The Zero Night

17

Serena had forgotten how high the high was. How amazing it felt. After one drink, which took her no more than a minute or two to finish, she felt as if a lake wave had washed away all of her cares. Relaxation spread through her body, made her skin tingle, made her happy. She felt strong. Confident. She pointed a finger at the man named Jagger, and he read the desire in her face and brought her another drink, which disappeared just as quickly.

The third drink made the second seem distant and far away. The fourth brought a smile that was as wide as the bartender’s. That was the insidious thing. She’d always been a cheerful drunk. There were those who got angry, or morose, or foolish, or numb, but alcohol unlocked Serena. She saw the world more clearly, with a kind of twenty-twenty vision into the recesses of her soul. She’d never felt better or more in control than when she was drunk to the point of oblivion. It was only when the alcohol wore off that she crumbled into nothingness, and cried, and shrank, and screamed. Her head would split open; her stomach would turn over, and she’d wake up covered in her own vomit. But that prospect seemed so far off, so unlikely, so impossible, that she couldn’t worry about it. What mattered was right now, and Serena felt incredible.

“What kind of a name is Jagger?” she asked the bartender in a flirty voice, when it was one fifteen in the morning, and the bar was closed, and they were the only ones left inside. He was cleaning up, wiping down the counter with a towel, and she was watching her seventh drink float in front of her eyes.

“I’m a rolling stone,” he replied.

“Yeah, right.”

“Well, it’s true, actually. I’ve lived in the same apartment in Duluth for about five years, but that’s one of the longer times I’ve spent anywhere. Before that, I was in Boston. Before that, Amsterdam. Before that, Dubai. Before that, Auckland, Honolulu, Bali, a few other places. Before that, Wichita.”

“Wichita?”

“Born and raised and quick to leave at eighteen.”

“Why Duluth? Why not Helsinki or Barcelona or some new exotic place?”

“Why do you think?” Jagger asked, showing her his white teeth again.

“A girl.”

He tapped a finger on his sharp nose. “Ding ding ding. Her name was Dayan. I met her in Amsterdam when our bicycles collided. I moved back to Boston with her, mostly to make her college girlfriends jealous, I think. Then I followed her to Duluth when she had some pipeline to protest. But she got bored of that and bored of me and moved on. I think she’s in Alaska now.”

“Bored of you?” Serena asked.

“I know, hard to figure, right?” Jagger replied with another grin. “I’m still deciding where to go next. For now, I kinda like it here. Anyway, that’s the fun story of my name, but the real story is that I’m called Mick Galloway. Mick became Jagger during one long night with some punk band while I was in Jakarta, and the nickname stuck.”

“You look like a Jagger,” Serena said.

“So people say,” he replied. “Plus, I do a mean ‘Under My Thumb’ on karaoke nights.”

“I’ll bet you do.”

She tapped her empty glass again. Without any hesitation, he added two fresh ice cubes and refilled it from a newly opened bottle of Absolut Citron. He hadn’t charged her for any of the drinks, which made her wonder if he had other forms of payment in mind. She had no intention of sleeping with him, but every drink made him even more handsome, and it was hard not to picture him naked. And hard.

“So Curt says you told him about C-notes,” Serena said. She had the advantage and curse of being a functional drunk, able to pretend she was perfectly sober right up until the moment she passed out.

He noted the same skill and seemed impressed. “Back to business, huh? Yeah, that’s right. Curt sent out a group text, me and like fifty other people. Said he was looking for somebody passing hundred-dollar bills.”

“How do you know Curt?”

Jagger rolled his eyes. “Oh, he’s a flake, but he’s clued in, so I help him when I can. Welcome to the new economy, right? I have part-time hours at four, five places, plus the usual bartending gigs when I can get them.”

“And the C-notes?” Serena asked.

Jagger eyed her curiously. “You want to tell me what this is about?”

“Sorry. Police business.”

“Not even a hint?” he asked. “You have a lot of self-control for someone who’s downed almost a whole bottle of vodka by herself.”

“It’s a gift. The C-notes?”

“Well, one of my part-time gigs is waiting tables at The Kitchen in Superior. I was in there first thing this morning, and one of the regulars was there. He ordered his coffee and chicken-fried steak like he normally does, and when I gave him the check, he passed me a hundred-dollar bill. Well, I hate breaking shit like that, so I asked him if he had anything smaller. He had this big grin and opened his wallet to show me, and I swear, he must have had ten C-notes in there, all crisp, perfect bills.”

“Who is this guy?”

“No idea. All I know is his name. Hink Miller.”

“Hink?”

“Swear to God. He moved into his mother’s place south of Superior a few weeks ago. I guess he takes care of her. Since then, he’s been in for breakfast most weekend days when I’m there. For all I know, he comes in the rest of the week, too.”

“Is it usual for Hink to have a lot of cash?”

Jagger shrugged. “Well, he’s not a big tipper, and most of the time, he pays with crumpled fives and tens. Hundred-dollar bills? No way.”

“Did you ask him about it?”

