To her relief, the cute detective’s final question had been, “Do you need a ride home?”
Shaken from the interrogation, Jessica waited outside the police station for Lolita to pick her up. The reflection of the setting sun off the steel tower across the street pierced her right temple and made her head hurt. The sky smoldered from a dusty violet and ignited into singed ocher, transforming the skyline into a two-dimensional black façade pasted onto blood-stained parchment paper.
On another day, she would have walked down to the lake and back. Now, she stood in the same spot for what seemed like hours wondering if her mother was right when she said, “The city is full of big stack bullies either buying the blinds or giving air, who turn every decent hand into a bad bet.”
Maybe her mother w
