Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 76656 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76656 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
“Huh,” I said aloud as I realized it was a halfway house.
They were good places. Necessary. People needed a place to get a leg-up over their addictions. But they were also the places where some dangerous men could be found.
Knowing no one was going to let me in the back to check on Sylvie herself, I decided to head out and toward Barlowe House.
Someone there should know what happened. Especially if there was a chance that one of the residents had been the one to attack the woman.
“You hear about the opening?” a voice called as I made my way up the front path.
Looking up, I found an older man sitting on the front path in a rocker. He had on a vet cap and that sort of ‘seen it all’ look in his eye.
“No. Looking for who runs the place.”
“That’d be Russ,” the man said. “Might be in bed by now, though.”
“Wake ‘em up,” I demanded, getting a slight eyebrow raise from him.
“What for?”
“To tell him that the woman who worked here was beat the fuck up tonight and is in the hospital,” I told him.
That seemed to get his attention.
He shot up out of his rocking chair, surprisingly spry, his eyes going round.
“Sly? Someone hurt Sly?”
“Sly?” I repeated. “Sylvie,” I clarified.
“That’s Sly. I call her Sly,” he explained. “Dyslexia,” he added, pointing at his head as if that explained anything to anyone but himself. “Is she okay?”
“Don’t know. They won’t let me see her. I’m not family. Just the fuck who found her on the side of the road.”
“If this was Doug, I swear to God…” the old man mumbled to himself as he made his way toward the door.
“Who is Doug?” I called, but he was ignoring me as he moved inside.
Seeing the door wasn’t locked, I followed him in, but he was already gone.
Fuck but this place was kind of depressing.
I mean, it was a house.
It even had decent bones.
A lot of room, since it needed to be a sober house.
But it was in desperate need of repairs. There were holes in the wall, cracks in the ceiling. Everything was dying for a fresh coat of paint. Maybe some newer furniture instead of shit that looked like it’d been picked up off the side of the road on garbage day.
There was a decent TV mounted to the wall in the common area to the right, on the other side of the staircase that led up. Then there were two mismatched couches, a table with chairs that had a deck of cards set on top of it. A coffee table with a warped shine coat.
No rug.
No curtains on the windows, just cracked blinds.
To the other side seemed to be an office, the door mostly closed.
Then to the back, I caught what looked like a kitchen.
That was where the old man came back with another man in tow. Younger, exhausted-looking, but with worried eyes, wearing a red flannel with mussed hair. Like he’d fallen asleep in his clothes.
“Someone hurt Syl?” he asked, coming to a stop in front of me.
“She was attacked on the side of the road.”
“The side of the road?” the man, Russ the other guy had called him, asked. “Where was her car?”
“Dunno. I drove past her earlier and she was walking. I offered her a ride, but she turned me down. It didn’t sit right with me, so I circled back. And that’s when I found her on the side of the street.”
“Do you think it was Doug?” the old man asked, making Russ’s jaw tighten.
“I don’t know,” he admitted.
“He already attacked her today,” the old man said.
“Who is Doug? And when did he attack her?” I asked.
Russ’s gaze moved over me, his gaze landing on my cut, taking in the logo, the one-percent badge. If he was from the area, he knew who the Henchmen were. And what we stood for.
Sure, we were criminals. But we did good too.
“Doug was a resident that we had to kick out tonight,” Russ told me.
“And he attacked Sylvie?” I asked.
“Perish said when he came in, Doug had her by the throat,” the other man supplied.
“Perish?” I repeated.
“Another resident,” Russ said. “He attacked Doug. I kicked him out. I figured Syl drove home. Or I would have offered her a ride.”
“That car of hers is always breaking down,” the other man said. “Pretty young thing like that needs a working vehicle,” he added, shaking his head in a sad way that said if he had the cash, he’d have gotten her one.
Which likely said a lot about her as a person.
All the snark and sass she threw at me aside.
I was a stranger to her.
She was a woman alone at night.
Of course she was paranoid.
Unfortunately, for good reason.
“Any idea where I can find Doug?” I asked.
“Closest bar is my best bet,” Russ said. “But I really don’t think it could have been him.”