“Of course. Get me one of those police artists,” she said.
“Just give us an overall description, if you will, please. We’ll start from there,” Jerry said.
At that point Sonia hesitated. Then she sighed. “I think he was tall and dark. That’s all I can really say.”
The desk clerk chimed in at that point and told them the woman who had taken the room had come back with a man, but he hadn’t been dark. He’d been young, college age, and he’d looked like an all-American football hero.
Sean left Jerry and the night crew to their work. Then he started pounding the streets, even though he was afraid he was already too late. Still, it never paid to give up before starting.
Thirty minutes later, he found a tall man with broad shoulders and sandy hair sitting alone in a nearby—and nearly empty—bar. One proudly advertising that it never closed and had remained open throughout hurricane Katrina.
Sean took the seat next to the man, whose fingers were threaded through his hair as he stared into his untouched beer.
“Bad night?” Sean asked.
The guy started and stared at Sean, fear in his eyes. “Uh, yeah. Bad night.” He picked up the beer and consumed nearly the whole glass in a single swallow.
“I’m a cop,” Sean told him. “What happened.”
“I didn’t do anything, I swear. I’m an honor student.”
“Quarterback?” Sean said.
“Fullback.”
“You any good?” Sean asked.
“You bet,” he said proudly, seeming a little more at ease.
“Want to tell me about tonight?”
“You wouldn’t believe me.”
“Tell me.”
“Can a cop buy a guy a beers?”
Sean motioned to the bartender, who set another beer in front of the blond man. “This is it,” he said, wincing. “I may never drink again. Worse than that, I may be afraid to get laid for the rest of my life.”
“Tell me.”
“She was gorgeous. We met in some bar. Started talking, drinking. She knew music…we danced. Drank some more. Then she told me she had a room. Next thing I know, she’s trying to rip my throat out.”
“And then?”
“Some guy bursts into the room and they go at it—and I got the hell out. She was scary crazy. She’d had her teeth sharpened or something. And she must have been on steroids, because she was stronger than any guy I ever met. Stronger than the entire football team.”
“What about the guy who burst in on you? What happened to him?”
“I don’t know. Like I said, I got the hell out. That’s the truth, I swear it. Please…that’s all I know. I’ve never run so fast in my life. Please, don’t arrest me. I wasn’t doing anything illegal.”
“I’m not going to arrest you,” Sean told him.
The kid lowered his head. “After this bear, I’ll never drink again, and I’ll never pick up a strange girl again, either. I don’t care how good she looks.”
Sean set a hand on the other man’s shoulder. “I wouldn’t go telling all your buds on the team about this, if I were you.”
The young man looked at him with sheer horror. “Oh, God, no!”
“Good. Here’s my card. You have any more trouble, give me a call.”
“Thanks.” The kid offered his hand. “I’m Nate Herman. And…thanks. I don’t know who that guy was, but…he saved my life. I’m telling you, she had
“Why don’t you finish up that beer and I’ll drop you off at your dorm?”
When they left, the sun was coming up.
Sean was relieved but still wary.
The sun was no guarantee the world was a safe place. He knew that all too well.
Lauren wouldn’t have believed it was possible, but she actually fell back to sleep. Mark was glad; she had seemed keyed up but, beneath that, extremely tired.
As for Deanna…
With Jonas in the house, she seemed to have made a miraculous recovery. The nurse who’d come by a little while ago had told them that she didn’t think Deanna needed continued medical visitations. That was a relief, Mark thought. He didn’t like having outsiders in the house.
It was midmorning before he got the chance to talk to Jonas. And that was after he spent some time on the phone with Sean Canady, who asked him to try hard not to break any more windows. Or to fall four floors from a
