Triptych (Will Trent #1) - Karin Slaughter Page 0,32

at one end and Ansley Park at the other, the only crappy cars John saw on the road belonged to the maids, landscapers, pool boys and all the other hapless souls who made their living doing the shitwork rich folks didn’t have to do.

“Fucking asshole,” the pross muttered as they waited for the light. Her bony fingers pressed deeper into his flesh as she tried to steady herself on her ridiculously high heels. “Hold up a minute,” she finally relented, keeping her grip on him as she took off one, then the other shoe. “Fucking heels.”

“Yeah,” John said, because she was obviously expecting an answer.

“It’s red,” she told him, jerking him into the street as traffic stopped for the light. “Christ, my feet hurt.” She looked up at him as they reached the other side of the intersection. “I gotta loose tooth, you know? From where he kicked me.”

“Oh,” John said, thinking she was either stupid or crazy if she thought he had the extra money to send her to the dentist. “Okay. Yeah. Sorry.”

“No, you dumb prick. I’m saying I can use my hands but you can’t put it in my mouth.”

John didn’t realize he was clenching his teeth until his jaw started to ache. “No,” he answered. “That’s okay.”

“Lissen.” She stopped, dropped her hand, and started swaying like a raft in the middle of a tsunami. “You can head on back, Romeo. I can make it the rest of the way myself.”

“No,” he repeated, this time taking her arm in his hand. With his luck, she’d fall into the street and the cop would pin a manslaughter charge on him. “Let’s go.”

“Whoops,” she breathed, her knee buckling as she slipped on a broken section of sidewalk.

“Steady,” he told her, thinking she was so thin he could feel the bone in her arm moving against the flesh.

Out of the blue, she told him, “I don’t take it up the ass.”

John couldn’t think of which was worse: the thought of her mouth or the thought of her asshole. A quick glance at the sores on her arms and legs made him taste the peanut butter and banana sandwich from lunch.

“Okay,” he said, not knowing why she felt like sharing and wishing to hell she’d stop.

“Makes me shit funny,” she told him, giving him a sideways glance. “I thought I should tell you if that’s what you were planning.”

“I’m just going to make sure you get back,” he assured her. “Don’t worry about that other stuff.”

“Nothin’ comes for free,” she told him, then laughed. “ ’Cept maybe this time. Of course, the walk—now, if you consider that your payment, it ain’t exactly free.”

“I was going this way anyway,” he lied. “I live down here.”

“Morningside?” she asked, referring to one of the wealthier neighborhoods backing onto Cheshire Bridge Road.

“Yeah,” he said. “Three-story house with a garage.” She stumbled again and he kept her from falling on her face. “Come on.”

“You don’t gotta be rough, you know.”

He looked at his hand around her arm, saw immediately how tight he was holding it. When he let go, there were marks where his fingers had been. “I’m sorry about that,” he told her, and really meant it. Jesus, he was thinking about women all this time and he didn’t even know how to touch one without hurting her. “I’m just going to walk you back, okay?”

“Almost there,” she told him, then mercifully fell into silence as she concentrated on navigating the bumpy path where the sidewalk ended and dirt took over.

John let her take the lead, keeping two steps behind her in case she fell over into the street. He let the enormity of what had just happened wash over him. What had he been thinking? There was no reason to get himself involved in Ray-Ray’s troubles, and now he was losing a day’s pay so he could take this pross back to her strip, where she’d probably make more money in one hour than he made in three. Christ. He could have lost his job. He could’ve been thrown back in prison.

Art got a nice stipend from the state for employing a parolee, plus extra tax breaks from the feds. Even with all that—all the so-called incentives that were out there—finding somewhere to work had been almost impossible when John had gotten out. Because of his status, he couldn’t work with kids or live within a hundred yards of a school or day-care center. Legally, employers couldn’t discriminate against a felon, but they always