“Party Girl,” he called out in a friendly voice. “I was wondering where you were hiding.”
“Right here in Siberia,” she told him. “Taking one for the team.”
“Could be worse.” He took a sip of coffee from a paper cup, surveying the furniture with what appeared to be sincere interest. “You could be stuck outside all night on a folding chair.”
“Least you’re getting paid.”
“Good one.” He chalked up a point for Liz on an imaginary scoreboard. “Guess I can’t complain.”
“Not to mention that you seem to be inside at the moment.”
“Just making my rounds,” he said, threading his way between the couch and the hammock. He opened one of the fire doors and peered into the vestibule, checking for suspicious activity. “Though I gotta say, it is getting a little chilly out. I shoulda brought a jacket. But it’s June, you know? I’m not really thinking jacket.”
He took a seat on the couch, directly across from Liz, as if she’d invited him to join her. He set his coffee on the table and held out his hand.
“I’m Brian.”
“Liz.”
“Mercatto, huh?” He studied her name tag with a quizzical expression. “Why do I know that name?”
She was tempted to remind him of their unfortunate encounter on Whitetail Way — You were rude and you scared my daughter — but couldn’t see the point of dredging it up at this late date. Besides, it was three in the morning, and she was grateful for the company.
“Mercatto’s my ex-husband’s name. I usually go by Casey.”
“I’m not too good with names,” he said, reaching for his cup. He paused before drinking. “If I’d known you were here, I woulda brought you some.”
“No worries.”
“They got those little one-cup things. K-Cups or whatever.” He extended the cup in her direction. “You want a sip? It’s nice and hot.”
“No, thanks. I’m fine.”
“You sure? I could take the lid off. That’s where all the germs are.”
“I’m more of a tea drinker anyway.”
“Well, don’t say I didn’t offer.”
He kept his eyes on her as he brought the cup to his lips. She got the feeling he was searching his memory, trying to locate a file marked Mercatto. She averted her gaze, found herself staring at the gun in his holster, remembering the way he’d touched it when he yelled at Dana.
“I’m glad I found you,” he said, just as the silence was getting awkward. “I was feeling bad about what I said before.”
“What did you say?”
“You know, about those kids who died. That they were young and stupid.” He shook his head, as if pained by the memory. “I don’t know why I said that.”
“It’s okay. No big deal.”
“They were my friends,” he said. “We went to school together.”
She studied his face, performing some quick mental calculations. He was probably about thirty, so the math worked out.
“Oh, God. I’m sorry.”
Yanuzzi shrugged. He took off his hat, ran a hand over his gelled buzz cut.
“The driver was a kid named Jimmy Polito. He was my best friend. We were gonna start a landscaping business.” Yanuzzi closed his eyes for a moment. “Anyway, we were all at the party together, playing quarters, getting drunk off our asses, when everybody suddenly decided to drive to the beach. The only reason I didn’t go is that I was trying to hook up with this girl. She was somebody’s cousin. Didn’t even go to our school.” Yanuzzi laughed softly. His face looked young and defenseless. “They got killed and I got laid. That’s the whole story.”
“I’m sorry,” Liz said again.
“Not your fault.”
A few seconds went by. Yanuzzi rubbed his jaw, as if checking the closeness of his shave. “I didn’t even really get laid,” he said. “We were both too wasted to make it across the finish line.”
IT MUST have been close to four in the morning when she set off for the restroom. Officer Yanuzzi kindly agreed to hold down the fort until she returned.
“No problem,” he said. “I’d stay here the rest of the night if I could. This is a really comfortable couch.”
“Just don’t fall asleep on me, okay?”
“Don’t worry about that.” He had his hands behind his head, his bulky cop shoes resting on the coffee table. “I’ve had at least ten cups of coffee since I started my shift. I’ll be wide awake until noon.”
They’d been talking for almost an hour at that point, not just about the tragedy of his graduation night, but about her divorce, and the engagement he’d broken off the previous summer, the suffocating sense he’d had that he was drifting into marriage because other people expected it, not because he’d made a choice to spend his life with Katie. He’d bailed out two months before the wedding, alienating lots of friends and even a few relatives, but he knew he’d done the right thing.
“Every morning I wake up and thank God I dodged that bullet.”
It was almost embarrassing how badly she’d misjudged him. Brian was a sweet guy, way more thoughtful and self-aware than Tony or any of the jerks she’d corresponded with on Match.com, the handful that would stoop to consider a woman on the wrong side of forty. He was kinda cute, too, if you could get past the gym-rat muscles and the look of squinty irritation that seemed to be his default expression, not that she was suffering from any romantic delusions. What was the point? She was twelve years his senior, a divorcée with a teenaged daughter, and no cougar by any stretch of the imagination. Even so, it was encouraging just to know that she was still in the game, that a guy like Brian would take the trouble to seek her out for a conversation, even if he was just trying to kill some time on the night shift.
She walked quickly past the phalanx of cardboard movie stars — they gave her the willies, all those famous people frozen in mid-gesture, grinning with manic intensity — and then turned left, onto an even more desolate hallway, in search of the faculty women’s room Sally had told her about.
Trust me, she’d said. It’s a lot cleaner than the other one.
She found it on the right, beyond two science labs and a bulletin board dedicated to the subject of “Careers in Health Care: A Growing Sector of Our Economy!” Liz stepped inside. She’d thought the restroom might be single occupancy, but it turned out to be large and well lit, four stalls facing a row of sinks and mirrors.
It took her a moment or two to realize that something was wrong — a sour smell in the air, a barely audible whimper — and by then she was already peering into the first stall, the door of which was slightly ajar.
“Oh, you poor thing.”
The girl was splayed awkwardly on the floor, her forehead resting on the lip of the bowl. Liz couldn’t see her face — too much dark hair was hanging in the way — but she recognized the orange T-shirt and these awful denim shorts.
“Sweetie,” Liz murmured, kneeling down, carefully extracting a strand of hair from inside the bowl. “I’m right here.”
LIZ WIPED the girl’s face and neck with a moist paper towel, as if she were a baby who’d just eaten a messy dinner. Her hair was harder to deal with, the sour smell lingering even after all the visible residue had been removed. A few stray clumps remained on her shirt, but she’d have to deal with those on her own.
“Your name’s Jenna, right?”
“Yeah,” she said, after a long hesitation.
“What were you drinking, Jenna?”
The girl’s eyes were cloudy, her expression somehow pathetic and defiant at the same time.
“Vodka,” she muttered in a feeble voice. “I fucking hate that shit.”
“How much?”
Jenna glanced at the toilet, which was going to spoil some poor janitor’s morning.