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Cash heaves a breath, “Lying son of a—”
“Are you folks looking for Mr. Koslov?” A male nurse appears in the doorway, and Cash goes from ice cold to warm and friendly with unsettling speed.
“Yes, we were told this is his room.”
“Right, sorry about that. We moved him half an hour ago to clean the room. I guess it hasn't been updated in the system yet. Sometimes it takes a bit.” He smiles warmly and waves us on down the hall.
I get an uneasy feeling being treated so kindly when we are here to…to what? Interrogate him?Kill him?
But I suppose most people don’t assume hospital visitors are infamous crime bosses dead set on revenge.
The nurse leads us to a room a few doors down, and the pale fluorescent lighting in the room is somehow more depressing than with no lights at all. It probably also has something to do with the frail-looking man connected to a compilation of tubes and a tangle of wires in the bed. His head is wrapped in gauze and his face is blemished with yellowing bruises, still swollen. His eyes are closed, and his mouth is parted over a tube down his throat.
“Is he asleep, can we speak with him?” Cash’s eyes look desperate, but the nurse just gives him a confused look.
“Um, no, sorry—did they not tell you? He’s been in a coma for seventeen days.” Hearing that number is like getting the wind knocked out of me. Cash looks like he is about to strangle him, so I step between them before Cash takes it out on the messenger.
“Do the doctors have any idea when he’ll wake up?”
“It doesn’t fucking matter, Harlow—Seventeen days.” Cash grunts, running his hand through his hair.
The nurse looks between me and Cash nervously before speaking. “He has minimal brain activity. It is unlikely he will wake up, and if he does, he will have severe brain damage.”
“Fuck,”Cash howls, kicking the bed legs. The unconscious man wobbles in the sheets.
“Sir—”
“Give us a moment, would you? Please?” I say to the nurse, hoping to defuse the situation before he calls security, and I usher him out the door.
“Seventeen days. You realize what this means? He couldn’t have sent that envelope.”
I nod and pinch the bridge of my nose. “Alexander Koslov may be Doug, but he’s not the June Harbor Slayer.”
1.Boom—iBenji, Talabun | SummerOtoole.com/Playlists
Chapter twenty-three
The One Where They Finally Bang
Harlow
Thebassthumpsthroughmy skull and the vodka makes my vision blur when the flashing lights cross my path.1My hands twirl in the air as I sway to the beat. Cash runs his hands down my body as he moves with me. My dress clings to my sweaty skin as I do my best to forget about the rollercoaster of today.
The brush of his lips, soft and loose, up the slope of my neck makes the yellow of the crime tape on Beth’s door a little less vivid. When I drop my hands around his shoulders and he shivers as I drag my finger up his neck, the mother’s eyes from the laundromat soften into a smile. The heat of his breath when he whispers into my ear as he tugs my hair makes the beeping of Alexander’s life support machines sound faint.
Phantom’s dance floor is packed with hot, dancing bodies. So different from my dinner with Cash. I was hesitant when he suggested going out tonight, after all the highs and lows of the day. But now that I’m tipsy and getting lost in the deafening sensations of the club, I can’t imagine ending the day any other way.
The pulse of the music and crowd, the blinding lights, and dizzying drinks overwhelm the senses until a sort of euphoric numbness takes over.
Cash squeezes a hand on my ass and pulls me tight to his chest, his other hand wedged between us. I feel it slinking its way under my hem and up my thigh. I kiss him drunkenly and, when he pinches the soft, fleshy part of my inner thigh, I bite his lip back. I feel rather than hear his deep, rumbly chuckle.
I know the moment he realizes I’m not wearing panties because he breathes heavily into my ear and his cock flexes against my stomach. “Daddy’s dirty girl.” His growl reverberates down my neck.
Unfortunately, on the next rock of his pelvis against me, my bladder protests and I groan, annoyed. I’m just drunk enough and full enough that if he makes me come, I might pee. And I can’t think of anything less hot.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” I whisper-shout into his ear.
“I’ll walk back with you and get drinks at the bar,” he hollers back, taking my hand to lead us out of the mob of people.
