“Yeah, no. Not this time.” I took a bite. It was decent, like always. Savory, greasy, salty.
“Good. I wish you’d quit. No one deserves that...ugh...Ron.”
“You know how it goes,” I said. “You get a job here, you have to keep it, no matter how shitty it is.”
“Yeah, I know. As long as you’re doing the right thing for you,” she said. “You’re making enough to save, and you can always quit if it gets too bad. You will quit if it gets too bad, right?”
“I can handle Ron,” I said.
Her eyes narrowed, just a little, before the expression faded.
“Well if at some point you can’t, you know I’ve got your back while you find something else. Even if it takes a while.”
With a quick swallow, I cleared my mouth of greasy meat.
“I know,” I said. “Thank you.”
Emily waved a hand like it was nothing. It wasn’t nothing. She always watched out for me, for as long as I could remember. She’d been there when Mom died, while Dad was out chasing ghosts. She was the friend and guardian I’d needed all along, the single parent after Dad left us.
“How much more do you need for your trip?”
“A lot,” I said. “It’ll take me another year minimum to save up enough.”
“Well at least we have each other,” she said.
“That we do.” And I was grateful.
“It’ll come before you know it.”
Selfishly, I couldn’t wait to save up enough to travel. I wanted to go everywhere, but would settle for anywhere but here. For as long as I could remember, I’d wanted to see the world. I also hated to leave my sister.
It had been just the two of us for so long, sharing our parents’ place. It was going to be strange without her, but we’d both made up our minds. I had to leave. She wanted to stay. Neither of us fully understood the other’s decision, but we respected it nonetheless.
I devoured my burger, then set to the mountain of fries. The diner cleared out slowly as we sat, the last customers of the night’s dinner rush.
“Where are you going to go first?” Em asked.
“A big city,” I said. “Opposite of here.”
“New York?”
“Maybe, but I was thinking more along the lines of Scarlet Harbor. Or Hollywood. Maybe Austin. Paris.”
“You’re going to take pictures, right?” Em smiled. “I want to see lots of pictures when you come home to visit.”
“Yep. All the pictures.”
“And send me postcards,” she said. “I’ll put up a big bulletin board in the kitchen—”
“Above the table?”
“Right above the table, where I’ll pin all of the postcards you send me.”
“I can do postcards.”
She leaned forward, as if there was anyone else left in Milly’s to hear her. “And I want juicy stories. You have to tell me all about worldly men.”
“You mean penises.”
“What? No. Maybe.”
“Ha.” I laughed, choking on half a french fry. “I knew it. That’s what I should send you—”
“Nope.”
“And you can use your bulletin—”
“No way. Don’t even—”
“Dick pics from around the world.” I swooped my hand in the grandest of gestures.
Em’s tan skin turned bright red.
“This is not restaurant talk. Not restaurant—” She kicked my leg.
“Ow.”
“Y’all done with these?”
I looked up and saw Brandi standing by the edge of the table. Deferring back to Em, I raised a brow. My fries were gone. All my food was gone, while Em still had half a burger on her plate.
“Yes, thanks.” Em smiled politely. This time I smiled too.
Brandi left the check and cleared the table.
I reached in my pocket, but fast as a snake, Em had grabbed the check and was halfway to the register. Sweet, sneaky sister.
I followed her and waited until she was done before ensnaring her arm in mine. “We’re supposed to split the check.”
She shrugged.
“Then I get the next one,” I said.
“We’ll see.”
I appreciated that she looked out for me, I really did, but it wasn’t fair for her to have to take on so much. I’d have to get her something nice that she couldn’t refuse. Chocolate. No one could say no to chocolate.
“You think she heard us?” Em whispered as she opened the door.
“Brandi?” I asked, matching her volume.
“Do you think she heard what you were saying?”
The door slammed shut behind us.
“Yes,” I said. “But she probably already has a bulletin board at her house. I mean who wouldn’t.”
Em snort-laughed.
The road out front was dark, as it always was at this hour, and the night air was cool, a pleasant break from the summer’s heat. I closed my eyes and breathed in the floral scent of the blossoming magnolia that stood by the door. Beyond that was country air, fresh and clean, one of the only good things about small town life in the middle of nowhere, Georgia.
Beyond the glow of the diner’s lights, there was darkness, thick trees, and swamp.
“See you at home?” Emily asked.
“After work,” I said.
Emily elbowed my side. “Oh, I didn’t know you were working tonight.”
“You can’t tell by the clothes?” I was wearing the black t-shirt and black shorts that I was required to wear for my shift at the motel.
“Those are your work clothes?” She smiled at me, a bright, playful grin, and her dark eyes sparkled. “It’s pretty similar to your regular look though, right?”
“Yeah, yeah, fair enough.”
We walked along the stone path to the lot in the back.
“I guess we’ll just be on opposite schedules until I go back to night shift next week,” Emily said.
“Actually, my schedule’s all over the place. Some days, some nights.”
“That sucks. I’ll leave you some meals in the fridge,” she said. “So you can have something substantial when you get home, or before you go in.”
“Thank you.”
We stopped at her car. Mine was only two cars farther down. The rest were cleared out, except for Brandi’s and Milly’s.
