7. Knox
KNOX
Who the fuck are you?
It doesn’t make any sense. Where the fuck is she?
The nightmare she went through is the kind of thing that spawns book deals and god-awful made-for-TV movies.
And there’s nothing the media loves more than a pretty face.
The Mediterranean woman who managed to get away from Dominic in the parking lot is proof enough.
Within twelve hours of her first interview, she had already gained over half a million new followers on social media.
And that was from surviving a two-minute ordeal.
The instant everyone gets a look at the curvaceous Barbie lookalike, she’ll be offered sponsors and modeling contracts and interviews with Good Morning America faster than I can blink.
To be fair, everything fucking hurts, including my one eyelid, so maybe it’ll take me a little longer than usual, but still.
Michael all but drops his weight as he goes to sit next to me on the couch, and the impact jostles me enough that half of my bones silently scream in protest.
Despite how much we’re all still hurting, none of us are feeling worse, so the odds of us dying from internal injuries don’t seem likely.
If I pop a few over-the-counter painkillers, I could even pass for a functional human being.
That reassurance, however, won’t do us much good if we can’t find this girl.
Considering Michael’s expression, I doubt his connections have turned anything up, which again is weird.
Jax poured through every news article and video in the hopes of finding some breadcrumb as to who Blondie could be, and for about an hour, we believed he had stumbled onto a jackpot. Mia mentioned the name Anna during one of her interviews, which had never come up before.
But Michael shakes his head. “I don’t know what to tell you, man.
PCPD is playing this one close to the vest. I can’t access the case.
But there is one bright side. The only person named Anna who has filed a police report in the last two days was about a noise complaint, and as far as I can tell, our mystery girl hasn’t gone on the record yet with a statement.
Plus, I did get to see who’s under protective custody in the city.
Nobody by the name Anna is on the list.”
So she likely hasn’t gone blabbing my name to Nash.
Yet.
How the hell do you find a girl in a city of over a hundred thousand people?
That, my friends, is the question of the day.
Hell, she might live in one of the suburbs for all I know, but I have to at least try.
Seeing as how the workers wouldn’t let any old customer behind the counter, I can only assume she’s a new hire at Westfall or maybe someone from management who was sent to the shop.
Either way, she’s making enough money that she wouldn’t be living anywhere south of Holland Street or west of the river.
But she’s definitely not earning the kind of bank you would need to live in the heart of the renowned Royal Borough like Lillian.
She’s probably just on the fringes, like the other women at the shop.
I already found all of them on social media, hoping I would find Barbie tagged in one of their posts, but no such luck. I did, however, find that the women working for Westfall follow a similar pattern.
They all live in Virginia Heights, where the apartments are on the expensive end of affordable, they enjoy going out for cocktails after work, and they all stay within the safety of the north end of the city. It’s more than a safe bet our girl is there, too.
The guys continue their search with only the lead we have, scrolling through social media to find anyone and everyone named Anna living around here in the hopes one of them is Blondie, as I do a different kind of groundwork.
Driving the old beater up and down the streets of Virginia Heights would make me stick out like a sore thumb, and I also don’t want to be directly traced back to the area, so I ask Georgia if I can borrow her car.
It isn’t anything fancy, but it blends in well enough for me to park a few blocks down at a liquor store without drawing any extra attention.
It also helps that I’m dressed in workout clothes, a baseball hat, and sunglasses.
Nobody gives two shits, let alone a second look when it comes to male joggers unless they’re shirtless.
This allows me to go up and down every block on foot without suspicion as I take in the apartment complexes, storefronts, and restaurants of Virginia Heights.
This place may not be as upscale as the Borough, but it’s still a hell of a lot fancier than anywhere I’ve ever stayed.
The women don’t cling to their purses in front of themselves, anticipating someone might try to steal them.
If anything, they flaunt them out in the open, probably to show off whatever bullshit brand emblem is on the side.
They have clean sidewalks, stores without plywood in the windows and specialty shops catering entirely to cinnamon rolls.
