It was a forty-five minute drive back to the island, and Ria was silent the whole way. I tried a few more times to prompt her, ask her what had happened, but she ignored me.

No, I don’t think that’s right. I don’t think she even heard me. She just leaned her head against her window and stared out through the windshield with her too-wide eyes as the arc-sodium streetlamps threw periodic splashes of light into the cab. Then we were out of Jacksonville and headed into Dayton County and she stared at the blackness and the woods and the wetlands and kept on not saying anything. Her skin still had that nasty, chalky cast to it, so pale it was apparent even in the dark. I reached over and felt her hand. It was ice-cold. I started to withdraw my hand, but she clamped onto it and wouldn’t give it back. She wrapped both of her hands around mine and put it in her lap and squeezed. Other than that, she didn’t even acknowledge my presence.

We crossed the bridge onto the island around 2:30. Ria’s hands were still wrapped around mine and still ice-cold. I glanced over at her as the island’s streetlights filled the car. There was a tight set to her jaw, as if she were grinding her teeth, and her shoulders were hunched and tense. But her eyes were still wide and empty. They were a doll’s eyes, black buttons glued onto a porcelain face. I didn’t like those eyes one bit.

I pulled into the Huddle House about a half-mile in from the bridge. I had to yank my hand away from hers to put the car in park and turn it off. I got out and went around and opened her door for her. She just kept sitting there, so I knelt down and took her hands again, and she clutched mine like it was a lifeline. When I straightened, she got out of the car just to keep hold of my hand. I basically led her like a horse into the restaurant.

Even at 2:30 in the morning, the Huddle House had patrons. Two or three booths were occupied, and a couple of barstools had been staked out by the kind of lonely old men whose wives and friends were all dead now and who just didn’t sleep too well these days.

A few of the patrons stared when we came in, a long-haired beach bum leading a dazed redhead with a painted-on black dress, both of us sporting banged-up faces. But the cook and the waitress knew me well enough that they didn’t give us a second look. Ria wasn’t the first out-of-place person I’d brought here in the dead waste and middle of the night. She wouldn’t be the last.

I ushered Ria into an empty booth and said, “Stay here.” She didn’t seem like she’d heard me, but I doubted she was going anywhere anyway. I went back to the bathroom and took the piss I’d been needing since I got to her hotel room, then came back and sat down in the booth across from her. She glanced at me as I slid into the booth. Her eyes were still wide and lifeless, but I took any sign of acknowledgment as progress.

The waitress waddled over. She was about a hundred and seven and had a gray cap of steel-wool hair and skin like a white rhino and a voice that sounded as if it burned coming up like a shot of tequila burns going down. Her name was Maisie, and she’d been working here since Maisie was actually a popular name. So since about 1857, I reckoned. She’d probably been a great beauty back then, before the War of Northern Aggression.

“Nother poor orphan, huh, Matt?” she croaked. “Getcha anything?”

“She’s just had a rough night, Maisie.”

Maisie scrutinized my bruised face. “Don’t look like you’ve been doin’ so well yourself.”

“Cut myself shaving,” I said.

“Uh-huh. You shave with a hammer?”

“Quit flirting with me in front of my date, Maisie, or I’m liable to take you out back and ravish you again.”

Maisie crowed something that was either a laugh or a good imitation of the mating call of a baboon. “You wouldn’t be able to keep up with me, kid,” she said. “What can I get ya?”

“Black coffee for both of us. Hash browns for her.” Ria had probably never felt less like eating, but I intended to make her if I could. Burning some fuel might help bring her around.

“Uh-huh,” Maisie said. She waddled off toward the counter. “Ravish me out back,” she said as she walked off. “You’re a fresh one, Matt Salewski.”

“Beauty does that to me, Maisie.”

Maisie went behind the counter to get our coffee. I looked at Ria. She looked back at me. Her face was grave, but it wasn’t quite as blank as before, and her jaw didn’t have that painful tightness about it. More progress. Maisie brought two cups of coffee to the table and lumbered off to check on another customer.

Ria didn’t look at the coffee and made no move to take it. I reached across the table and took her hands in mine and wrapped them around the mug. “Drink,” I said.

She took a drink, then held the steaming cup close to her face and regarded the coffee with mild interest, like she’d forgotten there was such a thing. She took another drink. Took a shaky breath. Let it out. “Good,” she said.

It was the first word she’d said in an hour. “Are you ready to talk?” I said.

She nodded.

“What the fuck happened back there?” I asked.

“Sharky came. He was mad.”

“Why?” I asked. “What does Sharky have against you?”

“You came back to see me today,” Ria said. “He didn’t like that.”

I felt cold all over, like someone had just rolled a piece of ice down my back. “How would he know that?” I asked. I was afraid I already knew the answer.

“There’s a security camera in the VIP room,” Ria said. “Over in the corner where it’s dark. They’re all over the club, really.”