“Sure. I said, ‘That’s some cool dough, Hink, where’d you get it?’”

“What did he say?”

“He said he did a job for a friend.”

“What kind of job?”

“No idea,” Jagger replied. “And no, I don’t know who the friend would be. Like I said, it’s not like I know Hink. He’s just a big bruiser of a guy who likes chicken-fried steak, gravy on the side, hash browns with extra onions, and three eggs over hard.”

“Hink Miller,” Serena said.

“That’s him.”

“Do you know his address?”

“No, but I think the house actually belongs to his mother. Seems to me Hink said her name is Florence, but I’m not sure.”

“Did Hink ever mention a man named Gavin Webster?”

Jagger’s brown eyes narrowed. “I don’t think so, but the name’s familiar. Why do I know that name?”

“It doesn’t matter. Does Hink ever come in with anybody else?”

“Not while I’ve been there.”

“Okay. You’ve been a big help. I appreciate it.”

“My pleasure,” Jagger replied. “Do you need anything else?”

“No. Thanks. I need to go.”

Serena began to slide off the barstool, but Jagger took her wrist with a gentle touch. His fingers were warm and firm. He lowered his voice and stared right at her. “Hang on, how are you planning to get home? Cop or not, I can’t let you drive. You’ve had way too much.”

“I’m fine,” Serena protested, although he was right and she was in no condition to get behind the wheel.

“Hey, come on. You’re too smart to do something stupid like that. If you get into an accident, your cop buddies will arrest me for letting you get on the road. You either need to call someone, or you need to sleep it off somewhere.”

“I suppose you have a suggestion about where I should do that?” Serena remarked, meeting his eyes.

He laughed, a charming laugh. He swept a hand through his dark hair, and she noticed the muscles of his arms again. “Well, my apartment’s just a couple of blocks away, but I don’t think my girlfriend would appreciate you showing up. You don’t have to go home, but you’re not driving. You want me to call your husband? Or an Uber?”

“What if I promise I won’t drive?” Serena asked.

“Alas, I don’t listen to promises like that. Easily made, easily broken.”

Serena stood up, not wobbling. She grinned at Jagger and spread both of her arms wide, then swung a finger toward her face with the intention of tapping the tip of her nose. Instead, she nearly poked out her right eye with a long, perfectly painted fingernail.

“Shit,” she said.

Jagger was kind enough not to laugh. “What’s your husband’s name and number?”

She surrendered and gave it to him, and he wrote it down and grabbed his phone. Watching him, she flushed and felt hot with a wave of shame. She didn’t want to face Jonny, didn’t want him to see her like this, didn’t want him to realize she’d fallen hard. She didn’t even want him to meet Jagger and realize she’d been in a bar alone with a man who looked as good as this one.

“I’m going to wait outside,” she said. “I need some fresh air.”

Jagger made a beckoning motion with his fingers. “First, your car keys.”

“You really don’t trust me, do you?”

“You I trust. But not the Absolut.”

Serena fumbled in her pocket and found her key ring. It took her several tries to separate the Mustang fob from the other keys she had, but eventually she slapped the fob on the bar. “I wasn’t going to drive, you know.”

“I know.”

She stalked away from Jagger toward the front door of the bar. Fumbling with the doorknob, she let herself out onto the sidewalk. There was no traffic on Grand Avenue. The cool night air hit her face but did nothing to revive her. Her buzz gathered speed like a skier at Spirit Mountain, and she could feel her body and brain breaking into pieces. Her Mustang was parked across the street, and she thought about waiting for Stride inside the car, but then she realized it was locked and she didn’t have her key anymore.

With her head hung low, she wandered down the sidewalk toward the corner. A potholed asphalt road dipped sharply as it led toward the thick line of trees. She bent over and steadied herself with her hands on her knees and her hair spilling forward. The pavement at her feet was overgrown with weeds pushing up through the cracks. A foul odor wafted from a nearby sewer grate, and she was afraid it would make her sick. She straightened up too quickly, feeling a wave of dizziness, and she turned her face to the sky, where the stars seemed to streak like comets.

She closed her eyes.

Opened them.

And that was when she saw the woman in the street.

The woman wasn’t far away, maybe twenty yards. She looked to be about Serena’s age, and she had messy, highlighted brown hair tucked behind her ear on one side and falling over her face on the other. She was short, with a bony figure emphasized by her skinny red jeans. Her dark eyes were wide and scared. Her skin was a ghostly shade of white, which made the river of blood that was going down her forehead stark and shocking.

The blood spread into a crimson pool at her feet.

Serena did a double take. It was as if the woman had come from nowhere. She saw the blood and shouted, “Hey, are you okay? What happened?”

The woman ran away toward the trees.

“Stop! Wait!”

Serena took a couple of steps, then swayed, lost her balance, and nearly fell. She squeezed her head with both hands as if she could squeeze the vodka out of her skull like juice from an overripe lemon. Ahead of her, the woman’s hair flew, and her arms pumped as she disappeared down the short street. Serena shouted again — “Stop! I want to help!” — but the woman kept running without looking back. When she reached the trees, she plunged inside and disappeared.

