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“Tell me you’re not going home to that sonofabitch,” Julie greeted me as I slid into the backseat, the light illuminating my quickly setting in bruises.
“What? Oh, no. This wasn’t… domestic,” I said, tripping over the word.
In the rearview, I saw the surprise, then understanding, followed by a familiar tightening of her features.
“But I’m not going home,” I added. “Can you take me to that hotel across from the lawn mower place?” I asked, never having learned the name since I had made Navesink Bank my home, and didn’t ever need to stay in a hotel.
“Absolutely,” she said, nodding.
I didn’t try to get a room yet. But it was the off-season. No one was staying at hotels around Navesink Bank in October. I would probably get a good deal even.
“We’ll be passing by the Dunkin,” Julie said as she drove, and I reached for one of her phone charging cords that were draped over the center console, knowing I would have no way to charge my phone until the morning. “Seems like you’ve had a night.”
“Ah, yeah, actually,” I said, nodding. “I could use a coffee.”
Twenty minutes later, I had a large hot coffee in one hand, a slightly stale blueberry muffin in the other, and was pocketing my hotel key before moving out to wave at Julie, who said she was going to wait for me to make sure I was okay before driving off to her next hail.
I made a mental note to leave her a glowing review as I moved to the elevator, glad to find it empty, not wanting anyone else to look at me with pitying eyes. The cops, forensics guys, hospital staff, Julie, and the clerk at the desk were more than enough.
My room was at the center of the hall, and I rushed inside, placing down my drink and bag on the desk before doing what all the true crime girlies did when they were staying in a hotel. Opening the closet, the bathroom, pulling back the curtain, checking behind the curtains and under the beds.
After that, I grabbed two of the hangers from the closet, and fixed them together to prevent the door handle from moving easily.
That was a flight attendant trick.
A belt around the top triangle thing would have been better. But I had no belt.
Then, not as a true crime girl, but just as one who was grossed out by the very idea of them, I checked for bed bugs. Before finally sitting down.
It wasn’t until I had half of the coffee in my system, as well as the blueberry muffin, and the sun was peeking through the curtains that everything seemed to click back into place.
Detective Wells Vaughn had been woken up to come to my house.
That wasn’t how things worked. Whatever detective was working would catch a new case.
Unless…
I knocked my phone onto the floor with the urgency that I reached for it.
Unless I wasn’t the first victim.
See, the thing was, I wasn’t always a Navesink Bank resident. I’d grown up in New York State. Likedeepin New York State. Lots of snow and not much else.
From there, I’d gone to college in Florida.
Where I quite quickly learned that the heat and humidity would not suit me literallyall year long.
From there, I debated all my options, and decided that New Jersey was probably my best option. Close enough to New York that I could visit my family on holidays, but far enough that I wouldn’t be obligated to be there every weekend or something like that.
I didn’t have a big family. But the ones I did have, well, let’s just say that there was a reason I went to school all the way in Florida instead of something closer and cheaper that wouldn’t strap me with lots of student loans to deal with for a few years.
Navesink Bank had been a strike of good luck after living in a more rural part of Jersey for a while.
Navesink Bank was an area of both average and extremely affluent people. Which meant I managed to get myself a job at a fancy place catering to fancy people that paid really well.
I’d only been in the area just shy of two years.
In that time, I’d gotten to know a lot more about the area. Namely that it has this crazy, thriving criminal underworld. I probably rubbed shoulders with mafia men and outlaw bikers and loan sharks every time I went out into public.
