The Quarry Girls by Lourey Jess

Author:Lourey, Jess
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Published: 2022-11-01T00:00:00+00:00

BETH

The men’s voices overhead grew louder, like they were coming closer.

Beth hadn’t thought much of him when he visited the diner. He was just a man she recognized from the background of her life. Sure, he’d sometimes wait for a table in her section rather than take an open one. Her skin had prickled, the way he always kept one eye on her even when he was talking to other people, when he thought she wouldn’t notice.

She noticed.

The problem was that he was one of a handful of men treating her that way.

Every waitress had a group of guys who mistook professional courtesy for a personal relationship. She’d never liked it, but she’d thought she understood it. As far as she could tell, men didn’t have close friendships, not like women did, but they still had that human need for connection. Every movie and TV show and magazine article told them it was their job to go out and grab what they wanted at the same time it told them that women were theirs for the taking. It made sense that a few of the duller knives in the drawer would get their wires crossed, confuse lurking for courtship, and who could blame them?

That’s what she used to think.

Now she knew better.

They weren’t misguided, these men who couldn’t take a hint, who kept at a woman who was clearly uninterested. They were broken. Few of them would go so far as kidnapping, sure, but every one of them was after someone they could make feel less than, someone they imagined was beneath them, and they believed every woman was beneath them.

He’d forced her into his game before she knew the rules, but her blinders were off now.

She was close to freeing the spike, maybe another couple hours of digging, but if he came into the room before she got it out, she wasn’t going to lie down for him again. Didn’t matter if she didn’t have the railroad spike loose. She’d eat his face. Twist his balls. Draw far enough back that she could drive her fist into his throat, just like he’d done to her, and laugh like a banshee the entire time.

She realized she was gulping air.

He’d dropped by the Northside Diner the day before he’d abducted her. It was the beginning of dinner rush, so he’d had to wait fifteen minutes for her section. She had spotted him as she bustled around, staring at her but trying to look like he wasn’t. It was so obvious. Didn’t he know how obvious he was? Then he was seated. He didn’t bother opening his menu because he always ordered the Pantown special—Salisbury steak with mashed potatoes and gravy, side of creamed corn—but this time, for the first time, he’d asked her about her day.

“It’s good,” she’d said, pushing her hair from her face, leaning back to glance into the kitchen. Table seven’s fish fry was up. “The usual?”

“Aren’t you going to ask me about my day?” he’d asked. His voice was sharp.

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