The Naturalist (The Naturalist #1)(35)

My stomach roars in pain, though. I lift my shirt and see a bruise the size of a football. I remember the brother swinging his bat into it.

I hobble toward my Explorer in the King’s Diner parking lot but collapse twenty feet from the bumper. Footsteps come running up behind me. I lie flat on the ground and stare at the blue sky.

My waitress from earlier leans over me and says, “Dumb ass” under her breath. Amber’s word for me. Apparently a regional favorite. The waitress still looks pretty, even when chewing me out.

“Did you just call me a dumb ass?” I ask over the pain.

“Do you want me to call the cops?”

“No,” I reply as I sit up, fighting back white waves of agony.

“Then, yes. You’re a dumb ass. Do you want an ambulance?”

“No. I don’t think so.” I look back at the diner. “Can I just go sit down?”

She gives me a cross look. “I should kick you off my property.”

“Lady, give me a minute or two and I’ll leave this fucking place, gladly.” The second time today I’ve been asked to get out of town.

She watches me get to my feet, not offering a hand but making sure I don’t fall down again and split my head in her parking lot.

“Don’t worry,” I say through gritted teeth, “I won’t sue if I fall.”

“Don’t worry, I don’t have any money,” she snaps back.

Using handrails and seat backs for support, I make my way back to my original seat. Which was dumb and pointless, because it’s the farthest booth from the door.

She ignores me while I use paper napkins to soak up the blood in my mouth and make an impromptu cleansing scrub using a glass of water and table salt.

I have a first-aid kit in my Explorer, but it might as well be in the next state.

I take stock of my wounds. I’m bruised up, but it’s nowhere near as bad as it could have been. With some Tylenol and sleep, maybe a medicinal beer or two, I’ll be fine in a couple of days. I’ll look like shit, but I’ll survive this.

Whatever this is.

The waitress stops at my table. “You able to walk out of here now?”

“Yeah. Sorry.” I wad up my bloody napkins. “Just one thing”—for the first time, I notice her name badge—“Jillian. What happened back there?”

“Are you that dumb?”

“Apparently.”

She rolls her eyes. “You got played. They rolled you. Let me guess, your wallet is empty?”

“Yeah. But you act like this happens all the time. Why don’t the cops do something?”

“You said yourself, you didn’t want to call them. They never do.”

“‘They’? I don’t understand. Who are ‘they’?”

“The other johns.”

“Johns?” Amber’s words to me before I got my ass kicked come back to me. “Wait . . . did she think I was trying to hire her as a hooker?”

“Real good naive act.” Jillian shakes her head, then starts to walk away.

“Please,” I plead. “Just a second.”

She turns around. “What?” she says, agitated.

“I had no idea. I only wanted to talk to her about Chelsea Buchorn.”

Jillian comes back to the booth. “What about her?”

“How she disappeared. That’s why I’m here. I just wanted to ask her what she saw.”

“Why do you care?”

“I just lost a friend. Her name was Juniper. They say a bear got her. I don’t know.” I stare down at the table and hold my head in my hands. I feel myself breaking down. “I just want to know what happened.” Red blood falls onto the white Formica. I wipe it away with my sleeve.

Jillian takes a seat across from me. “You really weren’t trying to hook up out there?”

“God, no! I thought she knew something. The way she talked about ‘them’ watching . . .”

“She meant the police.”

“Oh. Great.” I pull my phone from my pocket. The screen is cracked, but it still works. Using trembling fingers, I pull up her text message. “What does ‘1004BJ3004ATW’ mean?”

She stares at it, taking only seconds to decipher it. “Do you really want me to say it?”

“Yeah. I don’t get it.”

“Imagine the first three numbers are a price. Four means ‘for,’ as in for something.”

I stare at my phone. “BJ . . . oh, crap.” You’d think as much as I work with numbers, the code would have been obvious before. “And ATW means ‘all the way’?” I look across the table at her, my cheeks hot with shame. “I’m such an idiot.”

“Not everyone can be a rocket scientist.”

“CalTech’s program actually accepted me. But I turned it down to study biology at MIT.”

Her lips curl into a bemused grin. “Are you a scientist?”

“When I’m not getting my ass kicked by the brothers of prostitutes.”

Jillian pats my nonswollen hand. “You really are a babe in the woods. That was her boyfriend-slash-pimp. The whole thing was a setup. If you’d been a local, she would have you meet her in a motel or in your car. Didn’t the whole thing seem suspicious to you?”