“You’re welcome,” Em said. “If I don’t, I know you won’t eat anything decent.”
“I eat on my own,” I said.
“Ramen noodles.”
“They’re delicious. See ya.” I waved a hand and kept walking, gravel crunching beneath my feet.
“You need to eat vegetab—”
Her words were cut short. Silence. Then a shrill sound cut through the night. High-pitched, unexpected, a scream echoed through the trees.
At first I didn’t recognize her voice, didn’t think it could be Emily.
I spun on my heel, expecting to find a spider on her door handle. Em only screamed like that when there was a giant wolf spider hiding in the shower curtain.
I met her gaze. Her big brown eyes were filled with terror. Tightness assailed my chest.
Before I could ask what was wrong, she flashed from sight. So fast. Did she fall?
I ran for her.
The crunch of impact on gravel filled my ears, the silence of the lot deafening.
Two cars away, just a few feet. I ran.
A sick feeling boiled in my gut. What the fuck was going on?
I looked on the ground where my sister had been standing just seconds before. She wasn’t there. I looked under the car, all around. Nothing.
She was gone.
Panic welled. My pulse raced, even though I knew it was crazy. People didn’t just disappear. She was here, somewhere. She had to be.
“Emily?”
I walked around the other four cars in the lot, then to the edge of the tree line. Deep beyond thick trunks was swamp, deep, dark, and—
Breath caught in my ch
est. I hated to admit the possibility, hated to consider it—alligators. It couldn’t be alligators. I’d have seen it. I’d have seen her on the ground, seen the beast pulling her. Heard her struggle, heard her fight.
Images flashed through my head, thoughts I didn’t want to think.
My fingers fumbled as I flipped my phone’s flashlight on and peered out into the darkness of the swamp, unwilling to believe she was out there, but also unwilling to believe she’d just disappeared.
The soft soil was still—no movement, no anything. Frogs croaked, crickets chirped, and that was it.
I headed back to the front of the building, and looked down the road in both directions, and into the forest beyond. No sign. Nothing.
With my hands cupped together, I yelled as loud as I could. “Emily!”
The only other place I could think of was back inside Milly’s Diner. I pushed the front door but it was locked.
With both fists balled, I banged with desperation.
The window cracked open.
“What? What do you want?” It was Brandi. I ran over to her.
“My sister, did she come back inside?”
“No. I locked it as soon as you left.”
Fuck.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Unsure what else to do, where else to go, I found my feet moving, slow at first. Before I knew it, I was running, running toward town, yelling for my sister.
The road changed from dirt to gravel, to a patch of pavement at the only traffic light in all of Barbetta.
The light was green, and the only vehicle at the intersection was a truck. It wasn’t moving. A sinking feeling came over me as I approached from behind. The driver’s side door opened, and Mrs. Stangable climbed out, her back to me.
“Oh my.” She brought her hands up to cover her gaping mouth. I watched her as I walked past, my feet still moving, slower and slower.
With every step closer, the pit in my stomach deepened. Dread squashed every other thought, every other feeling. It was the anticipation, and what came next was going to be hell.
This was it, I just knew it.
I slowed, expecting the worst, even though it still made no sense.
Headlights shined over the pavement, and in the center of the street was a woman, dressed in white nursing scrubs. She was facedown, unmoving. I walked closer, detached from emotion, detached from reality. It couldn’t be Emily.
Her hair was dark brown, her perfect waves mussed. I kneeled beside the woman, not understanding. How could this be her? How could she be here?
I brushed the hair back from her face.
Light brown skin, with a generous helping of freckles. Her eyes were closed, and her smile was gone. But it was still Emily.
That hole in my chest—it was a dam. It broke.
Tears streamed down my face. My throat burned as I tried to speak.
“Help! Somebody, please. Help us!”
Buzzing fluorescent bulbs acted as the backdrop for the rundown motel melody. The ice machine down the hall clanked and grinded, while the fan clicked overhead. It was like the percussion-heavy music from those trash can performances, minus all the pizazz.
The stains on the cheap carpet were like clouds. If you squinted hard enough, you were bound to find meaningful shapes in there somewhere. It was a hobby of mine, while I leaned on the counter of the front lobby waiting for the work hours to pass.
Recently, though, all I saw was Emily.
Nine days. It felt like longer. It had been nine agonizing days since my sister had vanished into thin air. Nine days since I’d searched frantically for Emily, until I found her in the middle of the street, face down on the blacktop, unconscious.
The image haunted not just my dreams, but the waking hours as well. I kept seeing her, seemingly unharmed. There wasn’t a single scratch on her.
There was no reasonable explanation for what had happened. No explanation at all.
According to the doctors, comas happened after brain trauma of some sort. Emily didn’t have an infection, no toxins in her bloodstream, and no bleeding or swelling. Her situation was uncommon, but supposedly not unheard of. They just kept telling me she needed time. She’d wake up soon.
She hadn’t.
And what had happened—I don’t know why I’d expected anyone to believe me. First the deputy, then the doctors—every time I explained what I’d seen, I got the look. The look of pity—oh you poor crazy girl. I was a Hammond, after all, reputed to be crazy by nature. Given the truth of what happened, I wouldn’t have believed my story either.
