Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 75478 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75478 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
“At this hour?” she asked, glancing at the clock.
“Bakery opens at five. I’m pretty sure Dezi stands there waiting, drooling like a dog.”
With that, I made my way out of the room.
“I brought donuts,” Dezi declared as I walked into the kitchen, dragging a little laugh out of me. “They’re still warm,” he added, holding one in each hand.
There were four boxes on the counter.
“Leave any for anyone else?” Nave asked as he walked in, unzipping his hoodie. Judging by his heavy eyes, he’d been on guard duty.
“The bakery knows to expect me,” Dezi said, shrugging.
“How’s the girl?” Nave asked, going straight to the coffee maker, pouring the contents into a carafe, then starting a new pot.
“She’s good. We’re gonna go to her place to get some of her shit. Her boss called to give her off while she recovers from her ‘accident.’”
“That’s good,” Nave decided. “The next shift is on their way in now. So, you can take me if you want.”
“You need some sleep.”
“Eh,” Nave said, shrugging. “I’ll get there eventually. Perish will be game too. Be good to make sure nothing looks amiss at her place sooner rather than later.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Just gonna caffeinate her and feed her sugar,” I said, grabbing a few donuts and sticking them on a plate. “Then we will probably get going. Get it over with.”
I finished making the coffees and then brought everything back into my room, finding Bonnie coming back out of the bathroom. Behind her, a new toothbrush was in the holder with one of the little caps on it. Next to mine. And for some reason, that sight alone had a strange tight sensation moving across my chest.
“I played it safe on the donuts,” I told her. “Who doesn’t like glazed and chocolate frosted?”
“My favorites. And the occasional jelly. But only sugared, not powdered.”
“That works out then. Because Dezi prefers the powdered. And, trust me, you stand no chance getting a jelly donut from him if he wants it.”
We drank our coffee and ate our donuts while talking about where she lived, and how the whole heading there thing would look. I got the impression that she was someone who felt a lot more comfortable about a situation when she knew all the details about it.
Sometime around six-thirty, I had her dressed in one of my hoodies, and we were all piling into the SUV in the garage before heading out.
Nave and Perish were silent company from the front seat on the short drive across town.
Bonnie’s place was in one of the older apartment complexes in the area. All tan bricks straight out of the seventies with dubiously secure wrought iron balconies and windows that all looked in need of replacing.
“This is me,” Bonnie said as Nave navigated the labyrinthine complex to get to the center of all the identical buildings.
“I’m gonna linger right here,” Nave said as he parked illegally right at the end of the sidewalk. “You got what you need?” he asked Perish. And we all knew that he was asking about a gun.
“Always,” Perish agreed.
“Come on, honey,” I said, sliding out of the SUV, wanting her to come across the seat with me instead of walking around the car.
I didn’t genuinely believe the sick fuck who’d strapped a bomb to her chest was going to be lying in wait in a room with a sniper rifle. But I wasn’t going to take the chance that he wasn’t, either.
It was an eventless trip into her building, though, then up to her second-floor apartment—down a long hall with hideous, filthy gray carpet and chipped paint on the walls. Not an ounce of charm in the place.
That is, until she unlocked her door and we moved inside with Perish standing sentry in the hall.
Bonnie’s place was a testament to how much time she spent there, how much she saw the place as her safe space, her refuge from a world that often felt too big, loud, and overwhelming.
Her living room had one wall lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves painted a barely-there blush pink and filled with books, some shelves two deep.
The wall directly across from it featured a long desk and tons of shelving containing what seemed to be an endless amount of crafting supplies.
The only seating in the room was one of those super plush oversized chairs with a matching ottoman. It felt telling that there wasn’t a single space for a guest to sit. The chair itself had no fewer than four pillows and three blankets. Plus a pair of those super-soft socks sitting on the edge of the ottoman.
The kitchen was a cramped and dated space featuring orange-tinted faux wood cabinets and tiled countertops.
Still, Bonnie tried to add some cute to it. All of her small appliances were from some line that made them look kind of vintage. There was some stained glass hanging in the window over the sink. And a stack of recipe books on the end of a counter next to some questionably brown bananas.