I don’t have my wallet or my phone. I had only just come home from my shift at Bell’s, tossing my shit onto the counter when Nix dragged me into her bedroom. I got maybe five minutes of disbelief at the body on the floor before I hit the ground myself. I wasn’t thinking of my phone or money. I was thinking of how the fuck I was going to get an ambulance and not have them see the dead body.
With a sigh, I eye the bar across the street. It’s a lowlife kind of dive, and most likely filled with all the same types I serve at Bell’s. Ugh. Steeling myself, I push off the light pole and make my way to it.
I cross the street in slow, careful steps, my legs unsteady. Every inhale makes my chest twinge, and when my hand closes around the bar’s handle, I have to take a second to steady my grip before I pull.
The smell hits me first.
The thick cigarette smoke is jarring compared to the sterile air of the hospital. It’s probably no different than Bell’s, but everything feels a bit surreal right now, and it takes me a moment before I can focus in on the sorry bastards seated at the bar.
There’s a guy who’s definitely an axe murderer, another who looks too drunk to stand—the bartender sucks for not cutting him off—and, at the far end, a man in a dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up, tie loose, with the kind of middle-class misery that screams fired or divorced. Maybe both.
“Is anyone here willing to give a girl a ride home?” I use up all my strength to raise my voice and hang onto the door frame.
Immediately, the drunkard turns, his eyes swimming in their sockets as he looks me up and down, at my body and cropped Bell’s tee from last night’s shift. “I’ll take you, honey,” he dribbles.
Of course.
“Anyone that won’t kill me?” I roll my eyes. “I just came from Memorial, and I’m not looking to go back there.”
He has the audacity to look offended. “Your loss, kitten lips.”
I ignore the shudder that creeps up my spine. Kitten lips. Christ.
“How far you talking?” the ax murderer asks.
“Five minutes up the road,” I tell him, because beggars can’t be choosers.
“Then why don’t you walk?” he counters.
“Did you not hear the part about me just getting out of the hospital?” I hold up my wrist with the band still attached.
“Oh. Shit.” He shifts back on his stool. “Well, I don’t wanna catch whatever you—”
“I’ll take you,” the guy at the far end grumbles tiredly.
Thank God.
I turn my attention to him, confirming he’s a walking midlife crisis. Maybe late forties. His hair is thinning and retreating, and deep grooves underline his eyes. He’s wearing a gold band, though that guarantees nothing. He could have a second family in another state and a freezer full of trophies in his basement.
Still, my instincts aren’t screaming murderer, and again, beggars can’t be choosers.
His car is a middle-class Toyota with a briefcase on the passenger seat that I gently set in the back. I’m a little apprehensive as I slip inside, considering I don’t have my mace or knife that I usually carry, but the guy seems honest enough, and I would like to think I have a good judge of character.
“I really appreciate it,” I say as I buckle my seat belt. “I have to get back to my little sister, and when the ambulance took me to Memorial, I didn’t have my wallet.”
“Don’t worry about it.” He starts the engine. “This beats sitting in there feeling sorry for myself.”
“Fired?” I guess.
He huffs a weak laugh. “Am I that readable?”
“I’m a bartender, so…” I shrug.
He glances at my shirt in a non-sleazy way and nods.
It’s a short drive, but he manages to tell me his name is Robert and makes a joke about becoming a bartender himself. It’s the same kind of conversation I’ve had a thousand times with men nursing disappointments. They lose jobs, ruin marriages, blow up their lives, and then dump their sad stories over the bar for me to sift through while I’m wiping rings off wood. I know when to nod, when to murmur something sympathetic, and when to laugh at a joke that isn’t actually funny.
My mouth moves in all the right places now too, but my mind is nowhere near this car. It’s in Nix’s bedroom. It’s standing over a body that should not exist, calculating angles and timelines and alibis.
