Shot Girl Read Online Free PDF Page B

found incredibly sexy at the time, but in retrospect it was all part of the game. His eyes were the only remarkable physical thing about him. They were a soft green that hadn’t changed over the years—the first thing I’d noticed when I saw him again—and I wondered how, after everything that had happened, they could still look the same.
    Shit, I knew why. Because Ralph was a con artist back then and he was still one now. No. Strike that. He had been one, until tonight.
    I got up and peered through the little window in the door, my hand on the knob, knowing before I tried it that I was locked in. I wandered over to the windows and stared through the darkness down to the lights at the train station across the street. A train must have just come in; two taxis pulled out of the driveway in front and a few people made their way furtively down the sidewalk, casting eerie shadows along the roadway.
    Ralph and I had cast shadows on the wall of his dorm room that first night as the full moon washed us with its glow. I tugged at the recesses of my memories, conjuring up the faint scent of incense, bedsprings hard against my spine. The mattress was too thin, but it hadn’t mattered. I’d fallen for him immediately, a take-no-prisoners sort of emotion that ignored his odd looks and focused on his passion, both for me and his dream of being executive editor at the New York Times someday.
    I snorted. He fucked up both of those big-time. And now look where he was.
    But instead of the anger I usually felt, a sadness rushed through me, a sadness because Ralph really did have talent. To squander that in the way he did, well, that was the ultimate waste.
    A knock at the door startled me, and I jumped as my mother stepped into the room. Tom was not with her. She shut the door behind her and handed me a Dunkin’ Donuts latte.
    "I’m sorry," she said as she gave me a quick hug, and I knew what she meant. She was sorry for Ralph, sorry that I was back in his clutches even though he was dead now. She’d never liked him. Which, I admit, was one of the reasons why I did—at first, at least.
    I took the coffee and sat again, my fingers toying with the top of the cup; she sat across from me, taking my other hand in hers. I had to give her credit for not saying anything about my outfit as she forced herself not to stare at the skull on my shirt.
    "You have to tell me everything," she said.
    So I did.

Chapter 5
    It was dawn when I finally walked out of the New Haven police station with my mother. I half expected to see Vinny waiting for me, but he wasn’t. When I mentioned it, my mother clicked her tongue.
    "You’ll see Vinny soon enough. You need to get home and get some sleep."
    I was tired, but there was too much going on in my head. Tom actually had called me a "person of interest," which pissed me off. He hadn’t done the interrogating, though. Conflict of interest and all that shit. So newly promoted detective Ronald Berger got to ask me a million questions about my relationship with Ralph, while we were married and since. I didn’t think it was any of his goddamn business, but my mother intervened when I got too worked up, and managed to smooth things over. Nothing against Ronald or anything—he’s a nice guy, but just not on the other side of the interrogation table. I’d rather knock back a few beers with him and ask him about other "people of interest."
    I strapped myself into the front seat of my mother’s Mercedes, prepared for her erratic driving—she’d give any NASCAR driver a run for his money.
    "I need to pick up my car," I said as she turned the ignition. "It’s back in the bar parking lot."
    She sighed, and instead of turning up Chapel, she kept going straight on State Street. The Rouge Lounge was just a block up from Café Nine—another nightspot but without the slick decor—and its parking lot was a rarity in the city, where meters reigned and garages charged way too much for a night on the town.
    The yellow