I race to the lobby, remembering the bathroom signage I’d noticed before. I lock the door then sprint down the stalls, flushing every toilet until the noise is loud enough to cover my screams. I scream into the echoing room for as long as the toilets cover the noise. I scream through the knot of emotion lodged in my throat, and I scream to keep the numbness at bay. Maybe this time, if I’m loud enough, big enough, I can keep it away.
The room grows quiet as I catch my breath and listen to the leaky sink faucetdrip, drip, drip.
Well, fuck. Looks like I’m going to be hunting down a serial killer all by myself.
1.The End—Kings of Leon | SummerOtoole.com/Playlists
Chapter three
Don't Cry Over Spilled Coffee
Idon’tknowifit was the Venti iced coffee with extra shots or the fact that time finally feels like it’s moving again, but by the time I collapse on my couch, I’ve cleaned and tidied every inch of the apartment—except her room. It took six hours, multiple trips to the trash chute, and the rest of our dish soap, but it’s done.1
I crack open a can of beer and stare at the pill bottle in my hand. I’m feeling a lightness I haven’t felt since before the incident and wonder if maybe I don’t need the pills to sleep tonight. It’s faint, but there’s a sparkle of hope in the air.
Screw the police. Screw Detective Saxon. Screw fake alibis and sleazy lawyers. And screw Cash Fox. Because I’m going to burn his world down and dance in the ashes.
I don’t even make it through half my beer before I fall asleep on the couch. It’s not until I wake up to the sound of birds and the morning commute outside that I realize I slept dreamlessly through the night for the first time in two weeks.
I’m looking at a goofy-grinned cartoon dog that honestly looks stoned, a red bandana slung low around his neck.
Well, this is off to a promising start.
When I searched online for Cash Fox, a bunch of loan websites and Fox News business pages showed up. So, I checked the image results and apparently there is a singing band of dogs in the movieThe Fox and the Houndled by the stoner dog, Cash.
Once I begin adding other keywords like restaurant, business, and Peaches club, more is popping up. I eat up every article I can find, but only grow more and more frustrated when each article paints him as a young, successful businessman who is bringing integrity—gag—back to the entertainment industry. I wince because from what I know of Peaches, they are at least partially right.
When Beth started dancing, she worked at four clubs in four months before finding Peaches. Each previous club was worse than the next, management was code for drug dealers, girls weren’t paid their cut half the time, and security only stepped in when someone was at risk of dying. Unless the client was a high roller, then there was basically no limit to what he could do to the girls. Beth said some of the girls looked underage and got a bad feeling about a lot of their older “boyfriends.”
But at Peaches, she said she always felt safe. There were panic buttons in every private room and girls could even request jewelry with buttons built in if they wanted. Drugs were an occasional occurrence, but security would only let longtime, trouble-free clients get away with it. Any new guy who brought drugs in was kicked out and blacklisted.
If dancers wanted to take things further with their clients, they were given extra security. One time, they even paid for a lawyer to get a girl out of a prostitution charge when a john was ratted out by his vindictive wife.
All of these memories only made me angrier. This bastard is out here masquerading as some warrior for women’s rights during the day and killing them during the night. I wonder if Beth had ever met him, what happened, and was that why he chose her? Did she find him the charismatic entrepreneur, or did she see the darkness swimming below the surface?
She’d always had great intuition about people. It was one of the things that made her such a great dancer. She knew how to read what people wanted, even if it was different from what theysaidthey wanted. I recall this one man she told me about.
He’d come in, already a few drinks in, and was really persistent about getting a private dance. Once in the room, his machismo died down, and Beth said it seemed like he didn’t really want to be there. Turns out, his wife had told him she wasn’t attracted to him anymore. They’d been high school sweethearts, and now thirty years later, a lot had changed. He was no longer the star baseball player, and she was no longer the head cheerleader. Now, they were tired parents of three girls who barely had time to sleep, let alone spend with each other.
Instead of a lap dance, Beth taught him how to touch his wife, what to whisper in her ear when he did, and gave him a few tips his wife was sure to love—hint, it was the clit. The next weekend he came inwithhis wife, and Beth said they looked like starry-eyed teenagers in love.
But that wasBethbeing amazing, not Cash Fox, and I was growing real tired of reading article after article singing his praises. Frustrated and spiteful, I hammered on my keyboard: Cash Fox Murderer.
The page loads painfully slow, and I’m about to slam my laptop closed when a headline makes me gasp:
Fox, 54, sentenced to life without parole for governor assassination.
Like father, like son?My pulse jumps wildly as I open the ten-year-old article and start reading…
Aiden Fox, 54, stood stoic and disinterested as the judge read his sentence: Life in prison without the chance of parole. His four sons—Cash, 23; Finneas, 21; Roan, 16; and Lochlan, 9—stood equally stony-faced during the proceedings. The oldest, Cash, was the only one that showed emotion once the sentence had been served, throwing obscene words and threats at the judge, and was forcefully removed from the courtroom.
Fox was charged with assassinating Governor Albright in the governor’s office last year. After a two-week trial, a jury found him guilty. The circumstances and motivation of the assassination remain somewhat unknown. Fox, a large donor and longtime supporter of Albright, was in a private meeting with the Governor when shots were heard.
Fox claimed self-defense. Albright’s office would not reveal the details of the meeting. Public opinion was split on the matter, as there have been longtime corruption rumors surrounding Albright. Fox himself owns several well-known establishments in the city, including the highly reviewed Irish pub, The Fox’s Den.Many people I spoke with who interacted with Fox on a regular basis said he was a good neighbor, generous, and always willing to lend a helping hand.
Fox’s lawyers say his eldest son will take over ownership in his place.
However, my sources with the police say the Fox family has long been suspected of organized crime. Fox was charged with racketeering in 2005, but was never convicted.