“Why did he run when he saw me?”
“I don’t know, padnah. Could it be because you’d just ripped his ass for going through the Seever files, and he didn’t want another helping? You got him pretty good, he’ll be out of work for a few days. Hopefully he won’t press charges.”
And because the doctor was waiting, and the impatient nurse was staring, he couldn’t say anything, he couldn’t explain himself. “I didn’t know,” he said instead, that seemed to be the only thing to say, and that made Loren laugh.
“You haven’t changed, you know?” Hoskins says now. “All you reporters—you’re all the same.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You can’t stop pumping me for information for two minutes.”
“That’s not true. I asked you how you’ve been,” she says, smiling.
“Please. I know exactly what you want from me. You get your jollies off seeing your name in print,” he says. “If you had to choose between living in paradise for the rest of your life or seeing your piece on the front page, I know exactly what you’d choose.”
“What?” Her smile is spreading, because she knows exactly what the answer is. It’s the words, the writing, it’s always been that way for her, like it was for almost every other reporter he’d ever met. They were like crackheads jonesing for another hit. There were times back at Seever’s house when they’d pull another victim from the crawl space and she’d known she’d have more to write, and he could see the sheer pleasure on her face. She’d take her notes and talk to the guys and snap some pictures and when the paper printed her piece she’d carry the damn thing around all day, and it wasn’t only that she was proud, she was high as a kite. After every piece was published she’d want to fuck; once it was in her own kitchen while Dean was at work, on the linoleum while the dishwasher hummed beside them. She’d lain on her back and propped her heels up on the seats of the kitchen chairs so she could lift her hips into him, and she’d bitten his shoulder when she came, until he’d bled.
The back of his neck is hot.
“I’m not asking for much,” she says. “Everyone’s going to find out sooner or later what happened in that house. I’m asking for a head start. A name. So I have something to turn in. I need this.”
“We’re trying to keep people from getting scared,” he says. “I don’t want to read some article full of lies so you can sell a few more subscriptions. Like the garbage piece that ran this morning—I hate shit like that.”
“That’s not the kind of stuff I write,” she says scornfully. “You should know me better than that.”
“Yeah, I know you. That’s the problem,” Hoskins says. “We’re trying to close these cases up as soon as possible. And honestly, the less the public knows about all this, the easier my job will be.”
She hitches up one eyebrow.
“People should know what’s going on in their city,” she says. “They deserve to know. And if you don’t tell me now, it’ll get out sooner or later, it doesn’t matter how much you want to keep it quiet.”
He could give her what she wants—and he could ask for sex. For a blowjob. Or one of those deals he’d heard some guys at work talking about once, when a woman sucked a guy off while he took a shit. A blumpkin, that’s what it was called. He could have anything he wanted. Those were the terms they’d had before, although he hadn’t been in on the game back then—sex in exchange for information. He could insist they go back to that, he could ask her to do anything he wanted, every perverted thing that’d ever crossed his mind, he could tie her up and twist her nipples like radio dials and make her scream in pain, and she’d do it, he can tell by the look on her face. She’d agree. She wouldn’t like it, but she’d do whatever until she had what she wanted, and then she’d be gone.
But in the end, he doesn’t ask for sex. He doesn’t ask for anything. He tells Sammie what she wants to know because she’s right, it doesn’t matter, it’ll all be out soon enough. And because he still loves her, even though he wishes to God he didn’t.
“The victim is Carrie Simms,” he says, keeping his voice low, casual. There isn’t anyone sitting close by, but you could never be sure who was listening.
“Carrie Simms?” Sammie frowns. “Simms? That name—oh my God. That’s the girl who got away from Seever.”
“Yeah.”
“What happened?”
“Someone broke into her place. Tortured her, raped her. They made sure we’d connect it to Seever.”
Sammie frowns, taps her fingers on the tabletop. He can see the wheels in her brain spinning frantically. Most women would be upset by this, be horrified, but Sammie has never been that way and he admires her for it. There’s something cold about her, calculating, and you don’t see that so often in women, at least not like it is with Sammie, who wears it all on her sleeve.
“So that’s why Loren’s dressed like Seever,” she says.