“She didn’t say why?”
“Nope.”
“Did you talk to any of her friends?”
“Sure. They were blindsided by it, too.”
“Have you talked with her at all since then?”
“I went by her place a couple of times the next week, but she asked me to leave. I pestered her with texts and shit, and she blocked me. My dad told me I should knock it off and leave her alone. But none of it made sense to me. I mean, you’re a girl. What am I missing?”
Cat leaned across the blanket and gave him a little peck on the cheek.
“I don’t know,” she said, “but I can tell you one thing.”
“What?”
“You should listen to what Delaney told you. Whatever happened, I don’t think it had anything to do with you. This was about her. And maybe her mom, too. And it was big.”
23
Serena savored the moment of surrender. The first swallow was always the sweetest. It was like spreading her legs for a lover. The vodka went down cold, and then it turned warm in her body, like hot sun blazing on her skin on a Las Vegas afternoon. All the swallows after that were nothing but pale imitations, but the first one made it worthwhile.
“I didn’t expect to see you so soon,” Jagger told her with a smile of surprise. He still looked as cool as the Absolut. Different T-shirt, just as tight. Black jeans. Closing time was coming soon, and only a few stragglers were nursing their last drinks in the bar. They may as well have been alone.
“And here I thought you’d miss me,” Serena said, her voice slipping into a sultry pitch.
“Well, you were in pretty bad shape last night.”
“I know. You were my hero. Thank you.”
“I’m not so sure about hero,” the bartender replied. “Enabler maybe. It’s a fine line. Something tells me I shouldn’t be serving you at all. I can spot problem drinkers, and you, lovely lady, have a problem.”
“Do I look like I want a lecture?” Serena asked.
“No.”
“Then let’s assume I don’t.”
“Your husband asked me to call him if you came back,” Jagger said. “I liked him. Something tells me I wouldn’t want to wind up on his bad side.”
“Yeah, Stride is tough as nails,” Serena agreed. “Not like you.”
“You don’t think I’m tough?” Jagger asked, with a wide grin and a flex of his muscles.
“No, you’re not tough. You’re smooth. How old are you, anyway?”
“Thirty-five.”
“A baby,” Serena said.
“What about you? Want to confess your age?”
“I’m older than you, and let’s leave it at that.”
“No way you’re over forty.”
Serena smiled. “See? You’re smooth.”
She finished her drink and tapped a long fingernail on the bar. He went to get her a refill. Her eyes followed him from the back, where the view was as good as it was from the front. She told herself that her flirtation was innocent. The bar was a kind of closed universe where nothing was real. She could tease a man, and he could tease her back, and it didn’t mean a thing. But she knew that the ice under her feet was thin. She was married, he had a girlfriend, but every drink made those things matter less and less. If she kept coming back, they’d be alone sometime after closing. She would kiss him, or he would kiss her, and then she’d be on her back on a table, and he’d be on top of her.
It would happen.
It had happened to her more than once in her long-ago past. Other men, other boyfriends, other disasters. She didn’t want to cheat — she loved Jonny more than she loved her life — but she could see her future.
It. Would. Happen.
Serena took a deep breath. Her desires were scaring her, and she knew what she had to do. Get up and walk out of the bar. Skip the next drink and the one after that. Get from midnight to midnight sober, and move the number from zero back to one.
Instead, Jagger put a lowball glass in front of her, and she took another long, beautiful swallow.
“You’re right,” Serena said.
“About what?”
“I’m an alcoholic.”
“I figured. First relapse in a while?”
“A very long while.”
“Do you want me to kick you out?”
“No. If you kick me out, I’ll just go somewhere else. When I’m ready to stop, I’ll stop.”
“Should I call your husband?”
“No, don’t do that.”
There. That was the first little crack in the ice. The secret conspiracy between them. Don’t call my husband.
Addiction had such perfect aim. It was like a sharpshooter hitting targets. Marriage. Job. Home. Money. It had been that way with Samantha, too. Serena knew how it would go, a long fall down into darkness until she was lying at rock bottom with her life in ruins. She didn’t want to go through that again, not the way she had more than 6,600 nights ago.
But there were two Serenas, and she was watching helplessly as the other Serena walked away from everything she loved.
She finished her drink.
Ordered another.
She finished that one.
And ordered another.
Down, down, down, she kept falling, looking for the ledge to take hold of, looking for anything that would break her descent.
Jagger put the next glass in front of her. “So why are you here?”
“What do you mean?”
“You can get drunk anywhere. Another bartender wouldn’t give you a hard time about it. He’d just pour.”
“Maybe I like your face,” Serena said.
“Ah. Well, I like yours, too.”
“I can tell.”
His eyes weren’t thinking about his girlfriend. His eyes said, I want you, you want me. And he was right. She did. She was so turned on she could feel an erotic tingling all the way down to her toes. She wanted the seduction; she wanted the game. It was a game that ended with both of them naked and him buried inside her, her body writhing, their skin slippery with sweat.
She could hear the echo of Samantha laughing at the thought of it. Like mother, like daughter.
Stop, Serena told herself.
Don’t do this, she screamed inside her head.
She frowned at the next drink on the bar. She pushed it away. Pulled it back. Pushed it away. She brushed back her hair and ignored the heat between her legs, and she tried to remember who she was.
A cop. A detective. That was her salvation.
She took a photograph from her purse and put it in front of Jagger.
“Do you recognize this woman?” she asked. “She used to come in here a lot.”
He picked up the picture. “No, she doesn’t look familiar.”
“Her name’s Nikki Candis.”
“I can keep an eye out if you’re trying to find her.”
“You don’t need to do that. She’s dead. She died two years ago.”
His eyebrows arched. “Two years? Well, I only started working here six months ago, but if you want, I can ask around. Other people have been here longer.”
“Thanks, that would help.”
She took the lowball glass in her hand. With a sigh of resigned acceptance, she downed the whole thing. Then she reached in and took one of the ice cubes and cupped it in her palm. She watched it melt on her hot skin.