Most of the people walking alone are on their phones, and everybody strolling the sidewalks with someone else is deep in conversation, not taking their surroundings into account.
They don’t feel the need to be on alert. People feel safe here.
It’s alarming how much the “normalcy” of it all freaks me out.
Natural selection apparently doesn’t apply to anyone above Larkin Street, because these people have zero survival skills.
I grew up ingrained with the basics: always be on alert, don’t carry more money on you than is necessary, and don’t go flashing around anything you don’t want stolen.
Yet, these assholes can’t even be bothered to look both fucking ways before crossing the goddamn street.
Seriously, how is the morgue here not piled up with mounds of dumbasses?
Even if I had a concussion, I’d still have enough common sense to not just wander out into traffic, expecting the cars to stop.
That doesn’t seem to be the case with the Patrick Bateman lookalike sauntering out of a Brook’s Brothers, too busy talking on the phone to care about something as pedestrian as a crosswalk.
He just steps out onto the road and flips off the driver, who honks at him, as if he’s the center of the world and we should feel privileged to just be in his orbit.
I want to punch the fucker in the face.
I also spot the assistant manager of Westfall going into a restaurant with a man I presume is her husband, and on my third round by the building where two other workers reside, I pass Mia Esposito on the sidewalk.
But not Blondie.
I don’t want to overstay my welcome in case anyone has noticed me, and with the sun setting, I’m going to have to ditch the glasses, so I call it an evening.
Shit.
The exercise was about as low impact as you can get, and I fucking hurt.
The only thing I can do is come back tomorrow, not to mention up my dosage on the pain meds.
I’m about halfway home when my phone buzzes.
Dominic:
Pick up some beer on the way back.
And chips.
And get some ketchup.
Text messages roll in for the next two minutes until I’m looking at an entire fucking grocery list, and not a good one either.
It’s all booze and processed foods, but can you blame us?
We don’t exactly have the budget right now to be eating organic shit, and even if we did, I doubt we would be.
Try stomaching prison slop for forty-eight months straight, and tell me how appetizing beans, lentils, and nuts sound.
Trust me, nothing’s better when you’re fresh out of the clink than a McDonald’s hamburger.
We just want cheap shit that tastes good.
But I’m also not in the mood to get jumped by some punk kids in the parking lot, which happened to Dominic last week outside of the grocery store near our house.
Well, almost happened. Nobody actually managed to get his wallet, and, Dominic being Dominic, they all ended up getting the shit kicked out of them, one badly enough that it likely ended in an ER visit.
I’d like to say I would fair as well as my friend, but who the fuck am I kidding?
All of that jogging didn’t help with how sore I still am, so I’d be lucky to win a fight against their grandma right now.
It makes the decision to pull over an easy one when I see the brightly lit sign for Wilson’s Market in the nearby plaza.
The area isn’t as nice as Virginia Heights, but it sure as hell is better than my neck of the woods.
Though, the comparison with the latter sets the bar pretty much on the ground.
Rose Valley here is typically reserved for the lower middle class, usually college students, penny-pinching families, and retirees on a fixed income…
So what the hell is she doing here?
I have to blink several times to make sure I’m not seeing things, because that looks like—
Holy fucking shit.
Well, hello, Anna.
Strolling through the produce section is none other than Blondie herself, dressed in a button-up blouse you usually see businesswomen pairing with a skirt or slacks.
But she’s wearing neither. She’s in sneakers and sweatpants, like she’s preparing to take off running at any minute, which might not be far off.
I keep enough distance to not rouse any suspicion, yet she continues looking over her shoulder and scanning her surroundings.
After the display I just witnessed up north, I can appreciate a little vigilance, but this is something else entirely.
Is she planning on stealing something? Because she’s acting downright odd.
Paranoid.
The intercom clicks on to announce a “Buy Two, Get One Free” sale, and she nearly jumps out of her skin.
When she’s about to push her cart out into the main aisle, she sees a man hustling past. He’s not even looking in her direction, but she nevertheless staggers back, like he might attack her. And it seems she’s prepared for it.