Page 51 of Forever Dark
“Like she was a prostitute?”
“Jeez, Selena,”he said, turning to her.“I don’t know.But there were rumors that when money was tight, she might’ve done a little escorting.”
“Might’ve?”
He gave a small shrug.“That’s all I heard.”
“Where did you hear those rumors?”
“Roy’s Bar.Drunk talk, mostly.”
“Who said it?”
“I don’t remember.Just stool talk.Jeez, I give you a good whiskey and you give me the third degree.”He laughed.
Selena knew the place he was talking about.Roy’s Bar was exactly the sort of place where a woman’s name could be ruined in three counties before midnight.Still, she needed more.
“You don’t remember who started it,” she said.
“No.”
“You ever see her out and about in town with someone you know?”
“I’ve seen her.But I don’t remember.I’ve got my own problems.”
Her glass was somehow empty now.She set it carefully on the floor beside her chair.
Eric leaned forward, forearms resting on his knees.“Look, for what it’s worth, Brenda never caused trouble here.Paid cash.Kept to herself.Whatever people said about her, most of it came from men who’d done worse and wanted somebody else to look down on.”
Beyond the office walls, a night insect battered itself against the glass of the soda machine.The TV heroine screamed again, then stopped screaming abruptly.Killed off, apparently.Eric reached for the remote and lowered the volume.The night sounds settled more fully around them.
Selena said, “If you remember anything else, let me know.”
“I will.”
She pushed herself up from the chair.“Thanks for the drink.”
Eric looked at her empty glass, then at the bottle.“You want another?We can watch this film.It’s hilariously bad.It’s about this creature from space… Nah, it’s best if you watch it from the beginning.I start it again?”
“Another time, maybe.”
His expression suggested he knew exactly what that probably meant.Still, he took the refusal well enough.
“Well, you know where I am, Selena.”
Selena picked up the glass and handed it back to him.Their fingers brushed briefly by accident.He looked like he might say something else, then thought better of it.
Outside, the night felt colder than before.The motel office door clicked shut behind her.She crossed the lot under the buzzing light, hands in her jacket pockets now, mind working faster than the whiskey could soften it.
Brenda checked in alone.
Different men leaving the room.
Rumors of escorting.
A phrase in Latin written beside a butchered woman in an abandoned church.If she was a prostitute or escort, then the phrase could have been written by one of her customers.
By the time Selena reached her room, the warmth of the drink had already begun to thin beneath the sharpened edge of the case.She locked the door, stripped off her clothes, and slid back under the sheets.
