Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 76539 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76539 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
And now Sara’s pulling away. The day after I finally feel like we’re making progress, like we’re breaking through the walls she keeps pulled around herself, she retreats back into her fortress. Even though she’s miserable in here, beset on all sides by the expectations of her family and her own unceasing and impossible standards, it’s still the only place she knows.
Maybe it’s for the best. Her parents think I’m scum and maybe they’re right. I am what I am, and I’ll never be a part of Sara’s world. I’ll never be a man worthy of their daughter, of their time, and I’m okay with that. I’ve come to accept I am what I am.
Sara will never accept herself. Not with her parents whispering in her ear, and that’s what kills me the most. I don’t expect to let this little feeling growing inside of my chest bloom into something real, even if I know it could. With a little time, with a little effort, with some freedom and some joy, this could be massive, life-changing, stratospheric. This feeling, this thing I refuse to even name, it’s something I’ve wanted but could never have, could never let myself think about. Survival trumps whatever else. Until now.
And it doesn’t matter. Sara’s hidden herself away, and I’m not going to break her open again.
It’s late when I park across from the High Noon. I shouldn’t be here without Sara but there’s no way she’d agree to come with me right now. She’s back at the hotel room looking over her files and chewing her nails and acting neurotic, all because of one single visit from her parents, and I can’t sit in that room with her and watch that.
Especially not when she looks up and stares at me like I’m tainted.
Like whatever her parents said made her see me in a new light—or at least pulled closed the curtain and threw up the steel walls and made sure I’d never crack through her armor.
I’m here instead, outside of a cop bar at eleven at night watching people come and go with headshots spread out on the passenger side seat next to me. There are a few people in the Dallas PD that might be helpful, a few secretaries that work the night shift mostly answering phones, the sort of folks that might be willing to take a bribe in exchange for some information. If we’re going to find that interview with Wally, we’ll need someone malleable on the inside, someone that’s willing to break a few rules and doesn’t really give a shit about their job. That leaves out the day crew. Those are the lifers, the ones with pensions and dreams of retirement. It’s the weirdos that I need.
This is reckless. I know it’s dumb. Sitting here like this, watching a damn cop bar. It’s totally possible that some of the people inside know who I am and what I’m doing, and yet I can’t help myself. Every time I think about making the smart decision and driving off, I keep seeing Sara’s face, the look she gave me after her parents left and she told me to get lost too. It was sickening, like she was disgusted with herself and hated me just as much, and it sent a shiver of rage into my heart.
I want to hunt down her old man and bash his fucking skull in and make his wife watch.
There’s a noise toward the back of my car. A soft thump like someone’s tapping on the bumper. I frown and look in the rearview but I don’t see anything. As I turn to stare out the windows, the back passenger door opens and a guy gets in.
Adrenaline slams into my veins. I reach for the gun I have stashed under the seat, but something cold presses against my head before I can grab it, and I go totally still.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” the man says, low and rumbling. “Sit back up. Do it nice and slow.”
I know that voice. I know the tone, anyway. Those fucker’s a cop, no doubt in my mind, and cops are more dangerous than gangsters.
Criminals know they can go to jail. Cops think they’re above all that. Fuck up and at worst, they’ll get fired. Most likely they end up on leave for a few months, on a desk for another few months, before getting back into the thick of things like nothing happened.
The driver’s side rear door opens and another person gets inside. “The balls on this fucking guy,” the new man says. “Sitting there watching us like we’re not going to notice.”
“You must think we’re idiots,” the first one says.
I slowly raise my hands. One false move and these state-sponsored killers will wipe me out. “Idiots might be going far. I definitely think you’re stupid though.”