City of the Lost Read Free Page B

contamination. At least she’s stopped cleaning her glass with an antiseptic wipe before drinking from it.
    Another shift has her sliding off the stool, and she does a little stutter-jump to get back on, tugging down her miniskirt as she does. One of the guys across the bar is checking her out. Or he’s checking out her hair, blond with bright pink tips. He squints, as if suspecting he’s had too much to drink. They don’t see a lot of pink hair in here.
    “So how was work?” I ask. Diana is in accounting. Her exact title seems to change by the month, as she flits about, not climbing the corporate ladder, but jumping from rung to rung, testing them all for size.
    “We’re not going to talk about your therapy session?”
    “We just did.”
    I down my second shot of tequila. The bartender glances over and jerks his thumb at the soda fountain. It’s not a hint. Kurt knows I have a two-shot limit. I nod, and he starts filling a glass.
    “So work…?” I prod Diana.
    Her lips purse, and that tells me that’s not a good question. Not today. I just hope it doesn’t mean she’d been demoted again. Lately, Diana’s career hopes seem to all be downward … and not by choice.
    “Is work … okay?” I venture.
    “Work is work.” She gulps her drink and there’s an uncharacteristic note of bitterness in her voice.
    I try to assess her mood. We haven’t always been best friends. In high school, it’d been on and off, the ebb and flow that marks many teen friendships. It was the attack that brought us closer. She’d stood by me when all my other friends shied away, no one knowing what to say. After I shot Blaine, she’d found me frantically changing out of my blood-splattered clothing, and I’d told her everything, and that cemented our friendship. Forged in fire, as they say. Fire and secrets.
    “Let’s talk about something else,” I say. “Did you bump into that guy at the coffee shop? The musician, right?”
    She shrugs and runs a hot-pink fingernail around the rim of her martini glass … which is actually a regular whiskey glass, but it’s currently holding a lemon-drop martini. I know she has something to say. Something about therapy, I presume, but I pretend not to notice, as Kurt brings my Diet Coke.
    “You staying till closing?” he asks me.
    “Maybe.”
    A smile lights his eyes. When I stay until closing, I usually end up in the apartment over the bar. His apartment.
    “You should,” he says. “Looks like you could use a break.”
    I’m sure he’s about to make some smutty suggestion about ways to relieve my stress. Then his gaze slides to Diana, and instead he heads off to wait on another customer. He thinks he’s being discreet, but Diana knows about us, and she’s just as horrified as he suspects she’d be. Diana does not approve of casual sex, especially not with an ex-con bartender who works at the docks by day. She has no idea what she’s missing.
    Normally, she’d make a smart comment as Kurt walked away. But tonight she’s lost in the mysteries of her lemon drop.
    “You okay?” I ask.
    “It’s … Graham.”
    “Fuck,” I mutter, and sit back on my stool.
    Graham Berry is Diana’s ex-husband. Respected lawyer. Community pillar. Also one of the most goddamn brilliant psychos I’ve ever met. He knows exactly how to stalk and torment her while keeping his ass out of prison. Restraining orders? Sure, we can get them. But any cop who’s spent time in SVU knows they’re as useful as cardboard armour in a gunfight.
    She downs her martini and signals Kurt for a refill. Diana rarely has more than one, and when he comes over to deliver it, he gives me an “Is everything okay?” look.
    “Rough day,” I say.
    When he says, “Maybe tomorrow will be better,” I know he isn’t talking about Diana.
    “It will be,” I say.
    “Graham’s in town,” she blurts when Kurt leaves. “He claims he’s here on business.”
    “And he wants to see you, because he loves you and he’s