I pulled away and then started to power walk toward my car that was parked in the first visitor parking spots that were at the front of the lot.
The second I was inside my car, I turned the air on full blast and closed my eyes as humiliation made its way through my bones.
Not only had I gotten very bad news today about the man that had ruined my life, but also I’d made a fool out of myself in front of some of the hottest men on the planet!
Growling under my breath, I shoved my keys in the ignition and then started the piece of junk up.
It started with a cough and a belch of smoke, then backfired.
I turned to see the men watching me, and I groaned.
“Of course, they’d still be standing there,” I grumbled to my car. “You’ve got the worst timing in the world when it comes to fucking me over.”
Two months ago, when I’d purchased the car, I’d thought, hell yeah! I got a new car! It’s going to be all shits and giggles from here on out!
Except it wasn’t. It was shit, but definitely not giggles.
The car itself, my father had said, was a lemon.
A lemon being a piece of shit car that, despite being new, continuously produced problem after problem.
I’d had it in the dealership’s garage more than I’d driven it.
And by now, the customer service center at the Toyota place knew me better than I knew myself.
The car sputtered again, and I decided I better do what I had to before my car decided that it didn’t like being alive after all.Chapter 6I don’t mean to brag, but I’m from Texas.
-Coffee Cup
Logan
I’d just taken the first step that led down to the parking lot when something, an odd sensation or something, made me turn to survey the area surrounding me.
Nothing was there, and I almost wanted to go get my Maglite from inside and shine it around the edges of the building to ensure that I wasn’t crazy.
But then I heard the strange sound again and trudged down the steps without the flashlight.
Earlier, I was lying in my bed with my eyes open and staring at the ceiling when I heard it.
A moan, or a cry of some sort.
I let it happen four more times before I got up and started to put on my shoes.
The moment that I was halfway down, I turned to survey the apartment below me.
There were no drapes twitching, and luckily for her and for me, she wasn’t outside.
That didn’t mean, though, that it was a good thing.
Especially when I continued to hear the quiet whimpers, and the moaning/keening.
At first, I’d tried to ignore it. I’d done a damn fine job at ignoring the keening until I felt a shudder of worry slip through me.
What if it was Katy?
What if she was hurt, and something had happened? Would I be able to live with myself if she was hurt, and I’d heard her while she was still alive, yet hadn’t done a single thing to help her?
That hurried me along even faster, and by the time I was directly below where my bedroom window was, but on the top floor, I heard the keening cries much more clearly.
And then I heard the thump, thump.
I was at the front door, about to kick the damn thing in, when it opened before I could.
And there Katy stood, dressed in a long, flowing white nightgown that did nothing to take away from her beautiful figure, and nothing else.
Lou, her pet asshole as she called him, was at her side, staring up at her with what I could only assume was doggy worry.
It was my first indication that something was wrong.
The second was the way she walked right out of the apartment, and would’ve moved straight into my chest had I not shifted and allowed her to move past me.
“Katy?”
She didn’t answer, instead continued to walk straight down the walkway and down into the parking lot.
I could hear the gravel scrape under her bare feet, and I immediately winced and followed after her.
“Katy, honey,” I called. “You’re going to cut your feet on the glass in the asphalt if you’re not careful.”
She kept walking, acting for all the world as if I hadn’t said a single thing.
A sinking feeling started to leech into my gut, and I looked down at her dog.
“You’re used to this?” I asked him.
He didn’t answer, and it was a good thing he didn’t, because then I’d have been paying attention to him, and not the fact that his owner was now sprinting down the driveway, and down the steps that headed to the walking trail.
I stood there, like a dumbass, while Lou took off after her.
I looked up at where I’d left Sister on the top of the steps and whistled.