The Hunting of Malin Page 3

  Sighing, Malin started texting back and stopped when a graphic image of Holly Banner’s slit throat surged to the forefront of her mind. And that noose… Malin didn’t know how the vision came, or why, but she knew one thing: it was as real as the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. In the mirror behind the bar, she watched her reflection set the cellphone down and take another sip of her drink, noting the paleness to her skin and the tall shadow standing just behind her. Heart flipping, her eyes traveled down its skinny arms and legs while cold air washed over the back of her neck. Goose bumps rippled across her flesh and the smell of decay overpowered the burgers and fries cooking in the kitchen. She spun around on the barstool and searched the smattering of tables behind her. People ate and laughed and other than some short guy with a long beard heading for the restrooms, no one was there.

  “You sure you don’t want something to eat?”

  Turning, she found Roscoe standing behind the bar with a Corona bottle clutched in each hand. Her eyes darted to the mirror behind him to see her distressed reflection staring back alone. Rubbing the nape of her neck, she tried to smile. “I’m fine.” Her stomach growled, contradicting her statement but how could she eat after Holly Banner? How could she eat ever again?

  He spun the bottles in both hands and set them down in the wait station, popping the tops and winking at a pretty brunette. The waitress grinned back, stuffing limes in the bottles and ushering them away to whatever patio table was waiting to cool their tongues from the oppressive heat. Malin’s mother flashed before her eyes, looming large like the water tower at Mortimer Woods. Maybe Luna had been right all along. Maybe there was something magical running through the roots of their… Malin shook it off with a long drink, refusing to buy into the wild stories Luna rattled on and on about throughout her childhood. Tales of doorways and spirits, light and dark. The same stories that drove her father away.

  “Well, why am I not surprised to find you here?”

  The harsh voice sent an icy finger down Malin’s spine. She couldn’t move, refusing to even look into the mirror and find the angry eyes boring holes into the back of her skull at this very minute. Breathing in the fruity scent of someone’s overpowering perfume, she mustered up enough courage to twist around on the barstool and instantly regretted it. Running head first into her boss’ ill-tempered glower, Malin tried to explain. “Sherry, this isn’t what it looks like.”

  Sherry’s accusatory eyes fell to the drink in Malin’s hand. “It looks like you’re feeling much better. That’s what it looks like.”

  “Sherry, I…”

  “Don’t!” Shooting a hand up, she spread her red high heels, readying for battle. Her black leather pants made her look like a superhero and Malin couldn’t think. “I had a feeling I would find you here and I was right.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  A bitter laugh catapulted from Sherry’s blood red lips. “Oh, I understand just fine, Malin. I understand you’ve got a serious drinking problem.” Woefully, she folded her arms across a silky top and shook her head. “And here I pushed for you to get the manager’s job at Southridge.”

  The room began to spin around Malin, an oblong whirl making it slingshot faster on one side than the other. Grabbing the bar for support, she tried counting drinks in her head while Sherry clamored on about professionalism and accountability. Malin was on her second drink, or maybe her third, but suddenly it felt like eight. Sweat sprouted along her brow, lips turning cold and numb. Malin held a finger up to stop her. “I can explain everyphing,” she said, slurring that one damn word.

  “Save it.” Sherry leaned into Malin’s ear and spoke in a cold whisper. “You’re fired.”

  “Sherry, listen to me, there’s something I have to tell you. When I left today, I found a…” The thought wilted on Malin’s lips as Sherry pivoted on her heels and stormed off toward the exit with her head held high. “Wait! What about my dress?” Malin yelled after her, heart sinking with her posture. What had she done? She loved that job and this just turned into the second worst day of her life.

  “Damn, what was her problem?”

  Malin turned around to find Holden looking past her. “Nothing; my fault,” she replied, hiding behind a face-palm.

  Roscoe came out of the kitchen and set a basket of jalapeño poppers in front of her, following Holden’s gaze to the woman bursting out the front doors. “Oh crap, was that…?”

