Page 19 of Blind Luck

Three a.m., and I was back in the Library. Now there were three hookers at the table in the corner—earlier, there had only been two.

“Hey,” the elfin-faced brunette said. “Did you find your friend? How is she?”

“She’s okay, no lasting damage.”

“They let her out of the hospital?”

I nodded. “She’s gone to bed. Thanks again for helping earlier.”

The brunette nodded toward the blonde I hadn’t seen before. “Kina was the one who drove her and the hot guy to the hospital.”

I turned to Kina. “Thank you.”

“It was the least I could do after she stood up to the three book bitches.”

“This month, it’s books,” the brunette put in. “Last month, it was make-up, and before that, it was hockey. Next month, it’ll be something else. I’m Maddie, by the way.”

“They don’t even read the books,” the third woman at the table added. Her hair was a shade of dark red thatdefinitely wasn’t natural, but most people would be too busy looking at her spectacular boobs to notice. “They just google the endings and then say nasty things about them.”

“If we say an author used a ghostwriter, we’ll get, like, three hundred comments,” Kina mimicked. “Controversy sells, apparently.”

“Oh, oh, remember when they were still doing the make-up?” Maddie asked. “That time they pretended they got an allergic reaction from a fancy foundation, and the manufacturer threatened to sue them for defamation?”

“They had to post an apology. That’s when they deleted their old account and switched to books,” Kina said.

“How do you know all this?” I asked.

“They’ve been coming here for ages. Their girlfriend used to work behind the bar and give them free drinks.”

“Why didn’t they leave when she did? She can’t give out freebies in her new job?”

“Nuh-uh.” The woman with the red hair offered a half-smile. “They don’t serve liquor in prison.”

“Texting and driving,” Maddie explained. “She crashed into a police cruiser.”

“Bad move.”

“Yup. The officer driving ended up with spinal injuries, so they threw the book at her.”

“Not one of the fancy hardcovers, I guess.” I glanced at the glasses of water the ladies were drinking. Did the bartender know what they were doing here? He must, surely? Why else would they be sitting here for most of the night nursing the cheapest thing on the menu? “Can I buy you a round of drinks?”

Maddie and the redhead glanced at Kina—the de facto leader of this little group—and Kina shrugged.

“Wouldn’t say no.”

I figured they’d go for fancy cocktails, but she asked fororange juice. Maddie wanted a coffee, and the redhead decided on Jack Daniel’s and Coke.

“It’s been a bad night,” she muttered, and Maddie squeezed her hand in sympathy.

“What happened?” I asked.

Another glance at Kina. “I was out with a guy, and he was a real asshole.”

“So that’s about fifty percent of the men on the planet, in my experience anyway.”

Always build rapport.Not every woman was lucky enough to find a Zach Torres. The three women nodded in agreement.

“Are you staying here at the Galaxy?” Kina asked, changing the subject.

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