Craving Read Online Free

would find them huddled in tight-knit groups with sallow, glazed faces mourning the loss of one of their fellows.
    Everyone was exactly where they had been the day before, doing what they always did, including Detective Unger.
    I watched him for a while from the front desk. I’m not sure why, I just had to. What was going on? I was positive I had heard him being accosted by the same someone who had called to taunt me, to let me know that they had gotten to my sister and to the man investigating her supposed suicide. Why else say what they’d said?
    “Everything means something.”
    But there he was, drinking a cup of coffee from a black mug, reading something in a file, and frowning expertly. He was a cop through and through, had probably been one for most of his long life. He seemed the type of guy who smoked like a chimney, drank Jack straight, remembered the face of every victim, and could voiceover a film noir without batting an eyelash. I felt trapped inside a screenplay.
    It took me a while to build up the courage to speak to him; after all, I had nearly stalked the man. I stood there like a fool, even though the lady at the desk kept trying to welcome me with her gaze, and thought about the excuses I would make. When I had picked one that wasn’t too lame, I stepped out of the cover of the silk tree and smiled at her.
    “I’m here to see Detective Unger about my sister’s case.”
    She nodded. Guessing it was a welcome, I strode boldly up to his desk, still gross, unshowered, and wearing the shapeless sack of clothing.
    “Detective?”
    He glanced up, blinked, and then offered me the chair beside his desk.
    “I’m sorry to have called you so many times. I thought for sure I had heard something happen to you and right before then I got a weird phone call.”
    He frowned again.
    “I thought it might be related to the case,” I kept blabbing, though he looked more and more confused, “and I wanted to run it by you. He knew my name and everything. When I couldn’t reach you I was worried so . . .”
    “Um.”
    That was all, but it felt like a sledgehammer. I realized then, that what I saw in his face wasn’t confusion about my freakish interest in his safety; it was confusion about my identity.
    My heart sped up.
    “I’m . . . sorry if I know you, but I can’t place you,” he said in gruff perplexity.
    I swallowed hard. “I’m Lilith Pierce. We spoke yesterday about my sister.”
    “Your sister?”
    Something was wrong. This was not how it was supposed to happen. I was here all day. I had come directly from the airport and spent hours in his company.
    “Eva Pierce. She . . . she threw herself off a building. I was here . . . talking to you about it.” I know there was that whisper in my voice, that softened tone that tells others that the speaker should be considered worthy of medication.
    He stared at me and I clearly saw a reflection of myself altered in the funhouse mirror of his warped memory.
    In that catering, condescending way, he smiled and apologized yet again. “I’m afraid I’m not on any cases like that, ma’am.”
    “How can you not be on the case? How do you explain the fact that I know your name, that I called your phone, that you called me ?”
    A spark of life flickered. “I have two phones, maybe someone . . .”
    I jumped up from my chair, though I’m not sure what I meant to do. “No! It was you! We talked here! Here! Yesterday!”
    He started up slowly, his hand out in front of him as if I might hit him or bolt for the door. Then I realized how I seemed, disheveled, distraught, clutching my purse like a delusional old woman. I forced myself to relax, to uncurl my hands and stand tall.
    “I was here all day yesterday. Ask her, she’s the one that signed me in!” I demanded and pointed to the lady at the desk.
    Everyone was looking at me, at Unger, at each other. This was a defining moment. After this I was either credible, or a nutcase, so I held onto the moment for