“We’re good,” Callie said. She kept the engine running so the heater could work. Then she turned halfway around in the seat to watch.
“Monica,” I said, “I’m going to let you sit up now if you promise not to scream.”
She nodded as best she could, and I helped her get to a sitting position. She glared at Callie. Callie shrugged and mouthed, “Sorry,” then handed me some tissue to pass to her former friend. We watched Monica dab at her face until she’d got it as presentable as it was going to get under the circumstances. She tentatively touched some tissue to her ear. She winced and lowered her hand to inspect the blood. There wasn’t much on the tissue, but it was enough to cause some more tears to well up in her eyes. When she blinked, most of them got caught up in her eyelashes and only a few wound up tracing down her cheek. I’d been watching her all this time, waiting for her to catch her breath, maybe relax a bit. It seemed to be working. I think she was finding some hope to cling to. After all, why would we bother with tissue if we intended to kill her, right?
I called Victor. “She’s ready to talk,” I said. I handed the phone to Monica, and Callie and I climbed out of the van and closed the doors behind us.
“Did you see the look on her face when you handed her the phone?” Callie said.
I nodded. It was a look I couldn’t easily describe: a mixture of shock, confusion, hope, fear. This whole experience had been a first for me.
“You think she’ll try to lock us out?” Callie said.
“I doubt it. She knows she can’t get to the front seat faster than we can open the door.”
Callie nodded. We watched the poor soul holding the phone to her good ear, straining to understand the clipped, metallic voice at the other end of the line. I knew the feeling.
“How are you coming with the body double?”
“The one for you?” I asked. “I’m still working on it.”
Callie laughed. “I’ll bet you are.”
“Not easy finding a nice, sweet librarian looks like you.”
“Librarian, huh?”
“Sure, why not?”
“Your last ‘librarian’ was Fifi the French whore. Had a tattoo on her pussy that said, ‘Read My Lips!’”
I smiled at the thought. “Fifi ’s right, but I don’t remember her calling herself ‘the French whore.’”
Callie frowned. “It’s a librarian expression. But she wasn’t the first hooker librarian with a crotch tat. Do you even remember the name of that other one?”
I did. Constance would have been a perfect body double for Callie