Fighting her nausea, Serena followed in the darkness. She managed a stumbling half-run down the middle of the street. At the trees, she hesitated, seeing no sign of where the woman had entered the brush. She made her way forward through the weeds. The tree branches were still wet from the rain, and they soaked her clothes and covered her in damp leaves and scratched her face with sharp edges. She followed a rough trail. There was litter all over the ground: cans, bottles, cups, old tires, chunks of asphalt. On the other side of the trees, she came to a chain-link fence that surrounded the sprawling lot of the city’s street maintenance facility. There was no sign of the woman.

“Hello! Are you there? Where did you go?”

Getting no answer, Serena climbed the fence. The metal was slippery, and she struggled to keep a grip. At the top, she fell hard on the other side and landed in mud. She got up and wiped herself off and studied the deserted lot. Puddles made lakes across the gravel. Piles of crushed rock, black dirt, and road salt rose like mountains, some with weeds growing out of them. There were plows and yellow maintenance trucks parked everywhere and a giant tent like an aircraft hangar. If the woman was here, she had many places to hide.

Serena listened but heard nothing. She called, “I’m with the police. It’s okay. Where are you?”

Silence.

She walked out into the middle of the dark lot, but she was completely alone. There was no sign of the woman anywhere. Then it all caught up with her. Grief. Guilt. Alcohol. Loneliness. Unconsciousness came rippling toward her. She took two more steps, kicking up a cloud of silver dust, and made it as far as the slope of one of the heaps of crushed rock. Slowly, like a proud tree falling, her body slumped sideways to the ground.

Stride stared down at Serena. He felt his heart break. Her eyes were closed, her wet, dirty hair across her face, her clothes torn and muddy. While unconscious, she’d obviously vomited, and it was a good thing she wasn’t on her back because she could easily have choked to death. He squatted next to her and stroked her face with the back of his hand. She didn’t respond.

“Serena,” he said softly.

When she was quiet, he shook her shoulder gently. “Serena.”

Slowly, unhappily, she stirred. Her eyes fluttered. He watched her try to focus, and for a while, she didn’t seem to recognize him in the darkness. He helped her sit up, and she wrapped her arms around her knees and buried her face between them and said nothing for a while. He sat down next to her.

When awareness finally dawned on her, she looked up and took note of where they were, but she refused to meet his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

Stride didn’t need an apology. “How are you?”

“Okay except for the axe someone buried in my head.”

He gave a short, humorless laugh. “You scared the hell out of me.”

“I know.”

“What are you doing here?”

Serena seemed to remember something, and she tried to leap to her feet, but she fell back down against the rocks. He caught her and steadied her. “Take it easy. There’s no rush. You’re not ready to move yet.”

“There was a woman,” Serena said.

“A woman?”

“I saw her in the street. She was injured. Bloody. I followed her this way, but then I lost her.”

“Do you know who she was?” Stride asked.

“No, I have no idea—” Serena began, but then she stopped. Confusion crossed her face, and her brow furrowed. She shut her eyes, wincing at what seemed to be a stab of pain. “Actually, that’s not true. Now that I think about it, I recognized her face. I’d seen her before.”

“Do you know where?”

She shook her head. “No, I don’t remember. I can’t place her. But I definitely knew her face.”

“Was she hurt badly?”

“It looked that way. Blood was everywhere. I mean, it was pooling in the street at her feet. I think she’d been shot in the head.”

Stride frowned as he stared at her. “Shot in the head? But she was walking around?”

“I know it makes no sense.”

He let the silence stretch out. Then he said, “I didn’t see any evidence of someone else around here. Definitely not anyone who was injured. I didn’t see any blood on the street.”

“I didn’t imagine her, Jonny,” Serena said.

Stride didn’t challenge her, even though he was certain that she had imagined it. But for the moment, it didn’t matter.

“How did you find me?” she asked.

“I dialed your number. I heard the phone ringing beyond the trees.”

“You got my car keys from Jagger?”

He nodded. “I’ll have someone pick up the Mustang.”

“I suppose he told you — I drank. I drank a lot.”

“I think I would have figured that out,” Stride said.

She finally turned her head to look at him. She met his eyes, blinked, and looked away, but he took her chin and moved it back. Her face, her hair, was a mess. He leaned in and kissed her, tasting alcohol, sweat, mud, and vomit. She looked far away, lost, on a road that led nowhere. He had never seen Serena like this, and it worried him, because he didn’t know how to deal with it. He was used to her being fierce and fearless, not broken, not exposed. Even knowing that Samantha had always been her weak point, he hadn’t expected her mother’s death to knock her off her feet like this. All those years after Phoenix, after all the abuse, and Samantha could still manipulate her daughter from the grave.

He wanted to ask Serena how to help, but he didn’t think she knew, and he didn’t think she would ask him for help even if she did.

Her face was inches away. Her green eyes looked solemn and self-aware.

“I’m falling apart, Jonny.”

He pulled her head into his chest and put his arms around her. For now, that was all he could do. “I know.”