Never Tell (Detective D.D. Warren #10)(8)

It’s true that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

But no one says that strength doesn’t come at a price.

After my morning endurance event, I return to my tiny one-bedroom apartment with its multiple bolt locks and very kind elderly landlords who charge me only a fraction of the going rent. I make some money working at the pizza parlor down the street, but it isn’t much. I have a fund, however, that my mom set up when I first returned home. Filled with checks, some large, some small, sent by total strangers because they felt sorry for me. In the beginning, I hated that money. All these years later, no college degree, no real life plan, it’s come in handy. Still, I try to draw from it sparingly. It won’t last forever, and so far my only calling—helping other survivors—is more of a volunteer gig. Oh, and now I’m a CI for one Sergeant Detective D. D. Warren, using my street savvy to help solve crimes. Turns out, that pays nada as well. Figures.

I shower. Forever. Cleanliness, after all those months of lying in my own filth, is everything to me. After showering comes coffee.

I turn on my TV. Local news because that’s part of my morning routine. Amber Alerts, missing persons, developments on national crime cases, this is what I do—much to my mother’s dismay. But six years later, we’ve agreed to disagree.

I don’t look at the TV, the talking heads more of an audio backdrop as I bang around my tiny kitchen, searching for food that still hasn’t magically appeared because my mother hasn’t driven down from her farm in Maine to bake for me lately. I both dread and long for her visits. My mother fought for me. I went to Florida, a stupid na?ve Boston college student, giddy with the limitless potential of spring break. I got drunk. I got kidnapped. And for the next four hundred and seventy-two days, my mother and my brother went through hell, appearing on national news shows and orchestrating major social media campaigns to beg for my safe return.

Then when it happened …

I think we can all agree that the Flora who went down to Florida isn’t the same Flora who came back. My brother, Darwin, eventually took off to Europe. It hurt him too much to be around me. My mom is built from sturdier stuff. All these years later, she remains convinced that her sweet little girl who ran around the wilds of Maine and tamed the local foxes is inside me somewhere.

I admire my mother’s courage. I’m still never sure what to think of her optimism. Though right now, I really miss her blueberry muffins.

Behind me, the TV is talking about a local murder. Pregnant wife shot and killed her husband last night. Fussing with my coffee maker, I shrug philosophically. Nice to have the pregnant wife come out on top, is my first thought, after all those years when it seemed that every other homicide was some cheating husband murdering his pregnant spouse just to avoid alimony and child support.

It’s not until the coffee is percolating that I turn, glance at my tiny flat-screen TV sitting on the far wall cabinet.

And I start to shake. My hands, my shoulders, my entire body. My feet are rooted. I can’t move. I stand in the middle of the kitchen. I shake and I shake.

Sheer terror. From a woman who’s not supposed to feel such emotions anymore.

Cheap hotel. Too-tight hot-pink tube dress, barely held in place. Jacob smacking me across the face. “Stop fidgeting. For fuck’s sake, you look like shit. Is this any way to show some appreciation? Get back into the bathroom and try again.”

I do what I’m told, retreating to the dingy bath, where I stare at my reflection in the mirror. My orders are to “look like something worth coming home to.” My cheeks are sunken. My eyes bruised. Jacob had left me in the cheap motel days ago, maybe even a week. Nothing to eat. Only tap water to drink. In the beginning I’d expected him to return at any moment. By the end, I was curled up in a ball on the floor, half unconscious from sheer starvation.

Then: Jacob returned. Just like that. No bags of food in his arms. Just this awful dress and instructions that we were going out. Now. Time to clean the fuck up.

I rouse myself long enough to bang on the wobbly faucet. I’m still weak from hunger and definitely not firing on all cylinders, but when it comes to Jacob’s demands, failure is not an option.

I shimmy out of the micromini, do my best to rinse my bony arms and sweat-encrusted skin with a wet washcloth. I take a bar of soap to my stringy hair. There’s only a hand towel for drying off. Then I pull back on a dress only a hooker would wear.

This time when I exit the bathroom, Jacob grunts his approval. I follow him out the door.

I don’t know where we’re going, but anyplace has gotta be better than this.

Fresh popcorn. I smell it the moment we walk into the dimly lit bar, and my stomach growls. Fortunately, a jukebox blaring out Montgomery Gentry covers the sound. I’m not sure what town we’re in. Maybe someplace in Alabama? I’m only allowed out of my box at night, so I miss long stretches of the road. But we’re definitely someplace rural. The locals, clad in tight jeans, worn boots, and way more clothing than me, mill around pool tables, trading shots, guzzling beer, tossing back handfuls of free popcorn.

My stomach growls again. I press a hand to it self-consciously, but Jacob just laughs. His eyes are too bright. He’s definitely riding high on something, which only makes him more dangerous.

He didn’t bother to clean up. His thin hair is a greasy cap on his too-shiny face. The snaps of his western-style shirt strain around the bulge of his swollen stomach, made more obvious by his skinny arms and legs.