  “Yep,” Malin said flatly, tipping the glass back and draining it in a single gulp. “That was.”

  Chapter5

  By the time the Saturday night dinner rush slowed to a crawl, Malin was shit-faced drunk and it didn’t make a spit of difference. Despite the alcohol coursing through her veins, she could still see the noose looped around Holly Banner’s neck. Still see the flies, blood, and that skin. Malin had never seen such pasty skin before and it left her trapped between two worlds, this one and the one rattling around inside her head.

  Holden came out of the kitchen in an aqua-colored t-shirt, tossing a towel into the hamper and coming around the bar. “How we doing, doll?” he said, taking a seat on the stool next to her.

  Her eyes pinched into glassy slits. “Doll? Who says that? Do you even know what year it is, Curly Bill?”

  He answered with another one of those cocky grins that warmed her insides. “Just asking.”

  “Well, we’re doing frate,” she replied, slurring a little and cheering him with a fresh drink.

  “I like your earrings.”

  Malin had to feel the black feathers dangling from her ears to remember what she was even wearing. “Thank you.”

  “I like your shirt too.”

  Looking down to the tank top showing off her rounded breasts, she lifted the straps. “I bet you do.”

  Holden smiled and pulled a hand through his short hair, stealing another glimpse of her chest she let him keep. She had bigger fish to fry.

  Setting a tall beer on the bar in front of Holden, Roscoe eyeballed Malin. “I’m calling you an Uber.”

  “You’re an Uber!” she laughed.

  Arching an eyebrow, he traded a confused look with Holden. “That doesn’t even make any sense.”

  “You don’t make any sense!” She laughed harder and Roscoe pulled a cellphone from his jeans, erasing the smile on her face. “No, I don’t wanna go home,” she whined. “Not yet.”

  “You’re wasted and definitely not driving anywhere from my bar.”

  “I can give her a lift.” Holden sipped his beer, leaving a foam mustache on his upper lip that Malin wanted to lick off. It had been a long three months since Tor and tonight seemed as good as any to end the drought.

  “That’s a good idea, and after this drink, you’re cut off,” Roscoe said, turning his back and snapping a quick selfie with her in the background. Studying the screen, he smiled and turned it to face her. “Look how wasted you are,” he whispered.

  Malin squinted against the glare. “You caught me mid-blink!”

  “I caught you mid-drunk,” he said, taking the phone back.

  She was about to say something snarky when the flat screen behind the bar snagged her attention. “There it is! Turn it up.”

  Roscoe turned up the TV where a pretty reporter broadcasted live from Mortimer Woods with an all business look pasted on good and tight.

  “…last seen leaving her apartment by a roommate six days ago, when Holly went for a run and never returned.” The reporter glanced at a tablet in her hands and a sudden gust lifted her blond hair from behind. The live feed flickered and so did the bar lights. Pulling hair from her face, she continued her report, nervously rocking on her heels as police officers talked in the background. “Earlier today, a gentleman out walking his dog discovered the body here at Mortimer Woods. Authorities say they are treating the case as a homicide and will…”

  The audio cut out and the picture stretched before flipping to a rainbow of horizontal bars. The live shot switched back to the studio where the
lead anchor sat behind a curvy desk with a nonplussed look giving him pause, staring into the wrong camera. Turning to the middle camera, he tipped his head down. “It looks like we lost Kelsea,” he said, giving a few more details over a bright and cheery photograph of Holly Banner before cutting to a McDonald’s breakfast commercial.

  Roscoe turned the TV down, giving way to a mellow 311 song, and set the remote by the register, swapping an uncomfortable look with Malin in the mirror.

  “Why is this happening?” she asked in a weak voice.

  Holden snorted. “Because people are animals, that’s why.”

  “She went running in those woods at night is why it happened.” Roscoe slung a bar towel over his shoulder and set his hands on his hips. “Hasn’t she ever seen Friday the 13th?”

