Read Online The Girl in Times Square by Paullina Simons - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Paullina Simons
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her MetroCard, and her door keys all serenely on her dresser. And she doesn’t know how to drive. So where did she go? When we searched your room, we found your MetroCard there. But we didn’t find your keys or your wallet oryour ATM card. You went to Hawaii and took them with you. That seemed normal to us.”
Their eyes locked for a moment. Detective O’Malley with clear eyes that didn’t miss a thing said, “So where’s your bed?”
“Boyfriend took it.”
“Nice.”
“Yeah, well.”
Presently he slapped the table, sitting back down. “Damn! I just figured it out. I just understood why you are so cavalier about Amy.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Of course. You are not concerned for her, because she has been disappearing with constant regularity. She would leave her life on the dresser, vanish, and then come back, as if she’d just been for a long run. You thought nothing of it then, and you’re thinking nothing of it now.”
“Incorrect detecting, detective. I am thinking something of it now. She’s never been away for three weeks.”
“She would leave her wallet and ID and keys on her dresser, when she went out, and you never asked why?”
Lily didn’t know why she didn’t ask. “I figured when Amy was ready she’d tell me.”
There was a long pause. “Still waiting, are you, Miss Quinn?”
Lily hastily excused herself and went to finish her shift. Everybody at work had noticed that a suited-up detective flashing his badge had come looking for Lily. They asked her, they teased, they prodded, she equivocated, they pursued and pursued. Rick, the manager, watched her carefully and then called her over. “Are you in trouble of some kind?”
“No, no.”
“It’s not drugs, is it? Because…”
“It’s not drugs.”
“He’s a cuuutie,” said Judi, another waitress, pixie and not yet twenty. “Is he single?”
“I don’t know, and he’s twice your age!”
“You say it like it’s a bad thing.”
5
Spencer Patrick O’Malley
Spencer came home that night and sat at his round dining table. He lived in a small apartment close to work and in a perfect location—on 11th and Broadway. From his microcosm of a kitchen and adjoining dining area windows, he saw a dozen traffic lights on Broadway, all the way down south past Astor Place. The wet, red lights burst in Technicolor in the gray rain; the grayer the rain, the brighter the reds and greens. From the entry foyer that was his library and bedroom he overlooked the courtyard of a small church. Spencer continued to live alone, certainly not for lack of trying on the parts of some of the women he had been with. What attempt has this been for you, detective, to live with another human being, his last girlfriend had asked him right before she left him. He was convinced they had not been living together; shows what he knew. Certainly he was spending a lot of time at her place, and she had been asking him to leave his things, insinuating. He was seeing a social worker now, Mary. He quite liked her—they had been together a year—but couldn’t help feeling that he was really just another one of her more complicated cases. Once she fixed him she would go. Spencer couldn’t wait for that day. He just wasn’t sure: to be fixed or for her to go?
The place belonged to his oldest brother Patrick who had beena bad boy and was kicked out by his wife, so he bought an apartment in the city, where he could be single on the weekdays and on the weekends have his kids. Soon his wife saw that living alone with the kids was not all she imagined and decided to give the wandering Patrick another chance. And so Spencer sublet Patrick’s apartment that he could barely afford on his NYC detective’s salary. But no one in New York could afford their apartments, so there was no use complaining. He complained only because he was constantly broke.
When Spencer came back to the Suffolk County Police Department after leaving his job as a senior
Their eyes locked for a moment. Detective O’Malley with clear eyes that didn’t miss a thing said, “So where’s your bed?”
“Boyfriend took it.”
“Nice.”
“Yeah, well.”
Presently he slapped the table, sitting back down. “Damn! I just figured it out. I just understood why you are so cavalier about Amy.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Of course. You are not concerned for her, because she has been disappearing with constant regularity. She would leave her life on the dresser, vanish, and then come back, as if she’d just been for a long run. You thought nothing of it then, and you’re thinking nothing of it now.”
“Incorrect detecting, detective. I am thinking something of it now. She’s never been away for three weeks.”
“She would leave her wallet and ID and keys on her dresser, when she went out, and you never asked why?”
Lily didn’t know why she didn’t ask. “I figured when Amy was ready she’d tell me.”
There was a long pause. “Still waiting, are you, Miss Quinn?”
Lily hastily excused herself and went to finish her shift. Everybody at work had noticed that a suited-up detective flashing his badge had come looking for Lily. They asked her, they teased, they prodded, she equivocated, they pursued and pursued. Rick, the manager, watched her carefully and then called her over. “Are you in trouble of some kind?”
“No, no.”
“It’s not drugs, is it? Because…”
“It’s not drugs.”
“He’s a cuuutie,” said Judi, another waitress, pixie and not yet twenty. “Is he single?”
“I don’t know, and he’s twice your age!”
“You say it like it’s a bad thing.”
5
Spencer Patrick O’Malley
Spencer came home that night and sat at his round dining table. He lived in a small apartment close to work and in a perfect location—on 11th and Broadway. From his microcosm of a kitchen and adjoining dining area windows, he saw a dozen traffic lights on Broadway, all the way down south past Astor Place. The wet, red lights burst in Technicolor in the gray rain; the grayer the rain, the brighter the reds and greens. From the entry foyer that was his library and bedroom he overlooked the courtyard of a small church. Spencer continued to live alone, certainly not for lack of trying on the parts of some of the women he had been with. What attempt has this been for you, detective, to live with another human being, his last girlfriend had asked him right before she left him. He was convinced they had not been living together; shows what he knew. Certainly he was spending a lot of time at her place, and she had been asking him to leave his things, insinuating. He was seeing a social worker now, Mary. He quite liked her—they had been together a year—but couldn’t help feeling that he was really just another one of her more complicated cases. Once she fixed him she would go. Spencer couldn’t wait for that day. He just wasn’t sure: to be fixed or for her to go?
The place belonged to his oldest brother Patrick who had beena bad boy and was kicked out by his wife, so he bought an apartment in the city, where he could be single on the weekdays and on the weekends have his kids. Soon his wife saw that living alone with the kids was not all she imagined and decided to give the wandering Patrick another chance. And so Spencer sublet Patrick’s apartment that he could barely afford on his NYC detective’s salary. But no one in New York could afford their apartments, so there was no use complaining. He complained only because he was constantly broke.
When Spencer came back to the Suffolk County Police Department after leaving his job as a senior
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