Twenty-Seven
Erin woke to her phone buzzing. She turned over from the warmth of being beside Roy and grabbed it. She didn't recognize the number yet. Hadn't put it into her contacts. But she knew it was Craig, instinctively, and when she opened the message he had sent she knew that she was right.
Where you at? You're not at the apartment.
She debated how much of a lie she should be telling. It all depended, after all, on what he already knew and what she could get away with. If she could get away with saying that she was out of town at her mother's, that would be great, but that wasn't going to happen. After all, her mother was dead.
On the other hand, the more that she bit off more than she could chew, the more he'd be on to her. If she was hiding one thing, what else was she hiding? She took a plunge and went with a half-truth.
Someone broke into my apartment while I was sleeping. Freaked me out. I'm staying at a hotel until I can get a locksmith to get in there and make sure that it's all rock-solid.
The response came seconds later.
That's a damn shame. You want to catch something to eat?
Roy had woken beside her with all the shifting around she was doing, and had promptly looked at the clock and slid out of bed and started to pull on the clothes he'd worn there.
"You have time to get back to your room and change clothes?"
"I have plenty of time, sure."
"Good. I would hate to think you'd be uncomfortable on my account."
"No trouble. Who's that?"
"It's him."
"What's he saying?"
She typed in a response as she spoke. "Wants to meet."
Sure, but I need to catch a shower first.
"And you?"
"Of course I'm going, Roy. It's a risk, sure, but that doesn't mean I can afford to stop doing any of this. At least now I know that he's playing me. I can start to think about what I'm doing strategically, too. I can start to figure out what the right decisions are, not based on assuming that he's your run-of-the-mill scumbag, but assuming that he's making moves. Smart ones, at that."
"Well, he's at least not making dumb calls, that's to be sure."
"Compared to little old me?"
"Compared to you, he's a genius." Roy gave her an expression of sarcastic disgust. Erin responded with mock hurt. "You're doing fine. Keep in touch, okay? I don't want you to get hurt out there, but I'm not going to stop you. Just make sure that you don't do anything drastic. We can't protect you if you go John McClane on the guy."
Her phone buzzed. "Of course. I'm not an idiot, you know."
"I know. But it bears repeating either way. Just don't get hurt, and don't go too far. That's all I'm asking from you."
He gave her an address. I'll be there in 30 minutes. See you.
She texted back her agreement.
"I'll do my best."
"That's all anyone can ask."
Roy opened the door and blew a kiss back at her. She felt the weight of the words neither of them had said. She had to shower and get dressed, now, or she was going to end up going to breakfast smelling like sex.
She stepped under the water and let the water run off her back. She enjoyed the heat, but she hadn't taken long, luxurious showers since she was a girl. The capacity had been bred out of her by a life of taking quick showers. She let herself enjoy the heat by giving herself six minutes instead of four. She stepped out after five.
She was past the seduction with Craig. Three times in four days would have been a good effort for anyone. But more than that, she didn't have to worry about him dropping her like a hot potato. As far as he was concerned, she was on the hook. She was the prey, and he the hunter. He'd be as surprised as anyone when things turned out not to be that way.
She decided on a sweater and jeans. She remembered dimly that these clothes, specifically, were actually the first normal thing that Roy had seen her in. The thought made her smile. What a strange pattern she was working with.
One of the men making a mess of her emotions had seen her at her worst and decided, it seemed, that she was worth spending a little time with. The other, she'd forced herself on, only to discover that he was looking for her the whole time. She was being played by him, instead, or so he would have his fellow gang members believe.
Where one had only seen her blossom when she got back home, the other would be seeing her shrivel just a bit. What sort of effect would that have? She was interested in finding out, even if she wasn't remotely sure yet.
She was out the door fifteen minutes after Craig's last text and at the address with three minutes to spare. It wasn't a restaurant, which was surprising. It was a laundromat. There was a Mexican place across the street, though, that she'd driven past a few times. Would they even be open this early in the morning? Or was this part of the play?
She waited a while to find out. Five minutes passed with nothing to discuss. A few people went in, but nothing that stuck out.
Almost half an hour to the minute after he sent the text, a truck pulled up. The guy in the front seat had a Twins cap pulled low on his face. She could see that he had sharp features and a long nose, but not much beyond that with the tint in the windows.
It was a Chevy, light blue with a white stripe all around the sides. Could have been any car, for certain. But the guy got out, and she got a better look at him, right in time for her phone to buzz.
I gave you the wrong address, my bad.
She knew that wasn't the case. She'd been put there to see what she'd just seen. She wasn't going to take the bait, not completely. But she took a slow pass behind the back of the truck, long enough to write down the license plate.
So where am I supposed to go?
He sent another address, a few miles away. She pulled out into the street and started going. She had a text off to Roy with the license plate number before she arrived. She wasn't going to pursue it, but that didn't mean that nobody was going to.
He was certainly the guy that they'd heard described in the killing, and that meant he had to come in. If Craig had his way, no doubt the guy would be dead by morning. The fact that he could call the man's location thirty minutes out meant that he knew something that they didn't. Possibly even that the man, now in the laundromat., didn't know.
Someone was pulling his strings, telling him where to be and when, and that meant that though it had certainly been his hand on the knife, someone else was responsible for the murders of those girls. All those women and, though it was embarrassing to admit—she should have been objective, cared about all of them equally—most important of all, her sister.