For a while, my ass.
She’d seen it all too often. A cop got torn up by what they’d experienced and had no choice but to “take a break for a while.” Most of them never came back to the job.
Yet she had to admit to the wisdom of taking a vacation. The nightmares had gotten worse over the past six months. The only things that had kept her from going insane were her fantasies. Yet the same fantasies she’d had for several years had changed after that chance meeting. Now the men in her dreams had faces.
Paul and Destin Casing’s faces.
She’d tried to stop in her relentless pursuit of the killer. She’d force herself to go home instead of poring through new mug shots and other cases that might have a link to the killings. When she could no longer stand to think about the gruesome act, she’d let the fantasies take over, giving her the only escape she could find. After meeting Paul and Destin, she could bring up the fantasies without a problem.
Then the captain and others had started in on her, prodding her to take the time off. Stalling or trying to argue with them was useless and she’d started planning. After a month of research, she’d bought her ticket and flown west, landing in Dallas.
There was no simple way of explaining why she’d decided to go to Pleasure, Texas. Still, she hoped she’d come up with an excuse by the time she arrived. What was she supposed to tell Paul and Destin? That she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about them? That she wanted to finish what they’d started in the cab?
Plans, however, often didn’t work out the way they were supposed to. Once she’d made it to the small town, she still wasn’t sure what she was going to say once she saw them again.
Georgia pulled the pickup she’d rented—a difficult task to do when most rental cars, even in Texas, were sedans or compacts—in front of the only gas station in Pleasure. As far as she could see, there was only one of everything in the small town. Other than homes, of course, and there weren’t that many of those.
She scanned the street, a habit she’d picked up in her line of work, noting the people strolling along the sidewalk. Several couples held hands as they passed by her truck, giving her a good once-over. She didn’t take offense, figuring that most folks living in a small town would be curious about the arrival of a stranger. Lifting her hand in a greeting, she turned her head and took in the rest of the street.
At least they had a movie theater. Even though the movie the marquee proudly displayed was several years old. She wondered if their popcorn was hot and buttery.
Next to the theater was a grocery store called John’s Food Mart. Judging from the age of the building, John Senior had run the place back in the fifties, then turned it over to his son. The place boasted a sale on apples and bananas. She wasn’t big on fruit, but her stomach grumbled anyway.
The Yummy Crumb Café looked like it had received a fresh coat of paint recently. In fact, most of the town looked well-kept with lots of flowerpots nestled by the shop doors and small trees lining the sidewalks. Although all the buildings were older, they didn’t show their age in disrepair. Pleasure, Texas might not have a lot of commerce going on, but the town was doing well enough to pay for repairs and maintenance.
A sandwich-style display board rested against the large picture window of the café and boasted the day’s specials. Once again, her stomach rumbled, urging her to get something to eat.
But first things first. She needed to find the best spot to get information. The sooner she did that, the sooner she’d set her plan into motion.
Normally, the small town’s café would’ve been the place to go. But Myrtle’s Salon appeared to be the hot spot with several ladies inside getting their hair styled along with a couple more women standing outside and shooting the breeze.
Did women shoot the breeze? If they did, she doubted they called it that.
She reached up to finger her own hair, then glanced in the mirror. When was the last time she’d had it professionally styled? Too long if her memory served.
Sliding out of the car, she let the warmth of a Texas summer breeze flow over her. Her stomach growled again, but she was determined not to give into the hunger yet. Glancing both ways for traffic that didn’t exist, she hurried across the street.
“Hello, ladies.”
The two women outside Myrtle’s gave her smiles that extended to their eyes. One of them clutched her purse to her large bosom while the younger woman slid her gaze down to Georgia’s feet, openly appraising her.
The one thing she remembered her mother saying was to always wear good shoes. Underwear was important, but more people saw a person’s shoes than their underwear. Unless, of course, a person was struck by a bus and wound up in the hospital. But how often did that happen?