“I’m a heavy sleeper,” Cal lied. It seemed the thing to do. “Speaking of, time to wash up and go to bed.”
She realized she was blocking the doorway, smiled that same smile again and stepped aside. “Sorry.”
“It’s all right.”
“Good night.”
“Good night.”
In the bathroom he ran the water, washed his face, brushed his teeth, looking as he did at his reflection in the mirror.
He was still taking the morphine for the pain, and it showed in his eyes. Glassy but burning, distant but fierce, too. How could his new landlady have looked at him in a way other than skeptical?
Stepping back into the hallway, he noticed that his neighbor had left her door open. He could see only a portion of her room, but it was enough to tell that it was no different from his.
Turning, he walked toward his door, was almost there when he heard her say, “Hey.”
She was standing in her doorway, had put a bathrobe on over her T-shirt.
Cal thought, of course, of Heather.
Lily said, “Would you like a drink, maybe?”
He looked at her, saying nothing.
“He’ll be gone for a while, if that’s what you’re worried about. A couple of hours, at least. I could use the company, unless you’re too tired or something.”
She was a bundle of nervous tics. Cal looked down at the length of floor between them.
“I have cards,” she said. “We could play a couple of hands, get to know each other. I mean, we’re going to be neighbors, right? Share a bathroom and all that.”
He didn’t make a move, in one direction or the other.
“C’mon,” she said, “just one drink. No harm in that, right?”
No, he thought, probably no harm in that.
He said, though, “Maybe another time. I need to get some sleep.”
She offered another nervous smile, absentmindedly curled her bangs again behind the one ear.
One side of her face showing, the other concealed.
“Okay,” she said.
He heard disappointment in her voice—the sting of rejection, even, maybe—but he didn’t care.
Back in his room, he sat at his window for a while, watching the people, then stretched out again on the large bed. He wondered if he would dream that dream again, Heather’s dream of being pursued from town to town, across the vast stretches of nothingness between, through a dark maze of unfamiliar streets.
By some faceless shadow that could not be shaken, Cal all the time holding a candle he very much needed to keep from going out.
About the Author
Daniel Judson is the Shamus Award-winning author of The Temporary Agent, his first novel in the Agent Series. Its follow-up, The Rogue Agent, was a #1 Amazon Bestseller. His other titles include The Gin Palace Trilogy (The Poisoned Rose, The Bone Orchard, and The Gin Palace), The Southampton Trilogy (The Darkest Place, The Water’s Edge, and Voyeur) and three stand-alone novels: The Betrayer, The Violet Hour, and Avenged. His third novel in the Agent Series, The Shadow Agent, will be published in 2018.
ALSO BY DANIEL JUDSON
THE AGENT SERIES
The Temporary Agent
The Rogue Agent
THE GIN PALACE TRILOGY
The Poisoned Rose
The Bone Orchard
The Gin Palace
THE SOUTHAMPTON TRILOGY
The Darkest Place
The Water’s Edge
Voyeur
STAND-ALONE TITLES
The Betrayer
Avenged
Connect with Daniel Judson Online:
Website: danieljudsonbooks.com
[2010] The Violet Hour Page 25