The last in line, p.1
The Last in Line, page 1
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One
Freya Cortez bounced on her heels outside The Ruby Room’s double doors; her sleeveless, sunny yellow dress, with its nipped-in waistline, doing a piss-poor job of keeping her warm. Late summer in Melbourne, Australia, could be fickle, and lately, the nights held a constant chill.
“How’d things go with the rep?” Crystal loomed to her right, tall, dark, and slender, dwarfing Freya’s significantly shorter and rounder physique—probably a good thing, since she’d hired the woman as the bar’s bouncer.
“Well enough.”
Wednesday nights at the burlesque club weren’t usually all that busy, but business had picked up. Freya looked over the small huddle of people still trying to get into her venue, despite the time nearing midnight.
“Just well?” Crystal’s voice somehow still held a bored, dull edge, as if very little ever impressed her.
After years of being knocked back, followed by six-months of planning now that they were in, the bar’s inclusion in the Live Wire Festival was reason for excitement. And that inclusion was what brought Freya to the club on her night off tonight. More planning. More prep.
“Okay, better than well.” She shrugged, still downplaying things.
The festival rep she’d met earlier had been impressed with the weeknight atmosphere and the flow of patrons.
Now, four people waited in line, and she whispered for Crystal to admit these last patrons, then lock the doors to anyone new. Her voice held a subtle croakiness from much yelling over bawdy music while talking to that rep. Though with any luck, last drinks would be called in the next hour or so, and then it would be time to go home. She’d rest her voice soon.
A young woman in front of Crystal dug around in her purse for ID, only to drop the hot pink clutch.
Crystal’s bored tone returned. “I’m not getting that.”
To be fair, Crystal’s skin-tight leather pants and five-eleven frame meant Freya was closer to the ground, and therefore the better person to help.
She crouched and began collecting stuff off the pavement, sparing Crystal the long, tight-panted journey down. That said, Freya had her limits too, like collecting the loose tissues floating about; though the rolling pink tube of lipstick and blue pen she could do.
Someone huddled down beside her, the warmth from their hand crossing hers in the cool night and drawing her gaze to a set of soft blue eyes. Varying shades of stone and sky held her attention for a beat too long; for some reason, she imagined gentle waves atop a wintery sea within those pupils. An irrationally dreamy thought, especially for her.
Her eyes narrowed of their own accord. She knew this guy. One of her regulars. Knew those shaggy, surfer curls kissing his brow, and those broad shoulders paired with his tall physique, a tad on the slender side.
Yes, she knew. Some sort of tech millionaire, or maybe that was his brother, or something along those lines… Unlike his queue of admirers at The Ruby—mostly her own staff—she pretended not to notice.
She gave him a small nod and extracted a case of mints from his long fingers. “First drink’s on me. Just tell the bar staff the door woman sent you.”
A smile pulled at his lips and sent a small thrill of electricity through her tummy.
Small, yes, but still enough to compel her back to standing.
She turned away from him, offloading the breath mints on to the bag dropper, catching the jittery movement of her own hand as she did so. Screw that. Surfer guy might have had an unintended effect on her, but she wasn’t above flirting out of pure retaliation.
She turned back around, intent on delivering some witty one-liner, only to find someone else standing in his place. Someone who stank of sweat and cigarettes and had a dirty blond buzz cut. Not the surfer guy at all. This guy’s blue eyes didn’t conjure the ocean, unless she counted the turbulent sinking sensation dragging at her belly. No, all she got from this guy was a flat, leering stare.
She offered him a weak smile anyway, and then turned to go back inside the bar, pausing at the low grumble she thought she heard, one that sounded something like, “Where’s my free drink, bitch?”
A distant whisper in the back of her brain warned her, a whisper that had saved her life once before. She’d owned The Ruby Room for years now, had worked other bars for years before that. She knew a creeper when she met one. The Leerer had positioned himself up against her on purpose. He’d wanted to touch her. Expected she’d shrink away.
Well, he wouldn’t get what he wanted. Not from her.
She spun around, ready to ask him to repeat those words, partly so Crystal would hear and keep him out of the bar. But he spared her that trouble, already marching down the street, past the closed stores with their blackened windows, fists clenched at his sides, taking with him his downright off energy.
Or at least, so she thought.
She pushed past Crystal and back into the bar. This night was turning out too long and weird for her liking. Time to go home. She crossed the darkened space, with its red-tinged lighting and boisterous patrons, only to catch sight of one of her bar staff clutching his hand.
Blood poured from his enclosed fingers, a glass having shattered in his grasp. She picked up her pace and came at him with a clean wad of paper towels from the counter, ordering him and the bar manager to the back where the first aid kit lived. No way would that employee be returning for his shifts any time soon, so she tended bar till the manager returned, then stayed back even longer to rejig the week’s roster.
By the time two a.m. rolled around, and like an idiot who didn’t know better, she exited The Ruby Room alone, her attention buried on the stack of fresh messages on her phone. She’d already ambled a few meters from The Ruby’s doors, when a sick sensation surged through her tummy, urging her to stop.
