The Mockingbird Murders - A John Riley Novel

Chapter 5 - Just His Type

Melissa reached out to the counter to grab her phone, but paused, her hand in the air.

"My cellphone is missing."

Davey glanced at the bar and then back at her. "You sure you put it on the bar?"

"One hundred percent. I need my phone right now, I can't—" Melissa took a breath, trying to quell the rising panic. "I had it in my hand and I put it right there when I sat down." She glared at Davey suspiciously. "Didn't you see it when you poured my drinks?"

"I might have... but so many phones look alike. And now you have me confused if it was your phone I saw or somebody else's some other time."

"What?"

"Do you have any idea how many phones people place on this bar?"

"Maybe it fell behind the bar? Can you look?"

"There ain't nothing behind here, 'cept what's supposed to be."

"Well could ya look again?"

"I ain't got your phone neither," Oscar offered. He flicked his bottle over the counter toward Davey. "Gonna need another one when you're done finding her phone."

Davey threw the bar towel over his shoulder and stepped back. He raised his hands, his eyes searching behind the bar. "I don't see it. I'm looking and it ain't here."

Melissa hoisted herself up onto the counter and peered intently over the back of the bar. She sat back after a moment, flustered and defeated, her eyes feverishly scanning the ground.

"What the fuck? I can't lose my phone. Not now—"

A hand placed a cellphone onto the bar, the lock screen showing an image of Melissa and Angie. Melissa gasped and snatched it up, turning around—

The gaunt man gave a sheepish grin that never reached his eyes. He held his hands up in mock innocence, his eyes probing Melissa, examining her, stripping her bare.

"I'm so sorry," he said, "but I must have picked this up by accident. My bad."

Melissa tried to look away to her phone, but the man's eyes held hers, unrelenting, cold and unfeeling.

"Thanks," she managed, "I thought I was about to lose my mind."

"You have a good night now," the gaunt man said and this time the smile reached his eyes. "See you around."

Melissa clutched her phone in her hands, still not looking at it. She could do nothing but watch the gaunt man make his way out of the bar. It was only once the door had closed behind him that she realized her hands were shaking and that she was in fact deeply terrified in a way she had never been before. It was almost a primal fear, the type bored out her insides and slowed her heart, made time slow down so she could appreciate how completely and totally close to death she was.

"Toldja I didn't have your phone," Davey said from a million miles away.

"Shut it Davey," Oscar said. "This ain't the time."

Melissa could only stare at the closed door. She tried to look away, tried to do anything else, but the fear had grabbed her in the gut now and she knew, knew to her core that if she looked away, Lawrence was going to return—

A hand touched her shoulder and Melissa screamed. She whirled, expecting that somehow Lawrence had gotten behind her and she was ready to fight and tear with everything she had—

"Whoa there!" Oscar cried out and took a step back. "I ain't gonna hurtcha, just making sure you're okay."

Melissa looked from the shocked Oscar to the startled Davey and realized that everyone in the bar was now looking at her. She steadied herself against the counter.