“A doctor could prescribe you something to help you sleep,” Hoskins had said, and how she’d laughed at that, because she’d been clean for almost a year by that time, no drugs, no booze, no problem, and people never seemed to realize how easy it was to slip back into that shit, that one sleeping pill could lead to a beer before bed, just to relax, and then it would be three beers and a half-dozen pills, and it would be a quick slide from there; she’d been down that path before, but now she was clean and she wanted to stay that way. So she puts up with the insomnia, deals with it, and now here she is, three in the morning, shivering under her blankets and wide-awake, the stump where her finger had once been throbbing, staring out into the dark bedroom. She was dreaming about Seever again, she thinks, the way he smelled, that cheap cologne he wore, and the rasp of his stubble against her bare shoulder as he’d lain behind her, his arms crossed over her middle, holding her close. He’d take her blindfold off then, so she could see his arm hooked around her stomach, look around and see the big red toolbox standing against one wall, and a big stack of empty vases in another. She’d never been violent, even when she had some drug or another raging through her system, but she thought that if she could get to that toolbox or that pile of glass, she’d have a weapon, she’d cut Seever’s throat without a moment of hesitation, then she’d slice off his lousy dick and cram it in his mouth, give him some payback for everything he’d done, not that that would be enough, not by a long shot. But she never got a chance to even try, not until she escaped, and the only thing she could think about then was getting the hell out of there, not revenge.
She can’t stop shaking. The dream was so real that she can still smell Seever, along with something else, and she realizes it’s the smell of her own sweat. It’s hard to believe that she’d sweat so much when her room is so cold, and she starts to sit up, thinking the furnace must be broken, that she’ll have to bother Mr. Cho while he’s out on his golfing trip in Phoenix, and an arm slips around her neck, pulling her back down into the pillow so fast she doesn’t have a chance to scream.
“Don’t worry, I’ll make this last,” a voice says, stubble brushing against her earlobe, his cologne so strong that she’s practically choking on it. It’s Seever, she thinks, and she tries to fight him but he’s got the upper hand; she was surprised and not ready, but really, hasn’t she been expecting this all along? Seever’s not in prison at all, he’s here with her, in her bed, he’s going to finish what he started, and this is not a dream.
MOVE ON
December 1, 2015
If this were a movie, you’d know time has passed because the words would be printed right there on the bottom of the screen for you to read: ix years later. And this scene would open up over the city of Denver—the camera would sweep over downtown, taking in the strangely curved glass walls of the Wells Fargo building and the golden dome of the Capitol, and the snakelike curve of I-25 as it unfolds north and south. And the mountains, always the mountains, huge hills of purple and blue on the western horizon, their caps dusted with snow. We would see all this and dive down with dizzying speed, toward Colfax Avenue, where most of the city’s porno shops and the massage parlors are located, where there’s always graffiti and loud music, and if you know enough, if you’re desperate enough, you may know where to park your car and honk so the hookers’ll come out and show their faces, among other things. On Colfax, not far from the rush of the interstate, is a coffee shop, plunked right down in the corner of a Walmart parking lot like an accident, way out where the donation bins and the RVs sit, where the piles of papers are stacked for recycling, and on windy days it’s a hot-ass mess, a hurricane of smeary newsprint and words. The coffee shop looks like a refrigerator box thrown on its side, like a playhouse for a kid, but it’s a real, legitimate business where a customer can pull their car right up along the side and watch through a window as their coffee is being made. The coffee is overpriced and tastes like shit, and there aren’t many choices. No pastries or granola or protein packs. Nothing like that. Just coffee.
But what the place lacks in options, it makes up for in other ways. The employees, mainly. They’re all women—girls, really—and they work their shifts in bikinis. Sometimes lingerie. It’s part of the concept, to satisfy the customer. Get some coffee, get an eyeful. Like a Happy Meal for adult men.
Det. Paul Hoskins is a regular customer.
“Same as usual, honey?” Trixie says, leaning out the window. She speaks with a Southern accent, but Hoskins knows it’s a put-on, nonsense she’s picked up from TV, because she occasionally slips right back into the flat, toneless drawl most people seem to have these days. She’s wearing a hot-pink bra and a black thong. Her tits look ready to tumble right out into the open, and he can see the beginning of a pimple in her cleavage, red and irritated.
“Yeah.” The girls all know he’s a cop; they say it makes them feel safe to have him come through every morning. His coffee is always on the house.
Trixie hands Hoskins a steaming foam cup—she must’ve seen him coming, got his drink ready. Large coffee, straight black. Loren always used to give him shit for drinking it like that, called him a real man and asked him how much hair he had on his chest and then dumped three packets of sugar and a dollop of cream into his.
“Thanks,” he says. “Slow morning?”
“It’ll pick up,” Trixie says.
“You got any big plans for the weekend?”
“Not really.” There’s a sketch on the side of the foam cup, a cartoon mug with long, sexy legs sprouting from the bottom and big, juicy lips around the midsection. That’s their logo—a cup of coffee that looks ready and more than willing to give a blowjob. Hoskins sometimes wondered if any horny teenage boys jacked off to that logo. “Hey, I brought in some doughnuts this morning. You want one?”
He doesn’t think Trixie’s her real name—what kind of parent would do that to their kid?—but he’s never asked. It gives the girls a sense of security to give out a fake name, although it’s a false sense, especially in this day and age, when anyone can find out anything. But he understands. Telling a little lie to make life easier.
“What do you got?”