Midway through the digging, his cell phone rang. He paused to check the caller ID and answered when he saw it was Detective Grossman.
“Hey, man. Any news?” Jake said.
“No. I was calling to ask you the same thing. No memories I take it?”
“Not yet.”
“Well, quick update. We interviewed a homeless guy that Hannah used to bring coffee to every day, but ruled him out. They’re just friends, and he has an alibi.”
“Coffee every day? That’s nice of her,” Jake mumbled, more to himself than the detective.
“Yeah. We also checked in with the attorney Hannah told us about on the trust thing, but walked away with just a generic description again—white male, mid-to-late twenties, brown hair.Probablyrelated to the attempt on her life, but no way to verify for sure and nothing to follow up on.”
“Shit. There might not be much more to go on until Hannah remembers that day. Thanks for the update. I’ll let Hannah know.”
He finished burying the kittens and hurried back to his warm house and his warmer woman.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Hannah and Jake spent the week doing their own thing during the day, having dinner together in the evening, and sleeping together at night. The more she got to know him, the more she marveled at his lack of flaws. Except for the whole commitment thing, he seemed perfect. Watching him with Lucky was adorable. She already knew he was kind, but he turned into a gushy mushball when talking to the cat.
That Friday was Halloween, and Jake had talked her into going to a party at The Boardroom, his favorite bar. His friends from work and their wives were meeting them there. It didn’t sound like pre-accident Hannah did much partying, but post-accident Hannah thought it sounded fun and was excited to meet Jake’s buddies.
Jake dressed as Harry Potter and Hannah as Hermione. Upon entering the bar, Hannah took one look around and immediately felt out of place.
“Um, when did Halloween become synonymous with slutty?” she asked. “I’ve never seen so many boobs and short skirts.”
“Yeah, apparently all adult costumes are now required to have ‘sexy’ in front of it—sexy nurse, sexy witch, sexy scientist,” he said, nodding to an example of each as he said it.
“You mean every adultwomen’scostume,” she corrected. “It doesn’t seem to translate to the men’s costumes.”
“True. Probably because nobody wants to see all this…” He made a circular motion around his chest, “out on display.”
“Maybe not on a normal guy. But I’m sure no one would mind ifyoutookyourshirt off.” She raised her eyebrows. “Well, certainly you can’t make Hermione slutty?”
“Oh, yeah? Check out your five o’clock.”
Hannah turned to see a woman dressed in the very barest of bones of a Hermione costume. Her white button-up shirt was barely buttoned, and the bottom two halves came together in a knot below her breasts, exposing her whole midriff. The gray pleated skirt narrowly missed covering her butt. Hannah hoped she didn’t plan to sit down at all. That would be quite a show. The woman had also replaced Hermione’s sensible loafers and knee-high socks with spiked, high-heeled, knee-high boots. The only clue that indicated she was trying to portray Hermione was the red and gold Gryffindor necktie that hung loosely around her neck.
“That’s blasphemy!” Hannah said. Jake laughed at her righteous indignation over the slutty Hermione.
“Let’s get a drink and find the guys,” Jake said, grabbing her hand and pushing his way through the sea of slutty this and sleazy that. He ordered a couple of Bud Lights and looked around for his friends.
Hannah noticed a lot of women checking Jake out, but thought nothing of it. Of course they would. He was hot. It was when so many kept saying hi and waving as if they knew him that she began to get weary. After one particularly friendly woman, who couldn’t stop rubbing Jake’s arm, left, she asked him about it.
“You seem pretty popular. You come here often?”
He seemed chagrined. “I used to come here just about every weekend. It’s been awhile,” he said cryptically.
“You mean because of me?” She’d only moved in a couple of weeks ago. Was that what he meant by a while?
“No. Not just that.”
“Hi, Jake,” a young woman dressed as Wonder Woman said, dragging out the vowels so that the two words took ten seconds to say. The costume was so skimpy, it didn’t even need “slutty” to preface it.
Jake didn’t say anything, and she kept moving. They made their way over to his friends and took a seat.
“Kris and Trisha might show up, so spread out a little in case we need to cram two more chairs in here,” said Ben. Jake nodded and pulled Hannah’s chair out for her.