No.
The feeling was less sick, more off.
The feeling offered a premonition, or maybe a warning; she jerked up her chin, but too late. The Creeper from earlier stared at her from across the sidewalk, his back against a banged-up blue van. The super wide pavement meant she stood closer to him than the bar, too far to double back inside, with zero chance of anyone in The Ruby spotting her.
She could scream.
Would anyone inside hear her over the music?
That only left running forward, toward him. Sure as shit not an enticing option, nor was running to her car since she didn’t have one. The Creeper didn’t even bother to give her a typical, sleazy scowl or an uptick of his lip to spell out his ill intentions. What he offered was worse—a flat stare, soulless and as dead as a long-departed snake.
His hand rested over his crotch, its placement by no means an accident. She darted her gaze to the rusted blue van behind him, his foot pressed against the open door’s edge. An aching silence made a coldness rush her body. The sharp night air cut down to her bones.
He would grab her. He would shove her into that van, and no one would see.
A sob broke from her lips. Any second now, the terrified tears would start—a big feat since she pretty much never cried. The Creeper pushed away from the van and took a step toward her, not even giving her the credit of being quick with this attempted kidnapping.
His slow and snake-like movements gave the impression he’d done this before. Gotten away with this before. He tipped his head to one side, and the wrinkles over his cheek bones settled, as if he savored the expression on her face. Her open fear.
A loud crash sent more ice through her veins, and she startled as The Ruby Room’s doors burst open. The Creeper’s expression turned hard, and his stare flicked off her to a point in the background. Modern jazz fused with dance, The Ruby’s door always slow to draw shut. Next came the crack of laughter and a jovial male voice calling goodbye to his friends.
Her heart sprung to a wild and racing gallop, the sudden ray of hope twisting another sob through her chest.
Fuck this guy.
He wouldn’t get her tears.
She spun around to whoever had just left The Ruby. The millionaire surfer!
The guy already powered away from her, his hands jammed in his pants pockets, his rapid and fading footsteps like claws digging into her heart.
Well, fuck him too.
“Hey, Marcus!” Her voice wobbled, but rang true enough; whether surfer guy liked it or not, she’d make him part of this showdown. “Where are you going?”
Her entire twenties had been spent yelling at people from across noisy bars, so she had friendly yelling down to an art form. Of course, surfer guy’s name probably wasn’t Marcus, so he didn’t turn around, though for the literal life of her, she couldn’t remember what his real name was.
“Hey, asshole!” She took a risk and ran after him. “Marcus, are you fucking drunk again?”
This time he did stop, and he spun around, a single brow raised, as if to say, Who you calling an asshole?
She caught up to him, plastering on her biggest fake smile and looping her arm through his. “You weren’t just about to leave without me, were you?”
She fluttered her eyelashes, hoping the over-dramatic approach would tip him off enough to play along; though her frothy blond curls, Betty Boop dress, and their earlier eyeballing probably only worked to make her look like some kind of psycho-clinger, hoping to nab herself a
Maybe when this whole thing was over, and if she got out alive, she would find a moment to puke at that idea.
Surfer guy frowned down at her arm on his. “Who’s Marcus? My name’s Max. What’s wrong with you?”
His cool British accent caught her momentarily off guard, since she’d seen him so many times and never once swapped a single word. But now, she narrowed her eyes, a voice inside her head screaming, Fucking catch on, you sun-affected doofus!
But she held onto the charade, because her life depended on it, and gave a bright, air-headed giggle.
“Oh, shut up, you big dope.” She gave Max’s arm a playful smack, though the space between her shoulders burned with The Creeper’s stare.
If Max dropped her, The Creeper would swoop in.
Her leg muscles felt weak, and a pain dug into her gut. Maybe it was time to lose the bimbo act. The man she clung to didn’t seem all that quick on the uptake.
So, she rested her head to his bicep, making it seem from the outside that she might be his girlfriend, all while dispensing her situation’s harsher truth.
“Please. Just play along, okay?”
Two
Max regretted having rolled up his shirt sleeves the moment the woman who’d latched onto him dug her nails into his arm, dragging him into a brisker walk.
He tried to tug his arm free, eager to return to his luxury apartment for a decent night’s sleep, before an ocean swim first thing in the morning, then his flight to Ibiza tomorrow night. But hell, for someone a whole foot shorter than him, this woman had one heck of a grip.
He peered down at her, her wide-eyed, chestnut-colored gaze meeting with his. “Play along with what?”
He swore she mumbled the words, “Just look.”
Her suddenly pale cheeks sent a chill down his spine; he’d only ever seen this woman hyper-focused on whatever it was people who worked at bars did. The mere change in her, plus those mumbled words, made him peer over his shoulder in search of her problem.
Icy-blue eyes connected with his, that creepy-ass stare attached to a long, lean, somewhat scruffy-looking dude walking about ten paces behind them.
Instinctively, Max picked up speed. “Holy shit!”
