“Yeah,” I answered, more sternly than I probably should have. “I told you I didn’t need your help. I could have dealt with that guy fine on my own.”
“Of course you could have.” He shrugged, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his tight-fitted jeans. “You were always like that, though. I remember that time you and Lu tied me to that tree by the lake. God, you guys used to scare the hell out of me.”
“Wait?” I said, narrowing my eyes at him. “What are you talking about?”
A blush flared in his cheeks. “You don’t remember me, do you?” He chuckled, shaking his head. “God, Char, you’re killing me here.”
Okay, so he knew my name. And he knew Lulu’s name. But who did we tie up to a tree other than…
“No, you’re not!” I said, looking him up and down. “Dalton?”
He spread his arms wide. “The one and only!”
Lulu’s kid brother was a snot-nosed, piss-ant of a kid when I left town. He had big ears, scrawny arms, and a disposition that would wilt flowers if they were in direct communication with him for too long.
This guy was…hot. He was hot and charming. They couldn’t be the same person.
“But you’re a child,” I said, piecing things together.
“I’m twenty-four, Char,” he said, arching his eyebrows at me. “Tabloids have shown you with younger. Not that I’ve been keeping up with you…”
The heat in my face spread to my ears, and I looked away. “Yeah, you definitely grew up,” I muttered. “And filled out.”
“I’m not the only one.” When I looked back, he winked at me.
“And you’re a cop?”
“A detective, actually,” he said. “Hence the street clothes. I live in Milledgeville now. I’m on a case at the moment, so I really need to get going.” He moved closer to me with a hint of something devilish in his gaze. “I’m supposed to get a statement from you about that drunken jackass, but seeing how I’m kinda busy right now, maybe we could get coffee tomorrow.”
Was he…asking me out? Was Lulu’s little brother asking me to go on a date with him? I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about that. On one hand, he was definitely cute enough to warrant a second (and probably third, fourth, and fifth) glance. But he was Lulu’s brother. Wouldn’t that make things weird?
Ugh! I shook my head. What did it matter? I wasn’t here for that. I wasn’t even here to stay.
“We can meet for coffee, but only while you take my statement,” I answered firmly.
He smiled. “What else did you have in mind?”
“Look, I—”
“Oh, stop.” He waved me off. “Does it look like I’m hiding a diamond ring in my pocket?” He kicked a pebble in front of him. “Just coffee is more than okay with me. I’ll text you the address.” He shot me another smile and started to walk away. “You know,” he said, turning around and walking backwards, “they were right about you. You went off to the big city and got all full of yourself.”
My face grew even hotter now, and my hands balled at my sides. “I did not!”
“Yeah, you did,” he said, looking me up and down. “But I never said you didn’t have reason to be.”
I had barely managed to beat Dalton out of the forefront of my mind when I made my way into what passed for the heart of town. Good, I thought. That meant I had successfully dodged the cemetery. Coming face to face with that place right now, with my mother’s headstone in the western corner, would only serve to send my mind down a path it didn’t need to go right now. I was here to reset, and you can’t reset if you keep rewinding.
The extra-crowded marketplace came into view. People smothered the streets and, the drunken would-be rapist aside, my dress and shoe combination had its expected effect. I could barely contain my glee at seeing the distasteful looks that graced the faces of the old farts as they caught sight of me.
A woman whispered, “She’s either charging for it or giving it away,” to her friend, and as I was about to spin around and give her a challenging glare, something more alarming caught my attention. A missing person poster. I wouldn’t have stopped normally, but aside from missing posters being something of an oddity in a town like New Haven, the girl’s picture was oddly familiar. She looked like…
Well, she looked just like me.
As I read over the poster, checking out the girl's brown curls, her full cheeks and bust, and the curve of her hips that could have been a reflection of my own, I shuddered. Sure, her nose was a little bigger, and her eyes were a darker shade of blue. But, for the second time in two days, I was face to face with a picture of a woman who looked a great deal like me. And, for the second time, it was clear something horrible had happened to her.
Annabeth Girts was last seen heading to her car on the night of April 16th. At the time of her disappearance, she was wearing an orange sweater and jeans. Any persons with information on her whereabouts are to contact—
I would have kept reading, except right then, my heel broke.
As I went winding down a nearby stairwell, I thought about a lot of things— none more than the fact that the piece of garbage Italian shoes were eleven thousand goddamn dollars! And they were now likely about to kill me. All because New Haven liked half of their stores to have cellars!
I braced for impact, envisioning my bloodied face and broken teeth that would no doubt come as a result of tumbling down concrete stairs.
I wonder who I could sue at this point.
But there was no pain, no metallic blood taste, no broken teeth or bruised tailbones. Instead, I found myself in the arms of a man—the second inexplicably attractive man I had crossed paths with in a single day.
Either I was losing it, or Lulu was right. This town had changed. Especially with the selection of…er, well…men.
My rescuer this time had dark eyes and even darker hair that slicked back on his head. His cheekbones were dusted with stubble—I would bet he was the type that always had five o’clock shadow. He stared down at me for a long moment before his lips, pink and inviting, finally parted to speak.
“You-you have a freckle in your eye,” he said.
