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7
Annie
San Francisco rises up to meet a plane at a dizzying angle. One minute the jet is flying along like normal and the next it's nose-diving like we're all in a World War II movie. I freely admit I don't like flying and still flying into San Francisco is like diving. Takeoff is pretty extreme, too.
My internet search hadn't proved anything. Cole could be in SF. He could be anywhere. It was a place to start and only because once I got into some really nasty searches that made me wish my laptop had all the bells and whistles PD's had, I found some proof that maybe, just maybe, someone matching the description of Cole St. Martin had been spotted at some of the clubs in the San Francisco area.
Never in Las Vegas. Which was what I expected.
I had been held in Las Vegas. Probably. That second move had thrown me like he meant it to. Blindfolded and taken with no sense of time or place to start with, I could have been driven pretty much any distance. It was just a guess that it was still Vegas.
There were clubs in Seattle. Probably far more in New York and Los Angeles. I was starting in SF.
"You Lily? Hop in! That all the luggage you got? Short trip? Business? Or pleasure? If you need a guide or a ride… sorry, I tend to talk too much. New to the whole Uber thing and they tell you to be friendly."
Friendly. Probably not psycho. Jeez. "I'm Lily," I said, and slid into the car beside her.
She was kind of gangly, the way girls are when they haven't quite finished growing yet. I wasn't sure she was even supposed to be driving, let alone for Uber. Not my problem. Probably she wasn't going to OD from fet any time soon and she wasn't going to accompany me to any of the clubs. My responsibility ended there.
I had to stop thinking like a cop. Time enough to get back to that after this trip.
If there was an after. If there was something to go back to.
I had the loosest of all possible plans. Go to the clubs. Ask around as casually as possible Have you seen this man? About one of the world's richest men without sounding like a cop.
If I found him? God, I didn't know. While my Uber driver—Call me Kat! – burbled on about god only knows what, I thought about what I wouldn't do if Cole demanded it.
I wouldn't kill anybody.
I wouldn't procure for him.
Not true. I'd go get him a hooker if he wanted it. I'd get him a host of hookers, a raft of them. Though for the love of fuck the man lived in Las Vegas and prostitution was legal on the road leading right to the city's front door.
No. He'd want me. Clean, I was sweating and craving like crazy. My arms itched, the back of my neck, my head ached and my stomach was a writhing mass of horror. I felt like everything good had been sucked out of the world.
Then again, that might be my default mindset.
I needed to kick this and it wasn't going on its own and it wasn't going easy. Before the flight I'd found one more baggie in a pair of jeans that had escaped the laundry. I stood over the toilet with the baggie open and poised for probably five minutes before I gave up and gave in and shot up. Just prolonging the inevitable and I knew it. At the time I didn't care. I had hours and hours before Mark came home and an equally long time before my flight. It might even make the flight less horrible.
If I wanted everything back, I had to find Cole. He'd given me no way to get hold of him. He'd said if I needed him, he'd know.
I needed him and if he knew, he hadn't come.
I had no doubt what he'd ask this time. Telling me I didn't have to have sex with him, that was the used car salesman pitch for the first couple rounds. This time, it was pay up or shut up.
"Where are you staying?" My driver asked.
Alarm bells went off. "Shouldn't you already know what?" Because if she didn't, who was she? Fresh faced and looking like a kid. I was fresh faced and looking like a kid and look what I really was.
"Right. Sorry. It's hard to make friendly conversation when you don't know shit about the passenger."
Apparently swearing wasn't against the rules. Or she hadn't noticed she'd done it. "How did you start driving for them?" I asked. It was better than asking how long she'd been driving in the first place.
"I'm older than I look," she said, answering the question I hadn't asked. "And yeah, I know your destination. I just don't know what I'm supposed to talk about." She sounded distressed now. I hadn't read stellar things about driving for them. Then again, given my job choices and what I was here to do, I was the last person to give her any advice.
Instead, I asked, "So are you in school?" Please say college.
"UCSF," she said. "Criminal justice."