  Massaging a temple, Malin’s brain lingered on the smiling photo of Holly. If that poor girl knew that would be one of the last happy moments of her life she never would’ve left the house again. Malin’s morose gaze climbed Roscoe’s torso and tightened on his eyes. “She looks a lot like Lisa.”

  Honing a pointed glare to a razor’s edge, Roscoe brought a fist down on the bar, rattling their glasses. “I told you never to say that name again!”

  “Sarr-ree.” Malin watched him spin on his heels and disappear through the swinging door.

  Holden wrinkled his brow. “Damn, what’s his problem?”

  Malin waved him off with a flick of the wrist that rattled her bracelets. “That time of the month.”

  “Who’s Lisa?”

  “His ex.”

  Holden wet his lips, watching her squirm on the stool. “So are you two…”

  “No!” she snapped, lowering her voice. “We’re good friends.”

  “Oh.” He rotated his beer on the bar, staring blankly at the wet rings beneath the glass.

  “We grew up together,” she offered up. “On the same street.”

  “Like a brother, huh?”

  “Something like that.”

  Washing away whatever he was about to say next with a long drink, he wiped foam from his upper lip with the webbing of his hand. “Sorry about your job.”

  She fanned a hand through the air. “It was just a stupid mall job.”

  “Did you like it?”

  Stopping the glass in front of her lips, she watched people file out of the bar in the mirror. “I liked the employee discount.”

  “You’ll find something better.”

  She turned to him with a heavy frown. “That was a forty percent discount!”

  “No, I mean you’ll find a better job. Think of it as a stepping stone to bigger and better things. Trust me.”

  “If you tell me everything happens for a reason I’m going to throw my drink in your face.”

  He held up both hands in a show of surrender. “Uncle.”

  A drunken smile graced her lips. “That’s a good boy.”

  Holden took another pull from his beer, watching waitresses and busboys come and go through the kitchen door. “I’m sure Roscoe can find some extra shifts for you to pick up until something else comes along.”

  “I already asked. He just hired you and two new waitresses.”

  “Oh.”

  She sharpened her fuzzy gaze. “So, what’d you do before landing this glamorous position at The Office anyway?” she asked, giving him the once over. “Underwear model or something?”

  “Naw, I don’t wear underwear.”

  Her face dropped. “Are you serious?”

  He bobbed his eyebrows two times and stole a jalapeño popper.

  Malin’s gaze fell into his lap. “Prove it.”

  “Wow, you like to get right down to business, don’t you?”

  “Is there any other way?” she asked, valiantly attempting to push the day’s gruesome events from her head with a little flirting. Maybe getting laid was just the thing she needed to free her mind from the rusty chains of finding a dead body in the woods and losing the job she loved in the process. Might as well pour some gasoline on the fire. “So?”

  Holden looked all around, tugging on his collar to release some heat. “I’m not taking my pants off in here,” he whispered. “There are people everywhere.”

  “No, I mean what’d you do before this?”

  “Oh.” Resting his elbows on the bar, a forlorn sigh slipped out, a firm warning of the impending bombshell coming her way. “I used to be a cop.”

  She stared at him for a long moment, glasses and dishes clattering around them. “Shut up.”

  “Had a gun and everything.”

  She shook her head to clear the fog of alcohol. “So, what happened?”

  “Well, the economy tanked and, like a lot of departments around the country, budget cuts followed.” He studied his beer through faraway eyes. “Was a year and a half from making detective too.”

  “Oh, my God, that’s horrible.”

  Lifting a shoulder to an ear, he tipped the glass back and watched something devastating play out against the mirror behind the bar.

  “So…did this just happen?”

  “Last year.”

  “And…”

  “And my severance was running out so it was either become a bartender or a mall cop.” He flashed her a tight smile. “And food courts give me the creeps.”