“I got it from my father,” I mumbled, staring at him hesitantly, as though his face were the sun and I didn’t want to blind myself.
He shook his head. “What are you doing down here?”
“I…I fell,” I said, bristling at the steel in his voice.
“I can see that.” His scowl set firmer. “I mean what were you doing skulking around at my doorstep? And what did you do with my barrier?”
He glared at the street above, at the decidedly barren stairwell that apparently was supposed to be blocked off.
“I didn’t see any barrier,” I said, trying—and failing—to squirm my way out of his arms.
“Damn children,” he growled. His chest, firm and impressive, rose and fell in deep, sharp intakes of breath. “Look, no one is supposed to be down here. It’s not safe.”
“Obviously,” I said. “Now can you put me down?”
He sighed heavily and sat me on the pavement. I winced as pain shot up my ankle and my leg folded under me.
“Damn it, you’re hurt,” he said, scooping me back up, but sounding more perturbed than concerned. “I suppose you’ll have to come in now.”
“Well, don’t put yourself out or anything. Wouldn’t want you to overdo it with the compassion and pull a muscle.”
He glared down at me and huffed, marching me through a door he unlocked by pressing a series of numbers against a keypad.
I bit at the inside of my cheek, debating if I might be better off hobbling home with my injuries or letting this jerk help me. Considering he was a very handsome jerk, I went along with the latter.
We entered a huge, barren space that, upon first inspection, was probably almost definitely a murder dungeon.
On the off chance I was wrong, I muttered, “What is this place?”
“A club,” he answered flatly. “Or it will be in two weeks.”
“A club?” I asked, looking around at the dark, dank void, thinking about how big of a turnaround two weeks would have to bring for this to be anything even close to such a thing.
“Yes,” he said, setting me on a lone, dusty stool. “For dancing, mingling…you know, general merriment.”
“General merriment?” I asked, giggling inwardly. “Why would you even want a club in a town like this? There’s no market for it.”
“There are young people here,” he answered. “This will give them someplace to go. Someplace safe,” he finished under his breath. “Let me get you ice and get you on your way.”
“You’re a ray of sunshine, aren’t you?” I said as he disappeared off into a backroom.
Looking around the space, I saw it was even more pathetic right side up. There was no way this guy was going to turn this place into a club in two weeks. It would take someone of immense taste and talent to pull that sort of thing off. It would take someone who had been around the block a time or two, someone who knew what she was doing and had the foresight to get it done, someone like…
My gaze fell on a ‘Manager Wanted’ sign.
While it was true I didn’t want to stick around, this was the sort of thing that could really help me out. I could help Mr. Deadpan get this place up and running, make a little scratch, and then take off once I got my legs back under me. Plus it would give me something to do so I wouldn’t feel like such an anchor around Lulu’s neck.
“You’re looking for a manager,” I yelled into the distance.
“No,” he yelled back.
“You’re not?”
“I am, but it’s not you,” he answered, still in the other room. “There’s a form and protocol. But that aside, you wouldn’t be a good fit.”
“Me?” I asked, narrowing my eyes. “I spent my formative years in New York hobnobbing with Hollywood starlets and athletes. And you think I wouldn’t be a good fit? I can’t see why, given that it would take me all of fifteen minutes to give this place a fighting chance.”
“Look, I understand you’re—”
A loud rumbling noise came from the back, like thunder or a large machine malfunctioning.
There was silence for a long time after that—so long that I leaned forward and shouted, “Hey, bud, you okay?”
The noise amplified and a muffled “Goddamn it!” came from the back room. Then there was a loud clanking and crash, as if a set of dishes had shattered against the floor. This guy was going to get himself killed.
I slid off the stool, careful not to put much pressure on my ankle. I moved forward. Sure, it ached a little, but if you could walk a runway with half a placemat and light bulbs on your head (thank you, Fall line 2011), hobbling around on a banged up ankle was cake.
I inched toward the backroom, following through the hallway the man had disappeared into. It stretched out a hundred feet and then split off left and right. Making my way to the ‘fork’, I passed a room on the right with a huge padlock on it. The door was wooden and looked even older and more neglected than the rest of this place. But that wasn’t the strangest part. There a symbol, like a crescent moon, painted red with a few dots on the inside.
“Damn!” came another shout from the left.
I turned to find him on his knees, soaked to the bone, jabbing at what looked like an ice machine. A plastic bag, no doubt where my ice was intended to reside, lay empty on the floor.
He growled. “This blasted contraption!”
“Blasted contraption?” I asked, arching my eyebrows.
“You shouldn’t be standing,” he said, giving me the briefest of glances. “I don’t have the time or resources for a lawsuit, so if you could kindly limit the amount of damage you inflict upon your body, I would appreciate it.”
“I bet you’re popular,” I said, leaning against the wall and taking the pressure off my foot.
He stood, his dripping shirt clinging to his hulking chest. Well, damn. He probably actually was popular, regardless of how he treated people.
He pressed his hands against his knees and shook his head. “I can’t get this ridiculous machine to work.”
“I gathered that.”
“There are so many buttons, and so many different kinds of ice. Who would want their ice to be crushed, anyway?”
