The 9th Hour (The Detective Temeke Crime Series Book 1) by Claire Stibbe Page B

the distinct smell of burning cedar wood in the air.
    A young boy in a bright red sweater ran out into the parking lot. He pressed a ball of snow in his gloved hands and began to roll it along the ground. It was sticking. He’d have a snowman shaped in less than twenty minutes if he was lucky.
    She wished she knew the Morans better, just enough to snatch a cup of coffee and a chat. Becky was a nice kid, smiley, friendly. It was the clothes that bothered Malin. She had seen how men looked at her, protective at first and then hungry. Old men, young men, men with needs.
    Malin swallowed back a lump of shame. She’d messed up her life alright, working in back alley nudie bars and escorting the paunchy elite. How Hollister found out, she would never know. But there he was one night, leering up at her from a table in the front row. Just as she lifted her right leg against the pole, a black diamante stiletto flew from her foot and out into a cheering crowd. It gored Hollister in the groin, a bull’s-eye she could never have managed no matter how hard she aimed. It had been funny then. But it wasn’t funny now.
    Minerva – she hadn’t looked at the website for months. Opening the laptop on the coffee table, she keyed in her password and checked the email. A familiar feeling came crashing back and so did the same old men, wondering what had happened to her. And then she saw the email from Hollister. Just one sentence.
    Where are you?
    She was suddenly immobilized by a feeling of self-loathing. She’d been a stripper for crying out loud, shaking everything she’d got to a crowd of weirdos whose eyes were a ghostly shade of white, some larger than cups. It was as if they had never seen a naked woman before. What was that? Those rheumy eyes. Like dead men’s eyes.
    She deleted the message, deleted him. He was gone now at the tap of a button.
    In spite of the chill on that dark night, she felt a trickle of perspiration at the small of her back and her hands were damp, too. Moonlight slithered through the blinds tussled by a night breeze and somewhere a coyote howled. She walked toward the patio doors and stared at the street below. The boy had gone, but there was a lump of snow in front of the office about five feet high.
    It was then she saw the car, sleek and dark, purring along the road like a contented cat. It pulled in opposite the front office, headlights flaring through a haze of fresh sleet. It lingered under the amber glow of the streetlamps like a precious masterpiece in a museum, an artwork so dark it was beautiful.
    She couldn’t see the driver through the tinted window but she knew he was watching. Something.
    Corvette? Camaro? One of those.
    A plume of steam oozed from her mouth and curled in the breeze. Crouching, she peered through the balusters as the front tire slowly stuttered along the verge, gravel rattling against the exhaust. It was only a few seconds before the engine shuddered into life and the car arced back into the road, brakes squealing and taillights dwindling into the shadows.
    Had he seen her crouching there with the light of the living room behind her? Had he even seen her face?
    Malin blinked the sweat out of her eyes and retreated to the living room, locking the sliding doors. Her heart was pounding as she entertained the possibility that the car was Hollister’s, that he had come to torment her.
    It was impossible, of course. He was in New Jersey and she was in New Mexico. But he could still get her number, her address, anything he wanted. He was a detective after all.
    The thought gave her a headache and there was a buzzing in her right ear. Fear began to ebb but in its place was a surge of guilt.
    Be careful, poppet. There’s bad men out there.
    It was her mother’s voice, strained, sad. Malin had been close to her mom, iron-willed and always armed with a look of disapproval. There was something vulnerable about her at the end, something Malin had never seen before. It made her want to