“Fuck. Hold that thought.” I fumbled my phone out of my pocket and scrolled through my contacts. I’d stuck Stormy’s number in there earlier in the day, when she’d written it down for me to give to Monster, on the off chance I’d need her help again. I found the number and hit the call button.

Stormy answered after six rings. “Hello?” Her voice was thick with sleep.

“Stormy, it’s Matt. From the club?”

“Matt? What time is it?”

“Doesn’t matter. Look, you need to do something right now and you need to not ask a lot of questions. I want you to grab a change of clothes and get out of your house right now.”

“What—”

“It has to do with the trick we pulled today. I’ll explain more when I see you, but right now you just need to get out. Like out of your house and down the road in the next five minutes. Don’t tell anyone you’re going. Just get out.”

“Okay.” She sounded fully awake now. No questions, no hesitation – not even any apprehension that I could detect. Just “okay.” Stormy was a tough one. I began to feel a little jealous of Monster.

I gave her my address. “I’m in the upstairs apartment, but I might not be home when you get there,” I said. “Knock on the first-floor door. That’s where Monster lives. If an old hippie-looking guy answers the door, just say you’re there for Monster and that I sent you. He won’t ask questions.”

“Okay.”

“You’re a trouper, Stormy. I promise I’ll explain when I see you tomorrow. And speaking of that, do you have work tomorrow?”

“Yeah. But I’m guessing I shouldn’t go in.”

“Not if you like all your fingers and toes where they are. I’ll let you get moving.”

I hung up. Ria was looking at me. “Who was that? Was that the Stormy from work?” she asked.

“Yeah. She did me a favor, and I don’t particularly want her skull ventilated for it.”

Ria nodded and took another sip of coffee. She was calm. Really too calm; she didn’t seem to be grasping the gravity of the situation yet. What I wasn’t seeing wasn’t true calm; it was still shock. At least she was responsive again.

Maisie swung by the table with Ria’s hash browns. Ria looked at them for a moment, then took a tentative bite. Then she started wolfing them.

“So what the hell happened with Sharky?” I asked.

Ria put her fork down. She looked me in the eye. “You know what I do,” she said.

“I figured it out from context clues,” I said. “I don’t care, as long as you’re not being coerced.”

Ria snorted at that. “Yeah. Not being coerced. Guess it depends on your definition.”

“Let that pass for now,” I said. “You’re a stripper, and you hook for the high-dollar clients. You’re waiting for me to pass judgment so you can tell me I don’t understand what you’ve been through. You can stop. You have sex for money. Okay. That fact alone doesn’t make me think any more or less of you.”

“Sure,” Ria said. “You’re so enlightened.”

“I don’t know what I am, Ria, except tired. I want you to answer my goddamn questions so I can go home. I don’t care if you’re a hooker, and at this point I don’t care if you don’t believe I don’t care. I just want you to answer my question. What happened with Sharky?”

Ria looked at me for a long moment and then nodded. She reached across the table and took my hand. She smiled a little nervously.

“Sorry,” she said. “I just… I think I need to if I’m going to talk about this.”

“That I understand,” I said. “I don’t mind. Hold on as long as you need to.”

She nodded and looked at our entwined hands. Her face was blank as she spoke, her voice neutral. But she never took her eyes off our hands.

“So occasionally I’ll get a call. Someone wants to set an appointment at this hotel or that hotel or whatever. They give me the time and handle the check-in and everything. I meet someone outside and he gives me the key so my name doesn’t show up on the register. Then I go on up and the guy is there and, you know.”

“I get the general idea,” I said.

“About 10 o’clock, I got the call to go to the Omni,” she said. “I went there just like usual, got the key, and went up to the room. No one was there yet. That’s unusual – most of the time the guy is already waiting. But it’s not unheard of. So I didn’t think anything of it.”

“What time was this?” I asked.

“About 11 o’clock. So I wait about a half hour before I hear a key card in the door. I get up expecting it to be one of my regulars – they told me it was Sam--”

“Sam?”

“I don’t know his last name,” Ria said. “I just know he’s rich, and he’s nice. They’re not all nice. But I like Sam. He’s not a pervert or an asshole who likes smacking women around. He’s just a lonely guy who needs someone sometimes, I think.”

“They – whoever ‘they’ are, and believe me, we’ll get to that – they know you like Sam, right?” I said.

“Yeah, they know,” Ria said.

“So they told you it was Sam so you’d come without hesitation.”

Ria’s eyes widened slightly as if she hadn’t thought of that. Then she nodded. “Yeah, probably.”

“But it was Sharky at the door,” I said.

“Yeah. He came in and shut the door and took out a gun.”

“Did he say anything?”

“He just said they knew I’d been talking to you,” Ria said. “He said that wasn’t okay. He backed me into the bedroom with the gun. Then he made me…” She stopped. Took a few deep breaths. “He held it to my head told me to get on my knees. When I hesitated he smacked me with the goddamn gun." Another pause. "He made me get on my knees and pull his pants down. He was going to shoot me and he wanted me to…”

“I know,” I said. “You don’t have to talk about that part. But I need to know about the icepick.”

