Find Her (Detective D.D. Warren #8)(66)

Everett, after all these days, weeks, months of instructing me to keep my head down and my mouth shut, actually beamed at my side. Which only heightened my tension.

Ghost girl drifting through the bar. Ghost girl ordering a beer.

Did my head nod along in time with the music? Did I tap my fingers against the shiny wood top? Old habits from a former life, when bars were fun and life was meant to be lived and you never knew what good time waited just around the corner?

Beside me, Everett chugged his beer, tossed back a shot, then demanded a second round. He could drink. Hard. Often. But rarely at bars. Too expensive, he’d complain. Why pay some assholes four times more for something he could buy cheaper on his own?

But tonight, he was running up the bill. Drumming his fingers relentlessly against the scarred bar top. Gaze roaming the room.

“You’re the prettiest girl here,” he said.

I paused, gaze fixed forward, hands wrapped tight around my sweaty bottle of Bud. I took a sip.

“You heard me.” He tossed back his whiskey. “Prettiest girl here. You should keep your hair red. I like it.”

He set down the shot glass, placed his fingers on the bare skin of my neck. I didn’t flinch. All this time later, I just stared at him and wondered what he was going to do next.

He laughed. He ordered another round. And he kept his left hand curled around the nape of my neck, that hard, glittering look in his eyes.

I sipped my beer. Ghost girl just trying to get through.

Then, I made a mistake. Glanced up. Happened to spot a guy at the end of the bar who was staring hard at me.

Everett, who missed nothing: “Go on. Walk right over to him. Tell him you’re a kidnapped girl. See if he’ll save you.”

I shook my head slightly, reverted my attention back to my beer. My second, my third? The night was moving too fast. And Everett was scaring me.

“What’s your name?” Everett leaned down, his drunken breath whispering across my cheek.

I didn’t answer.

“Seriously. I mean it. What’s your name?”

“Molly,” I murmured, gaze fixed on my bottle of Bud.

“Nah. Fuck that. Your name, your name, your name. Your real name?”

I looked up. I couldn’t help myself. I stared at him a very long time. His flushed face, his overbright eyes.

He’s using, I realized. Something other than just alcohol. The mood swings, tension, all-night sex marathons. He was on something. Everett on a drinking binge was scary enough. This, I couldn’t imagine.

“Please,” I whispered. Pleaded. Though what did it matter? When had my begging ever made a difference?

“Do you know what today is?” he asked abruptly.

“No.”

“It’s our anniversary, sweetheart. One year. One full year. Just you and me. Now how about that.”

He clinked his shot glass against my beer bottle, tossed back the whiskey, and twirled his finger for a fresh round.

I couldn’t breathe. I found myself staring at him, his red-flushed cheeks, bloated face, greasy hair. But in my mind, I was somewhere else. Far and distant, where the wind in the trees blew clean and crisp, and there, just for an instant . . . a fox darting behind a bush.

“You’re dead.”

He spoke the words matter-of-factly, jarring me out of my reverie.

Bartender was back. Shot and a beer for Everett. Fresh Bud for me. I wish I had water. I really could use a glass of water.

“Know how they look for missing girls? Always search the hardest the first forty-eight hours. Then, of course, make a show of it for a week, or two or three, feed headlines to the local news. I know you saw your mom on TV one afternoon. ’Course, she made a big show of it. ’Cause that’s what happens for a bit. But fifty-two weeks later? You’re not front-page news anymore, little girl. Not even yesterday’s leftovers. Hell, six, eight, a dozen other pretty young things have disappeared between then and now. They get the headlines now. You . . . You’re already filed away. Even now, some detective’s sitting around, trying to work up the courage to call your mom and explain about how gators get the job done.

“Think she’ll do a service? I mean, even without the body. Maybe just a little gathering, family and friends. Put your memory to rest.”

I couldn’t breathe.

“You want that, don’t you?” His voice dropped low, sounded nearly concerned. “You want your mama to move on with her life, right? Not suffer forever.”

“Is that what happened to Lindy?” I heard myself say. “You fed her to the gators too?”

He recoiled slightly, fisting his shot glass. “Shut up, girl.”

“Are you sorry? Do you wish you’d kept her longer? Is that why you still cry for her at night?”

“Shut. Your. Fucking. Mouth.”

But I was on a roll. Powered by three beers, a too-tight, too-red dress, and the knowledge we were in a public place. Later he would make me pay, but for now, this moment on our one-year anniversary . . .

“Did you love her?”

In a flash, his left hand was on my neck. Fingers digging in, slowly tightening. But I kept my eyes open, my gaze on his face, and in that second, I saw it. Pain. Sharp and brittle. Followed by hurt. Long and deep.

I still didn’t know how or why. But Lindy held power over him. Lindy, mythical, unknown Lindy, was everything I was not.