Page 45 of Long Way Down

“Yeah.” Her exhale sounded relieved.

“Okay. I know you feel awful so I don’t want to take up too much time. What happened when you were inside? Did you lock the door behind you?”

“Yeah. There’s been…break-ins lately.”

Break-ins, huh? She made a note to follow-up on that with one of the parents – preferably the father.

“It was one of them, wasn’t it?” Elaine said. “One of those damnedthugs–”

“Mom,” Lynn protested, weakly. “Please.”

“Got inside, locked the door,” Melissa said. “Then?”

“Made a snack. Just some…apples and peanut butter. I ate at the table,” she said, filling in details, catching on to what Melissa was after. “Or, no, wait…on the couch. With the TV. I wanted to watch…” She frowned. “Shit, I forgot.”

“That’s okay. Keep going,” Melissa urged. “Whatever you can remember.”

Her throat sounded dry when she swallowed, and Melissa offered the water cup and straw before the mom could do it. After, Lynn said, “I took my portfolio upstairs. The light’s good in my room. I was…” Her gaze grew distant. “I don’t…there was something. A noise. Like, a thump? Behind me. In the bathroom. I turned around to see what it was.” Her next breath was a gasp, and her half-open eyes filled with tears. Her voice started to shake. “Then there was a – a – a hand. Over my mouth. He grabbed my throat. He was so strong, and…” Her eyes slipped closed and the tears spilled over, flashing like crystal in the harsh lights.

Melissa didn’t want to hear the rest. Didn’t want to watch Elaine dissolve into sobs, too, clutching tightly at her daughter’s hand, keening low in her throat.

But she plucked tissues from the box on the nightstand and said, “Then what happened?”

~*~

Pongo was on the treadmill – mostly because it had a view of the front door – when Kat walked in. He hit the stop button and jumped up to put a foot on each side rail just in time to hear Benny at the desk shout, “Katsuya!”

Kat was dressed as he’d been yesterday, well-loved leather jacket over a hoodie and dark jeans, harness boots, black Nike baseball cap rammed down low over his brows, hair long and loose beneath it. He paused and spared Benny a blank look, muttered, “Hey,” and walked on, head ducked, hands in his pockets.

His stride was different from yesterday, though, Pongo noticed. Less swaggering, sharklikedon’t get in my way, moreplease, God, don’t notice me.

Benny knew him, which stood to reason other people here knew him.

Never one to let an opportunity go to waste, Pongo was grinning ear-to-ear and leaning on the dash of the now-silent treadmill when Kat approached. “Hey, there. You made it. Katsuya, was it?”

Dark eyes flashed dangerously up at him from beneath the hat bill. “Donotcall me that.”

“That’s your name, isn’t it? That’s what Benny called you.”

“Benny needs to learn to keep his fucking mouth shut,” Kat growled.

“Hey, now. Benny’s kind of a spaz, but he’s good people.”

“Shut up.”

“Fine, fine.” Pongo rolled his eyes and shoved his hair off his sweaty forehead, filled with a pleasant memory of Dixie doing the same for him last night while her glorious tits were in his face. “Kat, then. What’ve you got for me?”

“Not here.” He glanced back over his shoulder toward the glass front door and walked deeper into the gym.

“Ugh,” Pongo groaned, and hopped off the treadmill to follow him. He draped his towel around his neck and mopped his face with it. “First you won’t tell me on the phone, now you’re still yanking me around.”

In answer, Kat kept walking, past the weight racks and between the rings. He received a few hails, and he offered a halfhearted wave in return. Finally, they reached the locker room, sad, yellow-tiled cold box of foot-smell that it was, and he walked the length of the room, checking under bathroom stall doors and peeking into showers to make sure they were alone.

Pongo sat down on a bench and waited, chill bumps rising on his sweat-damp skin as the stale-smelling AC blasted down from the ceiling vents. “You’re paranoid as shit, aren’t ya?”

Kat leaned back against the locker faces opposite, arms folded, head tipped back against them so he quite literally looked down his nose at Pongo. “And you’re an idiot,” he shot back.

Pongo tilted his head. “That’syouropinion.”