On size alone, he’d probably smash the weirdo in a fight, but hell, there was no accounting for what kind of added strength or weaponry came with being a deranged kidnapper. Kidnapper. Was that even the right word for someone clearly more into stealing fully grown women?
Focus. For once in my life, could I just bloody focus?
Yes, right. Focus. Don’t make this woman regret trusting him, even if he was the most unreliable choice for a hero in all of Melbourne.
His heartbeat thundered, and he lashed his hand around the scared woman’s waist—a performative and real show of support. He wasn’t clever. He wasn’t anything. All his advantages came from pure, unexplainable luck.
Still, this woman’s actions showed hard-to-match bravery and intelligence; at least for this moment, he’d try to level up.
He kept his stride long and fast, and she panted, her hips bumping into him as if keeping up wasn’t all that easy. A quick glance over his shoulder revealed The Stalker in hot pursuit, albeit at an ambling, stalkerish pace.
Max held a hand out to the woman. “Give me your purse.”
She frowned up at him but did as told.
“What the fuck are you doing?” The woman’s voice came out as a low growl as he stopped and turned to face the screwball trailing behind them. “Are you stupid or something?”
Maybe he should have been insulted, but at least she said out loud what most people implied to him in silence.
The Stalker stopped ten paces away, his deadpan stare working over Max.
Max put on his best deranged smile but slipped a hand into the woman’s purse, hinting The Stalker wouldn’t like what might be inside. “Are you all right there, mate?”
The Stalker took the bait, his gaze flicking down to the purse and narrowing for a beat. He lifted a hand and scratched the back of his dirty blond head, grumbling something about, “Fucking hipsters,” before turning in the opposite direction, literally stalking away.
Max held onto the woman beside him and made sure she didn’t go anywhere just yet.
“That could have gone a whole other way.” Her unimpressed tone fell short of the enthusiastic relief he’d aimed for. “What was your plan if he’d pulled out a knife or something, and all you had in your hand was one of my tampons?”
The Stalker retreated some more, and Max handed over her purse, turning in the direction of his car. “Yeah, well, he didn’t. Aren’t you lucky?”
“Me?” She followed beside him, a good thing since he wouldn’t have to insist she do just that, anyway. “I’m pretty sure that nutter had plans for you, too, buddy.”
He stopped at a corner and peered back in the direction they’d come from, seeing nothing but the flash of red taillights from the busy street, cutting through the quieter one they’d turned down. “Look, is your car nearby? I’ll walk you over and wait until you drive away.”
Her cinnamon stare darted across his face, and she shook her head, her thick, platinum blond curls kissing her light olive cheeks. “I don’t drive. I mean, I know how to drive, I just don’t have a car.”
She jutted her chin forward, drawing attention to the line of her neck and a small tattoo on the crest of her left shoulder, one of a thinly drawn sun and a cat dancing beneath its rays.
He forced his gaze back to her challenging stare. That stare, daring him to protest her lack of car—even though her chest still rose and fell in the wake of her earlier panic—and he had no intention of making this moment any more difficult.
“Do you need a lift?” Cold tension spread through his muscles, the lingering set of her jaw making him fear she might say no. Then again, could he blame her? “It’s a leap of faith, I get it, especially given what you just escaped, but I’m parked a couple of blocks up. If a ride is too much, then you can even just sit a minute and catch your bearings. We can leave the door open, if that would feel safer for you. Or, I don’t know, maybe I could call you a cab?”
Her pupils grew darker. She didn’t say anything, didn’t even hint whether she liked his plan or maybe contemplated kicking him in the shin and running for dear life.
He rubbed the back of his neck with an open palm. Nothing he had to say seemed right. Yet another thing he should be used to, even though he wasn’t. “I’m sorry. I just don’t want to leave you here alone.”
She pulled her attention from him and extended her hands with palms turned down in front of her, the ends of her delicate, red-tipped fingers shaking.
He tensed, his own hands curling into fists at his side. He wanted to step forward and pull her in for an embrace. But even he wasn’t dim enough to think that a good idea.
She doesn’t know me. She can’t know that not every man is out to hurt her.
Over his last few months frequenting The Ruby, he’d watched this woman pour drink after drink with unbroken proficiency, never shaky or unsteady, but this… this was a story he’d heard his female friends recount far too many times. A story of being followed, harassed, and threatened.
He should have believed them. He did believe them.
Only believing and experiencing were two very different things, and he’d swum amongst their same fears tonight.
“I’ll call the police first.” Her crisp voice snapped his focus back to her face. “I got his license plate number, and I won’t sleep tonight knowing he might move on to another woman.”
He wanted to ask if she’d manage to sleep tonight anyway, but the question seemed too personal, so he gave a quick nod instead. “Yeah, sure. If you think you’re up to it.”
“The bar will have footage of me leaving with you. If something happens, they’ll know who you are from your past visits. Do you understand?”
Despite her hard tone and warning, and the joyful scent of sunshine and tangy mandarin floating from her skin, she wrapped her arms protectively around her waist.
He gave another nod, slower and smaller now; his understanding of what he’d stepped into earlier, and what it meant to her, sinking even deeper.
