Page 24 of Sapphire Tears

But it makes me sick. She deserves so much more.

I wonder if I’ll even find her here. My idiot ‘friend’ is probably already on his way out of town with his five thousand dollars. But if his information doesn’t pan out, I have half a mind to track the sorry motherfucker down just so that I can snap his neck for wasting my time.

He had described her accurately, though, down to the gunshot wound she’d taken to the arm. Why the hell hadn’t that been seen to already?

I park on the opposite side of the street and watch the laundromat for twenty minutes before I determine that the only things living in there have whiskers or eight eyeballs.

Fuck. I’m too late. I knew it, I fuckingknewit, I should’ve still been scouring the city, kicking in every goddamn door until I found—

Wait.

A car pulls up. A broke-ass Honda, sputtering and groaning in protest. And in the passenger window…

Is June.

She looks like she’s lost weight in the week we’ve been apart. She’s pale, too. And weak. Like she’s been surviving on nothing but scraps and prayers.

I’m so distracted by her that I barely have time to focus on the man driving the car. By the time I turn my attention on him, he’s got his back to me, and he’s walking into the laundromat, prying the boarded-up front door apart with practiced familiarity.

There’s something about him that strikes me as eerily familiar. He’s a big man, almost as tall as I am, but his bulky green jacket hides his physicality and obscures most of his movements. All I really catch is a mess of overgrown hair and the hint of an overgrown beard to match.

I watch as June follows him into the laundromat, clutching her injured arm. She winces with every step, though even from here, I can see the lines of tension that reveal just how much she’s trying not to show the depths of her pain.

Who is this fucker she’s with? And why is she following him inside when she should be running from him?

The fact that she doesn’t do it tells me one thing: whoever he is, she’s choosing to stay with him.

I watch them slink into the laundromat. The man’s face is drenched in shadows as he surveys the street up and down before pulling the boards back into place.

I get out of my unmarked sedan and approach the entrance. Pressing my ear to one of the graffitied windows, I listen.

Things are moving inside. Footsteps, heavy breathing. Zippers opening and closing. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what’s happening: they’re packing up to leave.

Which means they’re anticipating that someone will come after them.

ThatIwill come after them.

“Check the last drawer,” I hear the man’s muffled voice say. “I have a wad of cash tucked in back.”

That voice.It makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck.

I suppress a shudder as I start to pry the boards open just like the man did. I go slowly, making sure I don’t draw their attention. Eventually, there’s enough room for me to crabwalk inside and seal it behind me once again.

It’s dark in here. The walls seep soap residue and the machines hunker down in haphazard rows on either side of me like squat little goblins. At the far side of the room is a doorway, hung with a plastic shower curtain. The light behind it makes the whole thing glow, so I can’t tell what’s behind it other than vague, blurry shadows passing back and forth.

Do I charge it? I don’t know if there are other points of entry or exit further in. I don’t know if they’re armed, if she’s a captive, if he’s hurt her more, what he’s capable of doing. Hell, I don’t know whatsheis capable of doing, either.

Though the look in her eyes when she saw my scars a week ago, when she finally understood…

A woman who looks like that is capable of anything.

I’m racked with indecision, my hand straying toward my gun, when the choice is taken away from me abruptly.

One of the silhouette blobs grows denser.

The shower curtain is yanked back.

And the man emerges into the main room.

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