Ria nodded. “It was in my purse, and I was still carrying my purse. He had the gun on me, but I … I waited until he was distracted. Do you understand?” Tears were running down her cheeks. I don’t think she noticed them.

I squeezed her hand. I felt like crying myself. “I understand.”

“Then I used the icepick,” she said. “He didn’t – he didn’t die right away like I thought he would. He dropped the gun and grabbed at his throat and sort of … sort of flapped on the bed. Then he stopped. Then I called you.”

“Okay,” I said. “But one thing: why did you have an icepick in your purse?”

“I always have that icepick in my purse when I go to hotels,” she said. “Some men aren’t nice. A poke through the hand is a really good persuader when a guy gets too rough.”

“But you were going to see Sam, you thought,” I said.

Ria looked up then. She looked at me steadily. “I always carry the icepick,” she said. “Always. No exceptions.”

“Okay. I can’t argue with that. Now what say we talk about what the fuck you’re into here?”

She squeezed my hand. “Please, Matt, not now,” she said. “I’m scared and I’m tired and I just want to go somewhere safe and sleep.” She was crying again. “Please. I’ll tell you everything I know. But tomorrow. Please. Tomorrow.”

Maybe a good private eye would have been heartless enough to argue the point. I’m probably not a very good private eye. I nodded and got up to pay the check.

I drove her back to my place. Stormy’s car was parked in my spot in the driveway, so I parked in the driveway of the vacant rental house next door. I took Ria up to my apartment and she darted for the bathroom as soon as I showed her where it was. I poured a couple of drinks while she eliminated the three cups of coffee she’d had at the diner.

“Do you have anything to wear?” she called through the bathroom door. “I want out of this dress.”

“Old t-shirt okay?” I said.

“Anything but this,” she said. The toilet flushed and I heard her washing her hands. I went into my bedroom and rummaged through the dresser until I found a t-shirt I’d gotten for participating in a 5K to cure something or other. I’d run the 5K, but I was pretty sure the disease was still going strong.

At any rate, the shirt was too big for me, so it would be like a housedress on Ria. I heard the bathroom door open and said, “In here.”

She came into the bedroom and I handed her the shirt. “This should work,” I said, and started to leave so she could change, but she nodded and stripped the dress over her head right in the doorway.

She left the dress where it fell and took the t-shirt from me and slipped it over her head. “Oh, god, that’s much better,” she said.

“You want a drink?” I said. “Help you sleep.”

She nodded and I ducked into the kitchen to get the drinks. When I came back she was lying on her back on my bed, eyes closed, arms spread like Christ on the cross.

“I’ll move,” she said. “I’d just forgotten what it felt like to lay down.”

“No need. I’ll take the couch.”

“You’re a fucking saint, Matt,” she said. “Thank you. I won’t even argue. I need a comfortable bed and some sleep.”

I sat on the edge of the bed. “Don’t worry about it,” I said. I handed her a glass. “It’s just straight scotch,” I said. “You might not like it, but it’ll help you sleep.”

“I like scotch fine, Matt,” she said. “I’m not some delicate flower.” She knocked the drink back in two gulps and lay back on the bed. She stared at the ceiling for a moment while I drank mine.

“Okay,” I said. “Goodnight.” I got up to go, and she started crying.

“Hey,” I said. “Hey.” I sat down next to her. “You’re all right,” I said. “It was terrible, but you’re all right now. We’re going to figure this out.”

I don’t know if she heard me. She was crying harder now, sobbing, releasing hours of pent-up terror and revulsion. She groped toward me and I leaned in so she could reach. She wrapped her arms around me and crushed me to her and wailed.

I lay down with her on the bed and held her and let her wail. She’d earned it. I’d only had to deal with the aftermath of her evening, and I felt like wailing myself.

Eventually, Ria cried herself out. After she’d wound down to a few sniffles, I tried to get up and let her sleep, but she held me tighter and shook her head against my chest. “Just till I’m asleep,” she mumbled.

“Okay.”

I lay there with my arms around her. I wondered how the hell I was going to slide her head off my chest without waking her once she did fall asleep. I tried not to let my emotions overrule my better judgment. She still wasn’t telling me everything, and I still didn’t trust her. She wasn’t anywhere near as helpless as she looked. There was a guy in a Jacksonville hotel room with an icepick in his brain who could attest to that. But she was in a hell of a jam, and she needed help. I’d just have to hope I could trust her later.

Ria had finally fallen asleep. I slowly slid out from under her, making sure to ease her head down onto the pillow. I crept out of the room and shut off the lights and closed the door.

I crashed on the couch fully clothed and was asleep almost instantly. I dreamed of Sheri. She was standing over me, naked and beautiful, as I lay on the couch. She leaned over and kissed me, a long, slow kiss. I love you, I whispered in her ear. I love you too, Matt, she said, but when she drew back, her eyes were blank stones and her hair was matted with blood.

Next Chapter: FIFTEEN