Her eyebrows furrow, and I can tell she knows exactly who I’m talking about, but is hesitating to answer. I’m going to have to throw her another bone.
“Long black hair, very skinny. You’d be doing the FBI a big service…”
“The… the FBI?” she gapes. “You an FBI guy?”
I don’t answer, merely gulping down more bitter coffee.
“Don’t you folks have a badge or something?” she asks, her eyes narrowing in suspicion.
“Sure,” I say easily. “But I told you. This is strictly confidential.”
“Hm.” She stares at me for a few moments, and I curse the TV show that’s clearly made her far too wary. But she seems to find what she was looking for in my eyes, and she relaxes. “Yeah, a chick came less than a year ago. Took a job at old Bill Henson’s gas station.”
“Bill Henson?” I repeat, my ears perking up at the sound of a man’s name.
Not that I could possibly expect my girl to have lived a fully man-free life since moving here. Still, the confirmation that she’s not only been around men but working in close proximity to one, roils my blood.
Especially when I hear her next statement.
“Now, that’s a pervert if I ever saw one. Always looking up women’s skirts. They say he’s got a secret camera hidden in the gas station bathroom. All us girls know not to go pee there.”
“Do they?” I say, forcing my voice to remain steady. “The new girl knows it too?”
“Well…” She hesitates, drumming her long acrylic nails on the wooden countertop. “Come to think of it, I’m not sure. The thing is, none of us actually speaks to her.”
“Really? Why is that?”
Her eyes narrow once more as she takes me in suspiciously. “Well, she’s mute. Figured you’d know that, since you’ve been on her trail and everything.”
I drain the last bit of my coffee, a new wave of nausea rising in my throat as I accidentally swallow a few solid lumps of something along with it. “Mute, huh? Guess that’s her, all right.”
I force down the pang of pity that threatens to overthrow all my plans for punishing her. When I’d first met her, she didn’t speak much. But shedidspeak. And during the months we spent together, she really opened up.
She must have suffered a great deal to shut down so completely. Still, however much she’s suffered, I’ve suffered more. And I’m going to make her pay.
But first, someone else will pay. The guy next door. Bill motherfucking Henson.
“Thanks,” I say, leaving a 100-dollar bill on the table. “That’s for your discretion.”
She stares at the money in shock, then quickly grabs it and stuffs her in her bosom.
Snorting, I leave the diner and return to my car.
I’m parked on the side of the one road that leads into the hamlet. Of course, I have her house address, but I prefer to stay back for the time being and observe. If she works at the gas station, she must take this path every morning. I recline on my seat, careful to shield my face from the view of passersby, although I doubt there will be many, and my windows are tinted anyway.
I take out a book and flit through the pages impatiently. No cell network means no checking emails or dealing with the Devil bullshit that usually takes up my free time. While I ordinarily like reading, I can’t get into it today. All my attention is focused on the thought that at any time, my pet will come walking down the road.
The girl who’s responsible for the worst moments of my life, when I believed her dead. And for that, she will pay.
Clenching my jaw, I keep my eye fixed on my watch. Six thirty… seven… I wish I’d thought to ask that waitress what time she started her shift.
It’s eight a.m. when I finally see her walking down the street.
Seraphina. My girl with the violet eyes.
My breath seems to leave my body. I know she’s alive. I’ve known it for eight months. Eight months of relentless hunting.
But to see her materialize like that, in front of me… it does something to me.
