Sentencing Sapphire (Sapphire Dubois: Book 3)

Chapter 3

Sapphire was covered in ketchup and smelled like a liquor store when she reached the shabby door to her apartment. Had she not felt so discombobulated, she may have noticed her moth-eaten Bienvenue mat was crooked and there were scratch marks on her door, indicating someone had jimmied her lock.

Instead she kept her head down and hoped it was one of those days when the water heater decided to work. It wasn't just the ketchup and alcohol she wanted to wash off, it was the whole day. Twenty minutes ago she'd been rushing around on Le Burger's bustling floor, hands full of plates.

"Mademoiselle!" A lady had waved to get her check.

"Mademoiselle!" A man had pointed at his empty glass.

"Saphir!"

She turned and smacked into her boss with the plates. Hamburgers, fries, and ketchup splattered across Sapphire's white T-shirt and apron before the plates crashed to the floor.

Her boss, Colette, peered at Sapphire under her cowboy hat. "You are the worst waitress I've ever seen..." She shook her head, then laughed. "Lucky you're adorable."

Sapphire sighed as they bent down to clean. She'd held two jobs in her life. She'd gone undercover as a stripper to catch the Stripper Slayer before summer, and now she was a waitress. She sucked at both jobs.

Colette, unlike a lot of Europeans, was a huge fan of the States and had opened an American themed restaurant steps from the old bohemian Le Moulin Rouge Cabaret. Her dream was to one day visit the States, so the second she heard the American lilt in Sapphire's French, she hired her. Colette also offered her the crappy apartment she owned above the restaurant rent-free. All her boss wanted in exchange was for Sapphire to teach her American expressions and bring authenticity to the restaurant. It had all worked out like a dream. Here, Sapphire, or Saphir as they called her, could be herself. Here, her last name which translated to the woods in French, was like being a Smith, or a Jones back home. To find her by name in France, was to find a needle in a haystack made up of thousands of S. Duboises.

"I'm so sorry, Colette," Sapphire said. "I know it's like the twentieth plate this month."

"Fifty-sixth, but who's counting," Colette said, then switched to English. "You know what they say: Yee-Haw, bitch."

"That's really not..." Sapphire tried, but Colette had already taken her finger guns out and was shooting at the customers with a pew-pew-pew as she went to get the broom. Colette was convinced everyone in America wore cowboy hats and referred to each other as "bitch." It could have something to do with the broken '90s jukebox in the corner that only played Billy Ray Cyrus and Dr. Dre.

Sapphire grabbed a plate shard and her breath hitched. It wasn't a shard; she was holding a knife. Her hands weren't covered in ketchup, but blood.

The memory Sapphire had worked so hard to keep at bay hit her.

Richard Martin drove the knife into Charles's chest. Sapphire tried to help Charles, but he just keep bleeding and bleeding and bleeding... then he was gone. Sapphire heard the killer laugh and she wrapped her fingers around the knife's handle to yank it out of Charles's chest.

She heard a door open, but it didn't register.

She launched at Charles's killer and drove the knife into his gut. Richard Martin fell to the floor, then Vivienne and Petunia were standing in the doorway. Petunia's expression drained of shock and filled with glee. There was blood everywhere, and Sapphire was responsible for it all.

Sapphire shot up and knocked into another server's tray. He fumbled and eight glasses of beer crashed on her head. She gasped as the cold liquid dripped down her back.