Chapter Ten #2
What is wrong with this man? And what self-respecting man in his thirties uses three question marks in a text? Sure, Sam does it, and Oliver most of the time. But I’ve come to realize that with them, the frustration of knowing the text won’t be answered takes the form of punctuation.
What excuse does Nicholas have? And the text in itself doesn’t make any sense. It’s always hot here. Did he just move to the city? He did not, as we established the first time we talked about the fucking weather.
My phone has gone dark on the table. I tap on it and look at the offending text again.
What if it was meant for someone else, and now he doesn’t know what to do? Knowing him, he’d just strike up a conversation completely unbothered by the mistake. He wouldn’t care, I’m just a guy he went out on a date with once.
Or maybe he hasn’t even realized he has texted the wrong person yet. Maybe he’s waiting for someone to text back about the hotness of the weather. Another werewolf, probably.
He should date another werewolf, then they can have long chats about hot weather and LA temperatures.
Ashley opens the door, startling me. “The next patient is— why are you staring at your phone? Oh my god, did you get a death threat?” she gasps.
“What?” I ask, genuinely concerned, my eyebrows going up. That’s a whole new layer to Ashley.
“You look so serious. I thought something interesting like that happened,” she says, sounding disappointed.
“A death threat, though?” I tilt my head.
She shrugs. “Then you can call your Detective McMuscles,” she says.
“What were you saying when you stormed into my office without knocking Ashley?” I prompt. I don’t want to encourage her when I'd just gotten her to shut up about this.
“The next patient is here,” she says and walks out, making a production of slowly closing the door behind her.
***
At night, I'm back at the club. It’s just as loud and just as annoying. I don’t find Drew inside, so I amble straight to the back alley.
But he isn’t there either, so I wait as inconspicuously as possible.
I need to maintain cover, that’s very important.
I can’t stand out. That’s the only reason I flick out a cigarette.
I didn’t want to. And I can quit whenever I want.
I just had one the entire day yesterday. I’m not falling off the wagon.
“Back already?” Drew's voice startles me. I internally berate myself for not paying enough attention.
He has a huge smile on his face that makes me want to grab his hair and smash his head against the wall. “What can I say? I just couldn’t stay away,” I say instead. Fuck, I need to do something about my sleep situation.
“Same?” he asks, taking his cigarette out and lighting it.
“You know it,” I say and pass the money to him.
He looks straight ahead after transferring the goods. Just two murderers smoking in the back alley of a club they’re too old to hang out in. One of them won’t live to see the next month. Normal stuff.
“Haven’t seen you here before, and now you’re here twice in one week.” He sounds like he’s doing some mental math.
I put an immediate end to it. “Saw a client hanging out with his teenage girlfriend in the last place I liked to party. Can’t go there again,” I sigh.
He nods, still not looking at me. Just as well, I can’t trust my expressions today. “That’d turn me off from a place, too,” he agrees.
“Yeah, he’d definitely change clinics if he caught me. No one wants a high vet for their pets, and his wife brings in the cat more than he does, so you know, bad decision all around.”
“Hey, I don’t mind the business. See you, Elliot,” he says, crushing his cigarette and sauntering back to the club.
I stand there for a few more minutes before following Drew in to mark my presence. When I spot Drew sitting in one of the booths with three women, I realize I need to add more color to this Elliot persona.
I walk straight to the men’s room and flush the drugs. Then I hit the dance floor and let myself go. This Elliot likes to show off, to entice, and flirt. I move my hips to the beats and close my eyes. I feel the music flowing through my body when two pairs of hands grab my waist.
A woman grinds against me in the front, and a man joins in at the back.
His hands move from my neck to my chest. I blanch at the contact, which is ridiculous because he’s not bad to look at, at least from my periphery.
I decide this Elliot is aggressively straight, and move away from the man, and lean into the woman.
She turns around and presses back into me, urging me on. Then the song changes to a fast one, and her two girlfriends join us. We dance to the music I’m too old to understand for over an hour before I see Drew slipping out with his company.
I stay for another twenty minutes before I slink out, ignoring the groans and calls of my new best friends, as they had declared an hour ago.
On the drive back, I update Sam on everything, except the new friends part. The guy will go back to writing sad poetry if he knew how many sacrifices I made for these missions.
When I told Sam this case would be easier than expected, I meant it. Because even with my hundred percent success rate, I’ve had to work hard to earn people's trust. And this one seems easy. Too easy.
Maybe a big factor is that I have a genuine excuse to talk to the killer this time, unlike other cases where I had to make up a lot of excuses to keep running into them until they were convinced I could be trusted.
Approaching Drew for drugs doesn’t need much explanation.
Any doubts can be easily explained away, like I did today.
It makes sense. It’s logical.
Then why do I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop?