A Night With A Stranger novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Card on the Bottle

In the alley Evan shows her the card that came with the wine, with this club's address and table nine, and a lab result showing a sleeping drug in his own blood; he wants to know if he hurt her, or whose name to take.

Evan Brodsky crossed the Cellar without looking at anyone but me.

The bouncer came down the stairs behind him two steps late.

"Sir. Members only. Sir."

Evan didn't turn around.

He stopped in front of me, and his eyes dropped to the empty glass in my hand and the whiskey soaking Dennis's trousers.

"Did I interrupt something?" he asked.

"Yes," I said. "Leave."

"Five minutes."

"I told you I'm not for sale."

"I'm not here to buy anything."

The bouncer caught his shoulder and spun him around.

"I said out," the bouncer growled, and his fist went back.

I stepped between them without thinking.

Evan's hand closed around my wrist and pulled me behind him in one smooth motion.

His grip was warm and hard, and it stayed on my wrist a second after the danger was over.

"Stop," I told the bouncer. "He's with me."

The bouncer lowered his fist.

Behind me, I heard Dennis's chair scrape.

I turned, and he was standing with a napkin pressed to his lap and a very interested look on his face as he studied Evan's suit.

"Mr. Brodsky," he said pleasantly. "An honor."

Evan's hand tightened on my wrist for a moment and let go.

"Do I know you?"

"Not yet," Dennis said, and he smiled at me. "Saturday, sweetheart. Think it over."

He walked up the stairs with his wet trousers and his gold watch, and nobody stopped him.

I wanted to run after him and I wanted to throw up.

"Who is that?" Evan asked, very low.

"A customer."

"He knows my name."

"Everyone knows your name. It's on a hotel."

I grabbed my jacket from behind the bar, told Bree I needed ten minutes, and walked Evan up the stairs and out into the alley.

It was cold, and the dumpsters smelled of old fryer oil.

I crossed my arms.

"How did you find me?"

"A bottle of wine was sent up to my suite Saturday night," he said. "A card came with it. It had this address printed on it and a table number."

"Which number?"

"Nine."

My stomach turned.

"That's Dennis Kroll's table."

"Then he's the man who sent it."

"I don't know that."

"I do." He pulled out his phone. "I had my own blood drawn this afternoon. I wanted to know why I couldn't remember a night I hadn't been drinking through."

He held out the screen.

The lab result said zolpidem, and a number I couldn't read.

"It's a sleeping drug," he said. "Strong, and it was in me hours after I woke up."

I stared at it.

I still had a bruise on my hip I couldn't explain, and my urgent care blood sat in some lab waiting to be read.

I thought about telling him.

Then I thought about the check, and the number on it, and I kept my mouth shut.

"So someone drugged you," I said slowly.

"It looks that way."

"Why would he drug you?"

"I don't know. But I won't have you walking around thinking I did something to you that I can't account for."

"You said you don't know what you did."

"That is exactly the problem."

His voice cracked on the last word, a very small crack, and he looked away at the wall.

The sound of the bass thudded through the steel door behind us.

"I woke in that chair," he said. "You were in my bed with a torn strap and bruises on your knees, and I couldn't tell you how either of those happened. You had no reason to believe me. I had no reason to believe myself."

For the first time the check looked like something other than an insult, and I hated that.

"You still wrote a number," I said.

"I'm a man who has only ever known how to fix things with a check." He looked back at me. "It was the wrong tool. I know that now."

I didn't answer.

A light came on over the back door of the club, and Bree's shadow crossed the window.

"If I hurt you, I want to know it," Evan said. "If someone else did, I want his name."

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