Page 18 of First Blood
Which meant he’d been gone way, way too fucking long.
I crammed the broken door back in the frame the best I could in ten seconds, all I was willing to spare, and I was off on the hunt. I’d fucking find him.
I was afraid I’d find him dead. I shoved that thought away, but I kept seeing him in my mind’s eye as I sprinted back to his usual spot. His eyes glazed, his neck bruised and bent at an impossible angle, his limbs sprawled in crimson-stained snow…
When I came out of the alley again, he still wasn’t there. Information. I neededsomething, before I started quartering the east side and checking every alley, every car, every dumpster. I looked up and down the block, and there was the dark-haired guy who’d talked to Laurie that one night and inadvertently helped me learn his name. He was smoking a cigarette and tapping at his phone, clearly not too hopeful of getting a lot of business even though it was Friday night. There weren’t many cars passing by, and none of those even slowed down. Apparently, fucking in a car didn’t have a lot of appeal with the temperature in the twenties.
I jogged up to him, and he turned, the cigarette falling from his suddenly limp fingers as he took me in. “No vamps,” he said quickly, even though his voice shook. “I don’t go there.”
“I’m not looking for a fuck. I’m looking for Laurie.”
“Everyone who’s looking for Laurie is looking for a fuck.” He eyed me up and down. “He’s not around. If you only want a blowjob and won’t try to bite me, I guess I could make an exception.”
My fingers twitched with the desire to wrap around his neck and shake something useful out of him. I gritted my teeth until they stopped. “Was Laurie here tonight or not? And if he was here, where the fuck did he go?”
He stared at me for a second, his gaze blank. I inhaled deeply, catching a faint sour whiff of vinegar. Even for being right under a light, his pupils were too small.
Maybe Laurie wasn’t on drugs, but this guy was, and what little hope I had that he’d rattle off a description and a license plate number laid down and died.
“He got in a car, right?” I prompted. Because maybe I couldn’t hope for much, but this guy was all I had. “A couple of hours ago, maybe.”
“Yeah,” he said, drawing out the word into three syllables. “I think…it was an SUV. Gray? Or silver. I mean, it’s hard to tell the difference, right? It was kind of metallic, but all the car paint is metallic, right?”
I drew the world’s deepest breath. “Was there only one person in the car? Which way did they go at the light?”
He shrugged. “I got a text, wasn’t really looking. Oh, wait! Yeah, okay. You want to pay me for my time, or what?”
“You want to give me something worth paying for?” I growled, and took a menacing step forward. I wasn’t going to hurt him. But fuck, right then I didn’t care if he thought I would.
He swallowed and took a step back. “Yeah,” he said. “I mean — yeah. I’ll try.”
“The car,” I gritted out. “A hundred dollars. Anything you remember about where it went or anything distinguishing.”
A beat passed, and he wiggled his fingers. Right. I pulled out my wallet.
“I think it had an Oregon license plate,” he said. “I noticed because guys who’re traveling are usually decent customers, since they’re in vacation mode. And they’re not as worried about getting caught. The SUV slowed down for me, so I thought I was going to get it, but then they kept driving…I guess they liked blonds. Anyway, no bumper stickers or anything. I think.”
I shoved a hundred into his hand.
An Oregon license plate on a silver SUV. That was something. Not much, but it’d at least give me a way to waste my time until…
Until what? Until I found Laurie’s corpse?
I went back to Laurie’s usual spot, closed my eyes, and breathed. There wasn’t a trace of him left. Nothing to follow. Nothing to even ease the ache in my mind and in my chest, the parts of me that couldn’t fathom the thought that he might have really disappeared.
My phone rang, and I nearly didn’t answer it.
But I had to. Laurie or not, I had a job, and my bosses were even less tolerant of bullshit than I was.
“What is it?” I snapped.
Because my boss or not, I wasn’t in the mood.
“What crawled up your ass and died?” Esther shot back. “Focus, Victor, and ditch the attitude. We have a problem.”
“I need the night off,” I said, keeping my tone even with difficulty. “I have a problem too. Personal.”
Esther fell silent for a moment. “Is this something to do with that little friend of yours?”
