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“He was going to rape me! He was going to rape both of us!”
“Statistically …” Evelyn’s voice trailed off before she admitted, “Well, yes. It was bound to happen. I didn’t want to tell you before, but …” She picked up Amanda’s purse from the floor. “Yeah.”
For the first time in two months, Amanda wasn’t hot anymore. Her blood had turned cold.
Evelyn kept babbling. She zipped Amanda’s gun inside her purse, looped the strap over her shoulder. “We’re both okay, though. Right? I’m okay. You’re okay. We’re all okay.” She spotted a telephone on the floor by the couch. Her hand was shaking so hard that she dropped the receiver. It rattled in the cradle, dinging the bell. She finally managed to pick up the phone and put it to her ear. “I’ll call this in. The boys will come running. We’ll get out of here. We’re both fine. All right?”
Amanda blinked sweat out of her eye.
Evelyn stuck her finger in the dial. “I’m sorry. I talk when I get nervous. It drives my husband crazy.” The rotary slid back and forth. “What about those missing girls the whore mentioned? Do you recognize any of their names?”
Amanda blinked away more sweat. Her mind flashed up strange images. The disgusting bathroom. The shampoo bottles. The piles of makeup.
Evelyn said, “Lucy. Mary. Kitty Treadwell. Maybe we should write that down somewhere. I’m certain I’ll forget the minute I get a drink in me. Two drinks. A whole bottle.” She huffed out a short breath. “It’s weird that Jane was worried about them. These girls usually don’t worry about anything but keeping their pimps happy.”
Three used toothbrushes in the glass. The long, dark hair clumped in one of the combs.
Amanda said, “Jane’s hair is blonde.”
“I wouldn’t bet on that.” Evelyn looked down at the unmoving man. “His wallet’s in his back pocket. Could you—”
“No!” The panic came back in full force.
“You’re right. Never mind. They’ll ID him at the jail. I’m sure he has a record. Hey, Linda.” Evelyn’s voice wavered as she spoke into the phone. “Ten-sixteen, my location. Hodge sent us in on a forty-nine and it turned into a fifty-five.” She looked at Amanda. “Anything else?”
“Tell them you’re twenty-four,” Amanda managed.
Duke Wagner was wrong about Evelyn Mitchell being pushy and opinionated.
The woman was just plain crazy.
five
Present Day
SUZANNA FORD
Zanna fell back on the bed, her feet still on the floor. She held up her iPhone and checked her messages. No texts. No voicemail. No email. The asshole was already ten minutes late. If she showed up downstairs without any money, Terry was going to beat her ass. Again. He seemed to forget it was his job to screen these losers. Not that Terry ever took the blame for anything.
She looked out the window at the downtown skyline. Zanna was born and raised in Roswell, half an hour and a lifetime away from Atlanta. Except for the buildings that had names on them, she had no idea what she was looking at. Equitable. AT&T. Georgia Power. All she knew was she was going to be seriously screwed if her john didn’t show.
The plasma TV on the wall flashed on. Zanna had rolled over on the remote. She saw Monica Pearson behind the news desk. Some girl was missing. White, blonde, pretty. They sure as shit wouldn’t care if Zanna was gone.
She flipped around the channels, trying to find something more interesting, finally giving up when she got into the triple digits. She tossed the remote onto the bedside table. Her arms itched. She wanted a cigarette. She wanted more than that.
If she thought about the meth long enough, she could taste the powder in the back of her throat. Her freaking nose was rotting from the inside, but she couldn’t stop snorting the stuff. Couldn’t stop thinking about the smash cut to her brain. The way it shook through her body. The way it made the world so much more bearable.
That wasn’t going to happen for at least an hour. To tide herself over, she went to the minibar and took out four small bottles of vodka. Zanna downed them in quick succession, then filled the empties in the bathroom sink. She was stacking the bottles back in the refrigerator when there was a knock at the door.
“Thank Jesus,” she groaned. She checked herself in the mirror. Not too bad. She could still pass for sixteen if the lights were turned down low enough. She twisted the wand to close the blinds and turned off one of the bedside lamps before answering the door.
The man was massive. The top of his head almost touched the doorway. His shoulders were nearly as wide as the frame. Zanna felt a stir of panic, but then she remembered Terry was downstairs, and that he had cleared this guy, and that whatever was about to happen wouldn’t matter when that first huff of meth snaked into her brain.
She said, “Hey, Daddy,” because he was older. Zanna didn’t want to think about the geezer using his social security check to pay for this. She looked at his face, which was pretty smooth considering his age. His neck was a little scrawny. You could really tell it in his hands. Liver spots. The hair on his arms was white, though what was left on his head was sandy brown.
Zanna threw open the door. “Come in, big boy.” She tried to swing her hips as she walked, but the carpet combined with her new high heels wasn’t a good mix. She ended up having to brace herself against the wall. She turned around and waited for him to come in.
He took his time. He didn’t seem nervous and God knew you didn’t pop your first whore at his age. He glanced up and down the hallway before finally shutting the door behind him. He was still in good shape despite the years on him. His hair was in a military cut. His shoulders were square. World War II, she thought, then her middle school history came back to her and Zanna figured he wasn’t old enough for that. Probably Vietnam. A lot of her customers lately were young guys just back from Afghanistan. She didn’t know which was worse—the sad ones who tried to make love or the angry ones who wanted to hurt her.
She got straight to the point. “You a cop?”
He said what they always said. “Do I look like a cop?” But he unzipped his pants without prompting. It was the last vestige of democracy. Even undercover, a cop wasn’t allowed to show you his junk. “All right?”
Zanna nodded, suppressing a shudder. He was huge. “Damn,” she managed. “That looks fun.”
The man zipped back up. “Have a seat.” He indicated the chair. Zanna sat, legs apart, so he’d have a good view from the bed. Only, he kept standing. His shadow stretched across the room, nearly reaching the edge of the door.
“How do you like it?” she asked, though Zanna had a sneaking suspicion he liked it rough. She pulled in her shoulders, tried to look smaller than she already was. “You wanna be gentle with me. I’m just a girl.”
His lip quivered, but that was the only reaction she got. He asked, “How did you get here?”
She thought he meant the literal path she’d taken—up Peachtree, left on Edgewood. Then she realized he meant her current state of employment.
Zanna shrugged. “What can I say? I love sex.” That’s what they wanted to hear. That’s what they tried to tell themselves when they ripped you apart and threw money in your face—that you loved it, couldn’t live without it.
