Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 76713 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76713 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
They were closing before I got a chance to rush back out.
Then, yeah, I went ahead and lost my shit.
CHAPTER SEVEN
August
I understood her logic about a healthy, active lifestyle. But, for fuck’s sake, we walked a solid five miles, all said and done, over the course of the day. Taking the stairs again after all of that was overkill.
Besides, the doors were open.
So I grabbed her and pulled her in with me before she could hightail it to the steps.
I mistook it for a faulty AC vent for a second, this strange hissing sound. But when it was joined with a tapping, I found myself turning.
And there she was.
Shoved into the corner of the elevator car, hands clutching the metal bar that spanned the length of it, her knuckles white, as one of her fingers tapped an odd beat.
One look at her face—huge eyes, sweaty brow, and mouth open, gulping in breaths—said the stair thing had less to do with physical health, and a lot more to do with mental health.
As in she seemed to be having panic attacks in elevators.
That was why she wanted to avoid them.
“Hey, whoa,” I said, reaching for her hands, prying them off of the bar, and slipping my fingers in between instead, feeling them start to crush my bones. “You’re alright,” I told her. But, clearly, that was a lie. Glancing over, I watched the screen ticking off the floors. “Almost there, okay?” I said instead. “Take a deep breath,” I suggested.
She tried, but it caught on a strangled sob instead.
“Okay. Three more floors,” I told her, disentangling one of my hands from hers, so I would wrap my arm around her back, and pull her against me instead. “Two,” I counted down, feeling her body relax the tiniest bit. “One,” I read. “And we’re here,” I told her as the car did that little dip as we arrived at our floor.
The elevator dinged as the doors slid open, and I pulled her with me out of the car.
She relaxed almost instantly. I could have released her. But I kept her close, my hand stroking up and down her back as hers went around me, holding on, taking the comfort she clearly needed but had been too proud to ask for before.
She pulled away first, walked toward the door, then waited for me to find my keycard.
“The oven?” I asked, voice low, as we moved inside.
“Yeah,” she said, walking away from me, going toward the kitchen. “Happened the first time going up to see my dad,” she admitted. “That’s, ah, new for me. I’ve never really had anxiety before.”
“I can’t claim to know a fuckuva lot about it, either. But I think maybe avoiding the things that trigger you might make it worse,” I told her, going toward the liquor cabinet, and pouring her a drink.
“I can see that logic,” she agreed, taking the drink, and I noticed her hand was still shaking a bit as she brought it to her lips.
She was about to say something else when the door beeped then opened, revealing Aurelio who was coming in with bags of food.
“If you guys have had a day like I have, I figure you need some comfort food too,” he said, shaking his head at me.
Our people, whoever they were, had nothing.
And after spending all day talking to Traveler’s connections, all of whom seemed to be a lot like her—dedicated to the neighborhood, knowledgable about the issues facing it, and trying to look out for one another—and coming up with nothing useful, I was feeling pretty fucking defeated.
Things would be different if we were in Navesink Bank. We’d have connections who would have connections. We’d have cops on our payroll who would look into it.
I felt fucking useless here.
“You got nowhere too, huh?” Traveler asked as August pulled containers out of the bags on the kitchen counter a moment later.
“I got a whole history lesson about the players in the area. But no one seems to know anything about who would want to take out your old man, and then further punish him by hurting you,” August said.
We’d gotten similar answers after Traveler’s gentle probing when people inevitably asked what happened to her shop.
I had to give her credit, she was really good at getting people to talk without making it seem like she was probing for information. I guess maybe that came from her close relationships and good reputation in the area.
But it didn’t change the end result.
We hadn’t narrowed anything down.
The problem was, her father was shady as fuck. But she wasn’t close enough with him to know who he was in good with, and who he might be on the outs with.
Unfortunately, the only person with that information was in a medically-induced coma.
Traveler had called the hospital for an update. According to them, her father was doing well. His scans were “promising,” and they were thinking they could reduce his medication and extubate him in a few days when the swelling in his brain had gone down more significantly.