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SLOANE BERSTEIN WAS going through it.
Upon the recent revelations Peter had given her today, she had pretty much ended up nowhere with the Jawbreaker case. Yet again. Her article wasn't even close to being halfway written. There was a mountain of evidence that all led to dead ends. The Jawbreaker wasn't anywhere near to be found. Oh, and her step-brother might be involved in some kind of serial killer fan club. And still, she had nothing.
This was a crime reporter's worst nightmare: a standstill case coupled with writer's block. Sloane wanted to cry at the hand she'd been dealt.
But instead of crying, she ended up at a bar. It was seven PM, and after spending most of the day trying to create a fluff piece out of the shit she'd been given, Sloane scrapped it all and left the penthouse right after dinner. Sabrina had asked where she was going as she was out the door, and Sloane only had the energy to say, "Out with friends." How sad was it that she had to lie to her mother about going to drink alone at a bar? At her age?
A few blocks from the Rosewell was a hole-in-the-wall pub called Dulaney's. The inside was covered in dirt and trash. There were remnants of old vomit on the floor. The walls had splotches of blood and the cluster of booths near the back had tears in the leather. This place definitely had to be suffering from asbestos. But ... it was the only bar in Queens not crowded. It was the evening before Thanksgiving, and just about everyone went out tonight.
Dulaney's was pretty quiet though. She was the only woman in the five-hundred-foot space, besides the older woman sharing a plate of deep-fried onion rings with a man in the booths. At the bar, two elderly men were seated, sharing a pitcher of beer and wearing the same pair of cracked glasses perched on their noses. Sloane sat at the end of the bar, nursing her third vodka seltzer, and leaned her head into her hand. She tried to distract herself by browsing social media, but seeing everyone's successes while she felt down in the dumps wasn't helping. She was so bored and so drunk and goddammit, why couldn't things just be easy? How did she end up in a shitty bar the night before Thanksgiving, depressed and drunk off her ass, trying to cope with the fact that she had a dead-end story and she had to lie to her fucking mother where she was going at age twenty-six? This had to be some kind of SNL sketch gone wrong.
