Chapter 20
At least during the 1918 pandemic, they had cocaine in their soda.
—Text from Hollis to Quincy
QUINCY
Istared up at the ceiling, wondering if I was about to have to deal with a fight.
Luckily, the woman turned around and ignored them.
Iglanced behind me at the woman with her own cart of ice cream, and nearly laughed when I saw Hollis notice her.
“Ellodie.” Hollis smiled. “Like minds!”
Shemoved so that this Ellodie chick could see her cart.
“They’re buy one get one free today,” she said. “And this is my favorite kind of ice cream. My favorite is the cookie dough. And though I have a test due in an hour and a half, I had to run by here after I got off shift.”
Ellodie, in her hospital uniform, likely worked at the same hospital as Hollis.
Thoughsince their scrubs were different colors, I imagined that they were in different departments.
Ellodiedid look familiar…
“Ma’am,” the woman checking out the lane said to the woman in front of us with the fifty items or more. “This is a fifteen item or less lane. You can’t bring that much here.”
Thewoman stiffened. “I’m already here.”
Asin, just check me out.
Thetwo women behind her snorted, causing the woman who couldn’t follow directions—or apparently read—to look over her shoulder. “I will fight you.”
Hollis’sbrows raised.
Ellodiepushed her cart backward. “Listen, lady, we know that you’re entitled, but sometimes the world doesn’t revolve around you. Just move to the other lane.”
Hollissnickered behind her hand.
Iwas going to have to break up a fight.
Ijust knew it.
“If you two don’t get your shit together,” I said between clenched teeth.
Thebadge on my hip was digging into her ass, and before the woman could retaliate for Ellodie’s words, or Hollis’s laughter, I stepped out from behind her and allowed her to take me in. The gun on my hip. The badge on the opposite side.
Herposturing was quick to deflate.
“Yes, sir.”
Thenshe was gone.
Whenwe were out in the parking lot, I waited with Hollis.
“What are you doing?” she asked as she waved goodbye to Ellodie.
“Making sure both of you get into your cars without getting into any fights.” I sighed.
Hollischuckled, but waited while we made sure Ellodie got to her car—which was funny enough a ToyotaCorolla like Hollis’s, but ran much rougher.
Themoment she was out of sight, I helped Hollis into the seat with her ice cream, and we drove back to her apartment.
“Since you have the day off tomorrow,” I said as I carried the groceries through the front of the building. “How do you feel about coming over to my place?”
Shebent over, and suddenly the stupid little lights on her Crocs that I thought were just decorative turned on, lighting up the path in front of her.
Itwas by far the cutest thing I’d ever seen in my life.
Shewent up the steps, lighting the way as she went, and she answered. “As long as you have a bed that I can melt into for hours on end.”
Ithought about my apartment, then laughed. “Yeah, that’s about all I have.”
Itwas as I was gathering up my files on the coffee table that she stopped where she was beside me, her eyes narrowed. “That.”
Shepointed at the dead woman from a few nights previous. “I’ve seen her recently.”
“On the news,” I muttered, pissed about how her photo had been plastered everywhere by the two asshole employees.
“No, not there,” she said as she studied it. “I think at the hospital.”
Mybrows rose. “When?”
Hollistapped her cheek. “Let me think about it?”
Idid as she asked and we gathered her overnight bag, two pints of ice cream, and headed toward my place.
Iwas in desperate need of washing my clothes, had a stack of things that I needed to check out with the builder tomorrow, and a desperate need to fall into bed for eight hours after sleeping so shitty for three nights in a row.
Itwas just as well that she was thinking away beside me, because I got two phone calls back-to-back as we were driving the twenty minutes to my place.
Onefrom a detective in another precinct with a possible connection on my train death, and the other from my lawyer friend.
Afterthe assurance that she’d take a look at the papers Hollis had been served, we hung up.
“Still over there thinkin’, darlin’?” I teased.
Shelooked over at me, then popped the top on the carton of cookie dough ice cream and started to lick it.
Mydick thickened in my pants.
“I don’t think it was at work,” she said as she frowned. “I swear all of my cases this week were car wrecks. But…”
Shetrailed off and kept licking her ice cream.
Shedid that until we walked into my apartment, and I procured her a spoon.
Shewent to town on her carton of ice cream, and I started a load of laundry as she took a look around my place.
Alot of my stuff was in storage.
Withme building a house, I’d decided not to renew my lease. So the only thing that I really had left since that lease was up at the end of the month was my bed, washer and dryer, and kitchen utensils.
Iwas just finishing up when she carefully set her ice cream down, then looked at me with wide eyes.
“That night, at the club, when you forced me to leave?” she whispered.
“Yeah?” I asked.
“That was the night I saw that woman. She was talking to Taite when AlanaElDorado walked up,” she said. “That’s where I know her from. She was dressed in a black number that night. Very sparkly. I thought it was the cutest dress ever, so I made note of it. And she had this long black hair that looked blue in the overhead lighting.”
Thewhereabouts of the woman leading up to that night had been unaccounted for.
Thewoman, CassidyReins, had no friends. She worked as an actress, had just moved to Dallas for some reason and had zero connections as far as we could tell.
Hell, she didn’t even have a bank here yet.
Shedid have an apartment, but that’d been so empty it was useless.
“Hot damn.” I grinned. “I’ll look into it.”
Sothat was what I did.
Leavingher with a kiss on the forehead, I left, ready to ask some questions.
WhatI found out hours later, at a hotel in downtown Dallas, made my heart race.
Justa few blocks down from the place she was found murdered, she’d spent the night with none other than TaiteDeRosa.
Andwho had happened to catch them? None other than AlanaElDorado.
AsI played the security footage from the hotel that night, I watched as the woman left in her running clothes, a look of fear on her face. And twenty minutes later, Alana and Taite followed.
Icalled my dad at three in the morning, and he answered in two rings. “Son?”
“I have to get on a flight to Kentucky.”
“Kentucky?” he asked. “What’s there?”
Igrinned wickedly. “TaiteDeRosa. Who is now wanted for questioning in the homicide of CassidyReins.”