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It was different, sure.
But there was no way the new carpet could erase the memory of a dead man there, bleeding all over my floor.
Even the memory made my stomach lurch.
But I needed to keep it together.
I needed to focus on pretending like nothing happened, put on a mask, keep my head on straight.
It was bad enough that the situation happened at all.
I didn’t need to be acting wonky, and wind myself up in jail.
I took a long, hot shower, and went through the motions of getting ready for work.
“Hold down the fort,” I told Mackey, who didn’t even bother to raise his head off the arm of the couch he knew he wasn’t supposed to be sitting on in the first place. “Real scary, you turned out to be, huh?”
I pulled into the lot behind work, a bit paranoid, so double checking my face and neck in the rearview mirror, wanting to make sure that the makeup – AKA Magic In A Tube – worked even in the harsh morning light. And while, if you looked really closely, you could maybe see a bit of a shadow, as a whole, there was no way you would know I had been strangled and hit in the face just a day and a half before.
My throat still hurt, meaning my voice was still a little horse. But I managed to tell my coworkers that I had gone to a concert over the weekend, and got a little overzealous with my woo-hooing.
After that, I was locked in a back room with pantsless ladies, and two shirtless dudes for the rest of the day.
Even though I hadn’t needed to put much effort into it, I felt drained by the time I got to my car at six, driving home to a house that felt icky, and trying to just go through the motions.
I nearly flew at my phone around seven-thirty when I heard the burner going off on the coffee table.
It was just a text, but even that was better than the radio silence all day. Even that was more than I had really been expecting.
Nothing new to report yet. How are you holding up? – Q
How was I holding up?
That was a bit of a loaded question, wasn’t it?
Seeing as, two days ago, I was just a girl with a stalker.
And now I was a killer.
I was worried that was all I would be seeing myself as. Was I doomed to judge myself by the one horrible situation I had been forced into?
Time, I guess that was what I needed.
Time would tell.
It always did.
– Hanging in there.
Once more, and try to make it even the least bit convincing.
– I would if I could.
There was nothing for twenty minutes after that, leaving me to have a pit settle in my stomach, heavy and nauseating, making me wish I had forced my fingers to say something, anything else.
I probably came off whiny and pathetic.
And ungrateful.
But then the cell dinged again, making my heart skitter in my chest.
Meet me at She’s Bean Around.
It wasn’t exactly a request. Normally, I would have bristled at the presumptuousness of it all. I wasn’t exactly a fan of being ordered around, even if it was for a meeting at the best coffee place in town.
But right now, in all my desperation not to be in my house, not to feel like all I was doing was living some giant cover-up, I got in my car and made my way into town.
I parked my old and rusty car in front of Quin’s new and shiny one, taking a deep breath, and pulling down the mirror to make sure my makeup was still intact, before making my way up to the doors of She’s Bean Around.
It was the only independent coffee place in the area, run by two women – Jazzy and Gala, both of whom were as wild as their names – who were sticklers for making the absolutely best coffee on this coast. In my humble opinion, they knocked it out of the park. And, judging by the large crowd in the somewhat small space with upscale, but rustic decor, I wasn’t the only one.
I spotted the back of Quin at the counter, his navy suit still somehow perfectly pressed even after a full day of work. Making my way over, I heard Gala – the redheaded owner – speaking. “I’m just saying. I know you have like five coffee machines up in that joint. Sending that poor girl here three times a day seems like overkill.”
“You’re complaining about business?” Quin shot back, sounding amused.
“I’m complaining about that poor girl’s feet is what I am doing,” she told him, shaking her head as she moved to slap a filter into a coffee machine. “Don’t worry,” she went on, “I know your order. Black. Just like everyone else in that office except the puppy who likes hot chocolate.”
