't have to, either.
Every man had a past they didn't necessarily want others to know about.
I climbed the steps up to the library and my eyes fell on her. She sat at the computer, staring at it with a far off look on her face. She wasn't here; she was in some distant country, wherever her daydreams were taking her. It gave me a moment to just look at her without seeming like I was staring.
She turned her head to me when I was halfway to the counter and her face changed. That open, dreamy look disappeared and her face closed. It was disappointing to lose that look on her face and to be the one that caused it.
"You're back." Her tone was almost hostile.
"I'm here for my wallet."
Blue eyes. I knew now. And not just the boring blue, either. Electric blue. Cerulean blue. Stare-into-her-eyes-forever blue.
She nodded and opened a drawer. She pulled it out and put it on the counter. I pocketed in and leaned my elbows on the counter, looking for something - anything - that would let me talk to her just a little longer.
My eyes fell on the wad of pages next to her. It was typed out neatly and it looked like a book of sorts. I frowned. "What's that?"
She glanced down at the pages. "None of your business."
She was feisty. I loved it. I wanted to see more of it. It was better than her being so closed off.
I reached over the counter and grabbed it, pulling it away before she could react. Her face was a mixture of surprise and horror. The only reason I'd been able to grab it was because she hadn't expected I would do that. Most of the time I could get things like that - the element of surprise was my friend all the way through.
"Give that back!" she cried and shot out of her chair, trying to grab it out of my hands over the counter but I took a step back and she was stuck.
"Is this a book?"
"Please, don't."
She sounded a little pleading, but not enough to win out over my curiosity. I read the introduction paragraph.
I know you. We've been here before. No surprises. A settled score. I know the darkness. From inside. A reckless rage. A poisoned pride."
I got shivers. These were song lyrics. White Buffalo, if I was correct.
She'd come around the counter and her hand reached for the manuscript. I didn't want her to have it back. I wanted to read more. I wanted to know more. What was this story? Who was this woman? I understood her stare at the screen now. She was a writer - she had to be. I'd witnessed art in its raw form when I'd seen her like that.
"Give it back." A command, not a question. It made me want to keep it that much more. I didn't like it when people told me what to do. What was more, I didn't want to give this up before reading it.
"No."
She looked surprised. Didn't men often tell her no? I looked her up and down. She wore jeans and sneakers but, good God, jeans and sneakers had never looked this damn good.
"Excuse me?"
"I'm not going to give it back. I want to read it."
"You can't."
"Why not?"
She took a deep breath. "Because it's mine and it's no
t done yet. I don't want you to."
It was a classic I-don't-think-my-work-is-good scenario that happened to every artist. I was no artist but I knew people who were - some of the kids at the club, for instance - and they always hated their own work.
This manuscript was really good. I'd only read the opening image but it had me hooked. I wanted more.
"I want to use my wallet and take you out to breakfast." It was out there. I was asking her out to spend time with me. I wanted to know her mind, who she was on the inside. She had suddenly become the most intriguing thing in the world.
"I don't think so. Who do you think you are?"
I shrugged. She tried to reach for the manuscript again. I moved it behind my back and she followed it, putting her body right up against mine. Her breasts pushed against my chest and I noticed them. Supple but firm. Real.
Her breath caught in her throat and she jumped back, putting distance between us. Pity. Although her morals were good to see, too. There was nothing special about a girl that was willing to get physical so quickly. Sure, I did do one night stands - my sex life wouldn't exist if there weren't women out there who threw themselves at me, whose legs fell open if I just looked at them right, but that didn't mean I respected them.
On the contrary, I didn't want anything to do with them after we slept together.
"You can't just take my manuscript. That's stealing. It's personal property."
I nodded. I was being shameless about it. "Come out to breakfast with me."
She shook her head. "I can't. I have to work. I can take a lunch break, though, but I want my manuscript first."
I had the feeling she was going to reject me the moment I gave her script back to her so I shook my head. "You can get it when you come to lunch with me."
"You're going to blackmail me with my own manuscript?"
"I don't like to call it blackmail. It's just plain old manipulation."
She rolled her eyes. "Right, because that makes it so much better."
I smiled. Her sarcasm, her dry humor, I wanted more. "If you don't show up I'm going to take it to someone who can make something of it and do it all under my own name."
"That's a lawsuit, asshole."
I loved it when she spoke to me like that, her words dripping with menace and her calling me an asshole. I was so attracted to her it was crazy. I looked at her mouth, her lips pursed into a determined line and I wanted to kiss her. I wasn't going to, though. I was going to go slow with her, do it right.
"Come on, just come to lunch with me. There's a place just around the corner on Soquel Avenue. It's called The Crepe Place and they're open now. Meet me there for lunch then you can get your manuscript back."
