Keeping Secret (Secret McQueen) - By Sierra Dean Page 0,74
a massive spoonful and dumped a shot of whiskey into the crater left behind. Picking up my cell phone, I pressed the number six and went in search of a spoon.
“Hello?”
“I’m having whiskey and ice cream floats,” I announced. Even my voice sounded fuzzy. “Desmond left me.”
“I’ll be there in five minutes.”
Brigit brought reinforcements with her. In Brigit terms that meant Dirty Dancing and a bottle of white moscato wine. For when I decided to take a break from the hard stuff. I didn’t want to take a break from the hard stuff. Every time I stopped drinking for five minutes the booze started to work its way out of my system. If I stopped for too long, I might notice how Desmond’s Xbox was still here or how there was a pair of his runners next to the door.
If I saw things too clearly, I might have to acknowledge he was really gone and these things were just remnants. Reminders of the man who had walked out the door.
So I sat on the armchair…nope…I sat on the floor because the armchair must have moved at the last moment. Floor was comfier anyway. I reached for the Jameson and realized I’d emptied the first bottle already.
What time was it, anyway?
“What time is it, anyway?”
“Time for the soothing powers of Patrick Swayze.” Brigit took the empty Jameson bottle and replaced it with the wine.
“I don’t want wine,” I snarled.
“Sure you do.”
“Okay.”
She hit play on the DVD, and Baby started telling us all about her magical summer in the Catskills. I’d never been good at being a girl, but I had to admit there was a soothing power to the movie. By the time Baby and Johnny were having the time of their lives and showing the whole resort how dirty dancing was for everyone, the wine bottle was empty.
“Bri?”
“Yeah?”
“Is he really gone?”
“I don’t know.”
“I fucked this up, didn’t I?”
Brigit sat behind me, and I noticed the traitorous armchair didn’t dump her on the ground. Brutus.
“You didn’t do it on purpose.”
“But I hurt him.”
She started to braid my hair, her fingers tracing soothing paths along my scalp. Brigit was great at being a girl.
“You love him. Sometimes we hurt the people we love. If he didn’t really, really love you back, he wouldn’t have been hurt.”
“Huh.” I thought about the logic of her statement, and it made a funny sort of sense. “I don’t know how to fix it.”
“You need to give him time.”
“How much time?”
“It isn’t a set sort of number. Just give him time.”
“I need to know how much.”
She tugged my hair. “Secret, be patient.”
“Make up a number.”
“Twelve days.”
She said it too fast. She was making it up. When I told her so, she took the second bottle of Jameson away before I could open it.
We watched an infomercial for a juicer, and once it was over I was glad I drank blood instead of disgusting carrot-and-beet-juice blends. I was also sober, and the emptiness of my apartment opened before me so wide that my grief threatened to swallow me whole.
When Gabriel had left me, I’d promised to never let anyone in again.
Now I remembered why.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Keaty didn’t look happy to see me.
His mood didn’t improve when I sat down and said, “I need your help.”
He slipped the folder in his hand into his file cabinet and closed the office door behind me. “Where are you on the Gerry case?”
I knew he was going to get on me about my outstanding projects for him, like a parent who can never be thankful for all the things done right and only focuses on how you forgot to do the dishes. This was Keaty’s way, and I was prepared for it.
I threw an envelope full of hundred dollar bills on his desk. The money spilled out dramatically, all seven thousand dollars worth. Not our biggest payout, but seventy hundred-dollar bills looks pretty pimp when it’s fanned out on a desk.
“What’s this?”
“I closed the Gerry case.”
“Did you—”
I threw a folder on top of the money. “Paperwork is done.”
I’d actually completed the case a week before leaving for Louisiana but hadn’t taken the time to tell him.
He counted out thirty bills and handed them to me. “Good work.”
“I need your help.”
“I’m all ears.” Sure he was, now. Amazing how four grand in pocket could perk up someone’s listening skills.
“Someone has hired people to kill me.”
There was something in this sentence that really got Keaty’s attention, and it wasn’t that someone wanted me dead. Neither