Shot Girl Read Online Free PDF

wear to be "taken in." I couldn’t imagine there would be a dress code for this. What would Stacy and Clinton of What Not to Wear say? I doubted that a tasteful sleeveless blouse, knee-length skirt, and kitten heels would make a difference. To hell with any fashion rules. So I put on my black Sturgis bike-rally sleeveless T-shirt with the skull on it and a pair of black yoga capris. I was in a black mood. And it could be a long night. I needed to be comfortable.
    I was about to go back into the living room when I noticed my answering machine winking at me. My heart began to pound.
    I glanced at the door—Tom hadn’t come back with the bag yet—turned the volume down a little, held my breath, and clicked PLAY.
    "Where are you, Annie?" It was Vinny, and that was all he said before the message ended. I let out a sigh of relief.
    Another look at the door, and I shouted out to Tom, "I need to use the bathroom."
    "Just make it quick," came his muffled response, and his tone told me his patience was wearing thin.
    "There’s beer in the fridge," I offered. I could’ve used one, too.
    "Yeah, right."
    So much for that idea.
    I grabbed the phone’s handset and went into the bathroom, turning on the water so if Tom wandered into the bedroom, he wouldn’t hear the beeps as I touched the keys to call Vinny.
    "Annie?"
    "Vinny, I don’t have much time." Quickly, and as quietly as I could, I explained what was going down.
    "Why—"
    I cut him off. "My mother’s meeting me at the station. I have to go." My voice was flat; I was becoming resigned to spending the rest of my days with Bubba and the gang. Wouldn’t you know it would be Ralph who’d be the cause of it?
    I stepped out of the bathroom to see Tom glaring at me, the plastic bag containing my slut outfit dangling from his right hand. Jesus, he’d even put the shoes in there.
    "We’re. Leaving. Now," he growled.
    I dropped the phone back into its cradle, slipped on a pair of lime green flip-flops—I own about five pairs; they’re cheap at Old Navy—and stumbled out of my apartment, Tom holding on to my arm like I was going to try to make a run for it. Okay, so I thought about it, and since he knew me pretty well, he probably figured I’d try it.
    My mother hadn’t yet gotten to the police station when we arrived. Without a word, Tom pulled me through the concrete lobby, through the glass doors, and into the elevator. When the doors opened on the second floor, his hand tightened further around my arm and we went down the hall to a small interrogation room. I’d been here before.
    The table was still wobbly, the plastic chair just a little off-kilter as I sat. I wished I’d thought to wear sneakers—the air-conditioning was blasting and my feet were cold. I hugged my chest, rubbing my arm where Tom had held me. Maybe it wasn’t cold so much as it was foreboding.
    "Stay here," Tom ordered, like I had a choice. And then he left, closing the door.
    I let my mind wander back a few hours, when I’d seen Ralph at the Rouge Lounge. Ralph. Who was the root of all this.
    I didn’t always hate Ralph Seymour. I’d kept his name, hadn’t I? Well, that was more common sense than anything else, since I didn’t want to be associated with my father, Joe Giametti, casino manager and at times shady character, or my mother, Alexandra Giametti, who was Super Lawyer and had a High Profile in the city.
    I leaned back in the plastic chair and remembered Ralph the day I met him, in my first journalism class at Southern Connecticut State University. He wasn’t good-looking, but rather geeky. Vinny had been geeky, too, in high school, but this was a different geeky. Vinny was chess club and science class. Ralph was bohemian geeky, wanting to find injustices in the world and fix them by writing about them. He was tall and too skinny, his face mirroring the rest of him, as it was long and thin, his nose too small, his lips pretty nonexistent. He wore his hair back in a ponytail, which I