The minutes crept by until the clock on the wall behind me stopped ticking altogether. Then they just ran together endlessly, no discernable difference between one and the next. It wasn’t much different, really. Nothing happened. No one came.
My job was pointless. No one needed to work at the front desk of a motel fifty miles from any real town. Barbetta didn’t even have a McDonald’s. There has to be some kind of benchmark separating a couple of houses grouped together from a real town. I say it takes a McDonald’s. Or at least a Chubby Fries. Barbetta didn’t have one of those, either.
If there weren’t any customers, what was the point of operating a business? I could be sitting in the hospital, by my sister’s side. That’s where I was supposed to be. Not here, doing the same job a rock could do if left in my place.
Eyeing my copy of Beefcake Bloodsucker on the counter, I considered trying to read. Focusing on the words had been hard the past week. Too hard. It took the enjoyment out of it, so I decided to try something else for a distraction. I needed to get lost in something. I went to the object I found myself drawn to since that night at Milly’s Diner—my police scanner. Lucky for me, everything’s available on the internet.
Feeling helpless, I’d picked up one on TradeBay and expedited delivery. Besides the updates from the hospital, my best chance of finding out something useful was to get it straight from the police. But it wasn’t like Sheriff Nielson was going to tell me anything.
First Michaela, then Em. Sudden comas didn’t just happen. Something more was going on in this town. I had to find out what. I had to help my sister.
With my earbuds in, I listened to the static. There’d been nothing interesting in nine days, only Deputy Weber asking the sheriff the occasional question.
I poured the beans in the reserve tank with the water, but the gosh darn coffee maker’s howling. Is it supposed to do that?
Not sure if Madeline’s into me. Courtship and all. When I got my doughnuts this morning, she put in thirteen, and called it a baker’s dozen. Now I know a dozen’s supposed to be twelve. Baker or not. What do you think? Should I ask her to dinner?
Still, listening gave me hope. Hope was what I clung to.
Static. I had to admit, I preferred the deputy’s questions, and the sheriff’s cursing response, to the static.
The little bell jingled above the door.
I didn’t look up.
“Yes, Ron, I’m still here,” I said. “And no, there are still no customers.”
“Well hello, gorgeous.” The deep, sultry tone was nothing like Ron’s voice. It resonated through my chest like a fucking earthquake.
That caught my attention. I looked up.
Stepping through the door with all the swagger of a romance novel billionaire, in a perfectly-tailored, fancy-ass suit to back it up, was the kind of man who had no business in Barbetta.
Better suited for GQ, his confidence was a badge on his wide shoulders. This was a man who knew what he wanted, and always got it. Absolutely fucking delicious.
Can-I-get-a-dick-pic-for-the-bulletin-board-in-my-kitchen delicious.
He was tall, a solid six feet, with the perfect amount of stubble on his square jaw. Enough to scratch, but not enough to grab onto. His thick dark hair was smoothed back from his face, but puffed up in effortlessly perfect style. This was hair I could grab, twist my fingers through, and hold onto for dear life. Aviator sunglasses hid his eyes.
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Wait, what?
It was the middle of the fucking night.
With a shake of my head, I dislodged one of the earbuds from my ears. “What’s with the sunglasses?”
He strutted over to the counter, pulling a wheeled suitcase behind him, and slipped the glasses up into his hair.
His eyes were dark as rum, and playfully mischievous. A girl could get drunk just by looking at them, a dangerous mix of excitement and bad decisions. Tempted to dive in and never look back, I tried to focus on his lips. No, not his lips. His words. The words that would come out. Soon—I hoped.
A crooked smile crossed his totally kissable lips as he leaned an arm on the counter between us. My insides turned to mush as I imagined taking a taste. His cologne filled my lungs, warm spice with a hint of citrus. A shot of excitement carried through me, straight to my core.
“You like?” he asked, with a wink.
Yes, please. But he meant the glasses, not the whole package, didn’t he?
“It’s the middle of the fucking night. Only pretentious asshats wear sunglasses at night,” I said, realizing only after that I hadn’t filtered my words. Shit. I stood up straighter.
His smile deepened.
Fuck.
“And those who’ve got style,” he said.
“Asshat style.”
Shit. I did it again. I should have just let it go and said nothing, but I just couldn’t keep my big mouth shut.
“You’ve got sass.” He nodded, approvingly. “Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?”
“My mother’s dead.” I narrowed my eyes, and waited for whatever he’d throw at me next. There was a rapport between us, weird but fun, and I was tempted to mirror his grin.
“Mine, too. Look at us, two peas.” Okay, who thought bonding over dead parents was a thing? It wasn’t, but here we were.
“Two peas?”
“In a pod.” He cocked his head just a bit to the side, like I was the strange one.
“I know what it means,” I said. “It just seems like a strange thing to go along with dead parents.”
“Maybe it is,” he said. “How about I make it up to you over drinks.”
“I’m working and everything’s closed. As I mentioned before, it’s the middle of the fucking night.”
Suave as Shift Page 2