A Twisted Love Story(36)

“Waitress.”

“Doesn’t sound familiar.” Karen hears Sara inhale and exhale, like she’s smoking. “I haven’t worked at a club in a long time,” she finally says.

“I know this is a long shot, but I wanted to talk to you anyway.” After discovering the domestic-dispute call from the Fine Line, Karen used the bankruptcy filing to compile a list of former employees who were owed money, and then she started calling them. Most didn’t answer the phone, and the ones who did hung up on her. So far, anyway.

Sara is the first to call back.

“Seven years ago, a 911 call was made from the club to report a domestic disturbance,” Karen says. “Do you know if that kind of thing happened a lot?”

“Sometimes, I guess,” Sara says. Karen could almost hear her shrug. “A woman looking for her boyfriend, or someone looking for one of the dancers. It happened.”

“So it wasn’t unusual.”

“Not really. But the 911 thing is a little weird. We had security there to take care of fights.” Another inhale and exhale. “It’s not like anyone wanted the police at the club.”

Of course not. “I don’t suppose there are any incidents you remember?” Karen asks. “Something that was more serious?”

“Ummm . . . I remember when one of the girls fell off the stage and broke her ankle. Someone called for an ambulance. Oh, and there were definitely overdoses, Oxy and heroin and that kind of thing. This was before fentanyl was around as much as it is now, but we always had Narcan behind the bar, so the police didn’t usually get called,” Sara says. “We didn’t have any shootings, though. Those were all at that other club. Leopard or Tiger something.”

“Kitty Kat,” Karen says.

“Yeah, that’s it.”

Karen asks a few more questions, but Sara doesn’t remember enough—or claims not to remember enough—to give her anything useful. She ends the call, knowing she shouldn’t feel so disappointed. The incident at the Fine Line didn’t even warrant a report from the responding officers. Finding someone who remembers such a nonevent would be difficult, Karen knew. Still, she had hoped to get lucky.

With a sigh, she goes back into the station and turns her attention to a new file. Time to get back to her other job. The one she is paid to do, starting with trying to track down that camera footage of an attempted rape. The case takes priority over riding the bus to Sacramento.

Hours later, long after her day should’ve ended, her vision is blurry from watching all the footage. All she ends up with is a man who is possibly the attacker. He isn’t even facing the camera.

Never easy. Even with all the technology available, it’s never easy.



* * *



—

By the time she gets to class, she feels exhausted. Mentally, physically, even spiritually. Her students are the ones who reenergize her.

One night a week, Karen teaches a self-defense class. A free service provided by the Fair Valley Police Department. Karen’s time is also free, because she doesn’t get paid. She volunteered.

Women make up 90 percent of the students. A few of the men who attend are there solely to meet someone, or to satisfy some fetish of being surrounded by women in spandex. Karen weeds them out quick. The men who come to actually learn self-defense can stay.

Tonight, nine people have shown up. She smiles at all of them. “To those who have been here before, welcome back,” she says. “And if it’s your first time, please don’t be intimidated. Everyone is here to learn the same thing: the best way to protect yourself.”

Karen looks each one of them in the eye, trying to get an early read on their motive. Their reason for being here. Most show up because they’re afraid of being mugged, attacked, or raped.

But every once in a while, someone wants to learn how to protect themselves from a person at home. They think the answer is to become stronger, faster, tougher. To fight back.

They’re wrong.

More than one has ended up with their photo on Karen’s corkboard and a file in that third stack. No one at the department knows anything about it. None of their business.





32




Wes rolls over to the other side of the bed.

Empty.

For the third morning in a row, Wes wakes up without Ivy next to him. It’s the worst moment of his day, and his weakest one. This is when he wants to call her. He even picks up the phone and pulls up her number, but he stops himself when he sees her name. Yesterday, he changed it:

Don’t

He puts the phone back down, forcing himself to get out of the bed and into the shower. Instead of thinking about Ivy, he thinks about Karen. About how this current mess is all Ivy’s fault. Reminding himself why he won’t, and shouldn’t, contact her.

She must know it, too. She isn’t calling him, either.

Maybe Wes shouldn’t have called his sister. Not that her advice is bad, but it isn’t always the best thing for him.

“Normal people don’t do this,” she had said. “Normal people run away. Far, far away.”

He argued with her, demanding she define a normal person. Her answer was succinct.

“Someone who doesn’t have sex with the person who called the police on them.”

Fair.