Page 46 of Sunset Beach
“And what does Allen Hicks do for a living?”
“He’s in commercial insurance,” Colleen said.
“What about you? Do you work?”
“Nothing too exciting. I’m a dental hygienist.”
He nodded. “You want another drink?”
She glanced at the neon Schlitz clock on the wall. “It’s pretty late. Won’t your wife wonder where you are?”
“I’ll tell her I had a domestic call, right before I was about to get off shift, and I had to deal with it. All of which is true.”
“Why not?” she said, looking around. “For old times’ sake.”
19
“Ms. Howington?”
“Yes,” the older woman said impatiently. “Whatever you’re selling, I can’t afford.”
It was Thursday afternoon. The office was empty. Everyone else was on lunch break, but she kept her voice low anyway to avoid being overheard. “This is Drue Campbell. From Campbell, Coxe and Kramner?”
Yvonne Howington gave an exasperated sigh. “Honey, I don’t wanna be rude, but I got nothing to say to you people.”
“I’m so sorry about everything that’s happened to you, Ms. Howington, and that’s why I’m calling. I was wondering if I could come talk to you.”
“What for?”
The question took Drue by surprise. She’d just assumed that Jazmin Mayes’s mother would welcome her assistance.
“I want to help,” Drue said. “I think the way your case was settled is wrong. And I thought maybe, well, if I could help you prove that Jazmin wasn’t working that night, my father could renegotiate with the insurance company.”
“I ain’t got time for this,” the woman said. “And what good will it do anyway?”
“It might not do any good at all,” Drue heard herself say. “But I’d like to try, if you’d just let me come out and talk to you.”
“I don’t know,” Yvonne said. “Every time I get myself all worked up over this thing, I just get slapped in the face. I’m home from work right now, because Aliyah’s been sick.”
“I could come after I get off work,” Drue said eagerly. “Would six o’clock be all right?”
“Be fine,” Yvonne said.
The Lyft driver gave Drue a dubious look over her shoulder. “Hon? You sure this is where you wanted me to take you?”
They were in a neighborhood full of boarded-up abandoned homes and shabby duplexes. Yvonne Howington’s home was a single-story yellow stucco bunker bedecked with stout burglar bars. The yard was weed-choked with a single huge jacaranda tree, whose arching branches with purple blossoms nearly brushed the ground.
Drue looked at the address she’d typed into the Lyft app. “Yes, this is it.”
“Okay,” the driver said. “But I’m not sure this is a real safe neighborhood.”
She nodded toward a group of teenagers loitering on the corner, passing around a joint.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Drue said, climbing out of the backseat.
A set of frazzled exposed wires were the only sign of a doorbell. Drue was about to knock when she heard a deadbolt being slid open. The door opened three inches and Yvonne Howington peered out from behind a chain lock.
“Shh,” she said, opening the door and nodding toward a sofa where Aliyah was curled up under a pink blanket, dozing. “She had a bad night. Come on in the kitchen.”
