Save Me from Dangerous Men (Nikki Griffin #1)(96)

“What is it, then?”

“I’m after them.”





42


I went home, showered, slept for a couple of hours, and got to the bookstore by mid-morning after placing a brief call to Charles Miller. We agreed we’d meet for a coffee that afternoon. There was something I wanted to give him. I was trying to ignore the fact that I was utterly exhausted for what would likely be the most challenging day of my life. The week before, with Halloween around the corner, Jess had stacked a row of pumpkins, hung witches and devils from the walls, and created a special Horror section with titles by Stephen King, Mary Shelley, Robert Bloch, Anne Rice.

Halloween—October 31.

November 1 was a single day away.

I knew what I had to do. Pulling it off was another question entirely.

I had arrived intending only to have a quick word with Jess, but it was busy enough that we didn’t have a chance to do more than nod hello. A beefy guy in camouflage shorts and a floppy safari hat had come in with a dolly stacked with boxes, over three hundred books he wanted to sell in one go. I found myself trying to explain Old English to an international student while a grad student pestered me for books we didn’t have.

The dolly guy checked his watch. “How much longer will this take?”

“Will I have to read other books in Oldest English?” He was a tall, black-haired Korean boy wearing bright green glasses and gold sneakers.

“What’s your course?”

He unfolded a syllabus. “Survey of English Literature, Beginning to 1500.”

“It’s a definite possibility,” I informed him, pulling a copy of Beowulf from the shelf.

He looked like he was going to cry. “Can you tutor me?”

“I’d come back, but I rented this dolly by the hour,” the beefy guy was saying. He wore a tank top that showed off an astonishing amount of chest and back hair.

I felt my forehead start to throb. “Be patient, please.” Too many voices, too many people asking for things, wanting things from me. Too much to do.

“My dissertation is on Gibbon,” the grad student was complaining. “What am I supposed to do without volume five of The Decline and Fall?”

“I don’t know what to tell you.” I was getting a sharp headache.

“I think it’s only fair that you should split the dolly rental with me.”

I felt a small piece of something within me snap. “Take your damn dolly and stick it—” I headed for the door as he sputtered. I had to push my tiredness aside and start readying myself for the coming night. I’d catch up with Jess later.

I was halfway out the door when I was bumped by someone coming in.

Zoe.

The day changed again.

It took me a moment to recognize her under the blackened eye, the bruised arm, the tear-stained mascara that looked like it hadn’t been washed off from the night before. The last time I had seen her, when we had sat comfortably on the beanbags, seemed a world away. Now she was shaking, her voice raw.

I helped her sit. “What happened?” One of those pointless questions. Like wondering why an earthquake hit. Reasons didn’t always matter. Sometimes just damage.

Short phrases came in between sobs. “I was out at a club and some guys were there, dancing with us, nothing bad. Luis came in with his friends and got jealous. There was a fight, he got arrested. This morning when he got home he blamed me for starting it.”

Jess was next to us. “I’ll get her to the hospital.”

“I’m going to talk to Luis,” I said to Zoe. “I need your address.”

She grabbed my arm. “No! You don’t understand what he’ll do to you.”

I barely heard her. There was something singing in my ears that drowned out the words people were saying to me. The singing noise seemed to be pushing me along so I didn’t have to think at all about what I was doing. I didn’t even feel tired anymore. All the doubt that had filled my mind recently now seemed wonderfully distant. Even Care4 didn’t seem to matter as much.

“I need your address,” I said again.

Zoe glanced from me to Jess, then back to me. Still not saying anything. Unsure.

“Last time he hurt you,” I said. “This time, he hurt you worse. Next time—and there will be one, because there always is—there’s no telling what he’ll do to you. Or whether you’ll be able to get away. So please, Zoe, give me your address.”

Her eyes were large and frightened. She looked down and was quiet for a few moments.

She looked up and, hesitantly, she told me the address.

I started toward the door without another word.

“Nikki, not when you’re angry,” Jess said. “You always say the planning is what matters.”

“You’re right. I should wait,” I acknowledged.

Jess relaxed a little. “Good.”

I walked out of the bookstore anyway.

The singing noise pushing me mindlessly along. Not just that, though. There was pragmatism mixed with my anger. I didn’t know what would happen to me in the coming night. No matter what, while I could act, I wanted to do this last thing. I wanted Zoe to be safe.

Zoe lived in Pittsburg, northeast of Berkeley by about twenty-five miles. A rough city, too far from removed to have soaked up the tech money that spread like a vast stain from the epicenter of Silicon Valley and San Francisco. The money. Endless amounts of the money. Soaking through what had once been flat green farmland and orchards and russet hills. Now infinite acres of luxury townhomes were set into those hills, development after identical development, postered by garish billboards advertising the newest in materials and finest in amenities. The money. Everywhere. In San Francisco, five coffee shops on every block and each one cuter and more perfect than the last, the whole city choking on construction cranes that wound around it like wisteria. People like Gregg Gunn, creating the money faster than the Treasury presses in D.C.