“Me.”
“Figures,” he muttered.
“So how are you going to run an entire nightclub if you can’t even fill a bag of ice?”
He threw his hand toward the machine. “No one could work that stupid thing.”
“Press power twice,” I said, “then hit crushed, and then enter.” I hopped over to the machine and filled the bag the way I had a million times back when I was still working at that restaurant before my agent landed me my first real gig. “It’s pretty standard. It works the way you think it would.” I gave him a quick look over and amended, “Well, maybe not the way you think it would.”
His mouth fell open, but he snapped it shut it before mumbling, “I have a soda machine on the way.”
“I can work that.”
“And an espresso maker.” This time his raised his eyes to me. He looked defeated and hopeful all at once.
“I can work that, too.”
“What if I put a stipulation in your contract saying you can’t sue me for throwing yourself down the stars?”
“I didn’t throw myself anywhere, but sure, I’ll sign it.” I grinned. “Boss.”
He picked himself up off the floor and stepped out of the room and into the hall with me. “Abram Canavar,” he said gruffly—or perhaps he was just bitter over conceding I knew my way around a club. “When can you start?”
Chapter 4
“I can’t believe you,” Dalton said, taking a sip of his coffee and staring at me over the brim of his mug. His blond hair hung lazily in his eyes, and though I couldn’t see his lips, there was no doubt in my mind he was smiling.
I tried a swallow of my cappuccino, but it was way too hot. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Yeah, you do.” He wiped his mouth. “Not to toot my own horn or anything, but it isn’t every woman who’d make me wait two weeks for a date.”
He swept his hand to indicate his body, and I couldn’t argue there. He was dressed down, in a gray t-shirt and corduroys; his pistol dangling visibly from his hip sure as hell didn’t hurt. He was, indeed, not the type of guy you expect to wait for you. But I wasn’t going to tell him that.
I lifted my eyebrows and grinned. “Did you really just use the phrase ‘toot my own horn’?”
“I know. It’s sexier than you thought, right?”
Coming from him, yeah, just about anything would be sexier than I expected. But the whole situation was still strange. I mean, this was Lulu’s little brother. I basically watched him grow up. He’d at least traded in his tastes for earth worms for expensive coffee. And seeing how we were flirting shamelessly, apparently my tastes had changed, too.
“Who said this was a date?” I asked, half toying with him and half genuinely not sure if I wanted to commit to that idea.
“Nobody,” he admitted, plunging a stirrer into his coffee and twirling it. “But nobody came out and said the sun was up, either. Doesn’t mean we don’t need shades. We’re both grown now, Char. Let’s not pretend we don’t know what’s going on here.”
He bit his lip, which was admittedly much sexier than I would have liked it to be.
“I’ve been busy,” I said, trying—and failing—not to stare at him. “That’s why it’s taken me so long. It’s not because—” I cleared my throat. “I don’t know if Lulu told you, but I got off my ass and actually found a job.”
Well, the truth was that I fell on my ass and got the job, but he didn’t need to know that.
“She said something about it,” he answered, his tone firmer than I expected.
“Something wrong?” I asked, leaning in ever-so-slightly.
“That night club, right?” he asked, running a hand thro
ugh his hair.
“That’s the goal,” I answered. “The truth is, it was barely a pit in the ground when I got there. The guy who owns the place wouldn’t know contemporary from alt contemporary if the theming slapped him in the face.”
Dalton’s eyes glazed over, and he blinked. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Which is why you shouldn’t open a night club, either,” I said with a reprimanding point of my finger. “But I’ve made good headway since I got there. I actually need to get back before long. Tonight is the grand opening, and there’s—”
“I don’t think you should work there anymore,” he said, then he swigged his coffee again.
I narrowed my eyes. “Excuse me?”
“I mean, I’m sure you’re good at what you do—great, probably. But I’ve been around since the last time we’ve seen each other, Char. I know things now—things I sometimes wish I didn’t. Places like that and girls like you…they don’t mix.”
Suddenly, I felt acutely aware of what I was wearing, of every inch of exposed skin and every fleck of makeup. I was right back there with that drunkard, being judged by my clothes and appearance.
“Girls like me? What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“I’m sorry. That came out wrong.” He shook his head and pushed his coffee aside. “This case I’m on…it’s getting to me more than it should.”
“The girl on the missing poster?” I asked.
“I’m not really allowed to talk about that,” he answered.
“Do you have any idea who did it?” I asked, my heart racing. He knew about this more than I did, and we were both avoiding the elephant in the room—that the missing girl looked a helluva-lot like me.
“There are a lot of awful people in the world, Char.” His hand fell and hovered over his pistol. I wondered if he even realized he was doing that. “And they tend to congregate in those sorts of places…clubs...the nightlife scene.”
“I meant it when I said I could take care of myself,” I said, splaying my hands across the table. “It’s cute that you’re worried about me. Really, it is. But if you’re curious about what kind of girl I am,” I said, harkening back to his earlier phrase, “I’m going to tell you that I’m not the sort who gets scared off easily. All this talk of missing girls and howling things in the woods—it just doesn’t do much for me.”
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