  She shifted on the stool, wishing the memory of the dead girl would go as numb as her butt. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I’m working on my private detective license right now.” He hesitated before speaking again. “Where’d you and Roscoe go earlier tonight anyway?”

  “Nowhere.”

  “Oh, come on, don’t be so secretive, May. Not after everything we’ve been through together.”

  She laughed and nearly fell off the stool. “First of all, it’s Malin; only my friends can call me May. And second of all…” Trailing off, her mascara smeared eyelids pressed together. “I forgot what we were talking about.”

  Holden chuckled and finished his glass. “I think it’s time to go.”

  Chapter6

  Malin’s headache flared when she stepped from the air-conditioned hallway of her apartment building into the sun splashed lot. Heat rose in vaporous waves from the asphalt, filling her lungs with hot, stinky air. Sliding inside the silver Grand Am, she slammed the door shut and breathed in the air-conditioning to cool her lungs. Even her insides were hot.

  “Morning, handsome,” she said, pushing her yellow sunglasses up the slippery bridge of her nose.

  Roscoe tipped a Coors Light ballcap back. “Morning? It’s almost one.”

  “Is it?”

  “But you’re right about the handsome part.” He shifted into gear and drove off. “You look tired.”

  “I am.”

  Whipping out into the roadway bustling with paroled church-goers and other Sunday drivers, he sped off toward the bar. “How late did you stay up last night?”

  “I don’t even remember.”

  He grew quiet, tall buildings and homeless people sliding past in a sunlit blur. “So…did Holden stick around?”

  Malin replied to a text from Roxanna, apologizing for ditching out on her last night and promising to explain everything later. “Umm, I think he came in for a quick beer.”

  “You think?” His eyes thinned. “Oh, my God, did you…?”

  “That’s none of your business! And no, we didn’t.”

  Gripping the wheel tighter in his right hand, Roscoe set his jaw and gained control of his voice. “So, you’re telling me you didn’t even blow him?”

  Malin studied her pathetic looking reflection in the side window. “What kind of person do you think I am anyway?”

  “The kind due for some rebound sex. That’s what.”

  Biting back a smile, she blushed because he was right, but as far as she could recall, Holden had been nothing but a gentleman which is probably why Sparky was sleeping on the nightstand this morning. “I was supposed to go on a blind date with Roxanna last night and I totally blew he
r off.”

  “Blind date with who?”

  “Some friend of Wade’s.”

  Roscoe got into the gas, grumbling beneath his breath. “Wade,” he huffed, shaking his head. “Rox is way too hot to be going out with that d-bag.”

  “Trust me, she’s not your type.”

  He turned a frown loose on her. “How’s that?”

  “She likes tatts and bikes, and you like cats and golf.”

  His face twisted with rage. “I do not like golf!”

  Smiling, she prayed Roxanna wasn’t upset. That was the last thing she needed right now but, sooner or later, she would have to explain why she walked out in the middle of a shift. The same shift that kept Roxanna behind the register for an extra two hours yesterday. “So, what’d you do after work last night?”

  Roscoe swerved around a slowpoke taxi and hit the gas. “Gorged on some Taco Bell and watched shitty horror movies on Netflix.”

  “They’re not all shitty.”

  He stopped abruptly at a red light. “But imagining every girl the killer hacked into tiny pieces was Lisa helped spice things up a bit.”

  Malin fixed a strand of fugitive hair escaping her ponytail, restraining an eyeroll. “You need to get over it already.”

  “I am over it,” he said, punching the accelerator when the light turned green.

  Malin flew back in the seat. “No, you’re not. You’re probably still calling her.”

  He didn’t respond and drove faster, white-knuckling the wheel in both hands.

  Her eyebrows dipped. “Are you?”

  “No, I’m not still calling her.” He paused for reflection. “I’m texting her.”

  “What! When?”

  A shameful sigh left him. “Last night after a few beers.”

  “Jesus, Ross! What’d you say?”

  “Nothing really; just asked how she was doing…and if she was still a cocksucking whore.”