The 45th Parallel by Lisa Girolami

Author:Lisa Girolami [Girolami, Lisa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781626393868
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Published: 2015-03-29T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

It was just after two o’clock in the morning, and Val was sitting on her couch looking at a small plastic medicine bottle while Cam sat next to her examining the metal plate. She turned it over, examined it, and turned it over again. She took a pen from the coffee table and began poking at the screw holes.

Val’s muscles had finally calmed down. “The Vicodin is helping a lot more than the aspirin.”

Cam’s laugh was sweet. “That’s because it’s a controlled substance and it kicks ass.”

She shook the pill bottle. “It says my mom had back pain.”

“How many are left?”

“Four.”

“That should get you through the worst part. But be careful. Those things are addictive.”

“How long do you think it’ll take Mack to check his video tape?” Val put the bottle in her pocket.

“I hope longer than it takes us to figure out what those thugs were looking for.”

The Vicodin helped her pain, but anxiety still broke through, piquing her worry. And on top of all that, her gut felt sick about her old friend Donna. “Do you think she knows Mack’s videotaping women in his bathroom?”

“I doubt it.” Cam placed her hand on Val’s thigh. “But people change sometimes.”

Val considered her response, but it was hard to with Cam’s warm hand on her leg. It felt comforting. She wasn’t sure she should totally trust the feelings, but at the moment, she was spent from their recent criminal activities and fatigue was setting in. At least that’s what she told herself.

“I take it not for the better.”

“No.”

“Do you speak from experience?”

Cam bit her lower lip in a way that was so endearing.

Val nudged her with her shoulder. “Tell me about Donna.”

“The Donna I was with,” Cam said, “was sweet, nice. We had a great first two years. Then…” Cam looked up toward a painting on her wall, but Val wondered if she was actually peering into the past. “Then she started to change. She refused to be close. Refused to have sex.” Cam shrugged, but the act of indifference didn’t seem sincere. “I know those things happen after a while, but this was different. She’d cringe when I touched her.”

“Why, do you think?”

“I didn’t know at first. Then I found out she was sleeping with Mack. When I confronted her, she couldn’t have cared less. By then she’d already started changing. She started keeping strange hours and dressing like she was a biker chick or something.”

“I saw her in a leather outfit the other day.”

“That’s what I mean. By the time we broke up, she was no longer the Donna I knew.”

Val could see that she looked a little hesitant to elaborate.

“I noticed a lot of little things. She bought a new purse that was, like, S&M themed, and she began wearing a lot of makeup. But the most telling of all was that she changed all her computer passwords and never let her cell phone out of her sight. She even took it with her into the shower.”

Cam moved her hand back to the piece of metal, and Val felt a twinge of disappointment.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.