She looked at me and I could see her mind working, going over the options she had. I knew I was making it impossible for her and, yes, I was being an asshole. But I wanted to spend more time with her and if it was up to her that was just not going to happen. I had a bargaining chip now and I wanted her to bite onto the bait I was dangling before her nose.
She crossed her arms over her chest and it pushed her breasts together a little through her tank top. She was stunning. I forced my eyes to her face, not wanting to scare her away by looking like a pervert on top of everything.
"Fine," she finally said. "I'll meet you there at two."
"Do you know where it is?"
She nodded. "I go there now and then. I'll meet you at two."
Someone came in through the door with a stack of books. She glared at me. "I have to work now. It would be great if you could just go away."
Hostile. Ouch. But I deserved it. "I'll see you at two."
"Yeah." She plastered a smile on her face and it was impossible to know that she'd been angry with me just a moment before "Mrs. Phelps, it's great to see you again. Let me sort that out for you." She took the books from a middle-aged lady and took it to the counter. The woman asked Selena how she was and how her story was coming along. When she did Selena shot me a dirty look. "Oh, you know how it is. Always some kind of hiccup."
She meant me. I knew it. I smiled and left the library, feeling like I'd just won the lottery. So what if I'd cheated?
I sat on my bike outside the library with the wad of pages. I hadn't gone in to get the book I'd been after last night when I'd gone in and seen her there. Motorcycle Repair didn't seem nearly as important as the mystery of Selena. I laughed at how much double meaning was embedded in that thought and started my bike. I drove the short distance to Water Street, parked my bike on the pavement and followed the footpath along Branciforte Creek. I sat down under a tree, lit up a smoke and started reading.
There was no one in the morgue. The night was eerie and it felt like all the bodies were going to rise and attack me. I didn't believe in zombies but I believed in fear.
I heard a click, the smallest sound but it was enough to tell me someone was here. I wasn't alone. Usually, those words are a relief but in a morgue where everyone else is supposed to be dead, the idea terrified me. There were going to be no human resurrection tonight, but if I weren’t careful there would another dead body.
I hid between the shelves of body lockers. I shivered. The raw concrete floor, the metal drawers around me, the idea that this night may very well be my last had a way of draining every bit of warmth and life that I could cling onto.
The moonlight glinted off the black barrel of a shotgun. I ran. I had no intention of dying tonight. I hoped to God the fates agreed. I found a gurney with a body on it. Post-autopsy. I gagged as I pushed it off. It fell on the floor with a dull thud. I got on the gurney and pulled the white sheet over me, hoping to God that the dead body would stay dead, that this live body would stay alive, that the guy with the shotgun was dumb enough to think I was already dead.
Footsteps came closer and I held my breath. Dead bodies didn't breathe. It wasn't that much of a problem; terror sat on my chest like an anvil and I was barely breathing, anyway.
***
Kylee Strickland was a good wife in a cut and paste life with a husband who took his job seriously. Stan was the overseer at a morgue during daylight hours, making sure the bodies coming in were labeled and put on ice. He came home at six on the dot every evening and they ate supper at seven. Kylee made sure the house was clean for her husband. She decorated it with plants and flowers and all things colorful that made life just a little less dull when he was away from the office.
When he was away she made an effort to make herself look good. She had her nails and her hair done at a salon once a month, went to the gym three times a week and jogged through the neighborhood the rest of the time. All her friends told her what a lucky girl she was, and when she was with them she agreed and believed it.
It was only at night when the lights were off and Stan got out of bed next to her that she felt her fairytale life wasn't as dreamy as she thought it was.
The first time it happened she thought it was a work emergency and she'd written if off as such when he'd left the house between two and four in the morning, dressed in his work clothes.
The next three times she did the same, trying to think nothing of it and almost convincing herself that it was fine. She didn't even mention it to her friends.
When it started happening every night she got worried. She didn't ask him about it. It seemed like something he would deny. The fact that she felt that way about it made her worry, too. If she knew he was hiding something but she was too nervous to ask him about it, they had problems.
Stan had an office at home where he kept some paperwork. He didn't like her going in there, and when she did she only vacuumed and wiped down the desk before leaving again, leaving his papers untouched.
Today, the moment he left the house, she tiptoed to the office on stocking feet. She was quiet, even though she was alone. She was scared of what she was going to find, even more so of what she wasn't going to find.
She started with the bottom drawer on the right-hand side. Letters from an old work colleague. Sh
e read them one by one. He mentioned nothing of his work to his friend. She also noted that he didn't mention anything about her, but that shouldn't matter.
The fact that it did was something she pushed away.
The other drawers had documents in them. Bank statements that showed nothing, the deed to the house, their marriage certificate. Applications for the loan they were repaying. The papers for the new car he'd gotten himself a year ago.
Nothing strange, in other words.
She went through all the drawers and found nothing until she lifted a book in the last drawer and found a file she'd never seen before. She opened it and sat down in Stan's chair.
