toward the back of the house, passing the living room, dining room, another living room, and some closed doors. I gawked at the size of the place.
Who lives like this?
It was masculine and though it was lavish, there was an emphasis on comfort and coolness. It reminded me of the houses on old episodes of MTV Cribs that were decked out and upgraded with every feature available.
Reaching a sliding glass door at the back of the house, Vera opened it. The dry heat hit like a wall.
Even after living in Vegas for a couple years, I wasn’t used to the weather. I’d spent most of my life in places where blizzards in March were common, so it being hot enough to swim was bizarre.
Glorious, but bizarre.
I stepped outside and shielded my eyes from the blinding sun as I craned my neck to take in the house.
No, it wasn’t a house. It was a mansion. No. It was whatever was bigger than a mansion. I had no idea how many rooms there were, but there were a hell of a lot of tinted windows. One appeared to be floor to ceiling and was the width of three other windows combined.
I wonder what’s in there?
Spinning back toward the lawn, excitement buzzed through me as if I’d chugged four cups of coffee. I wanted to touch and smell every plant. I wanted to spread out on one of the thickly cushioned lounge chairs and soak in the sun. But more than anything, I wanted to dive into the gorgeous blue water and swim until I was a wrinkly prune.
As I followed Ms. Vera and Cole to the patio, I realized that what I could see from my window was a very small fraction of the unusually shaped pool. The thing was massive. It even had a wide waterfall pouring from a rounded, stacked rock mound.
I kicked off my shoes and tossed my coverup onto a lounger before walking along the stone deck, occasionally dipping my toes into the warm water. When I got to the other end, there was a rectangular planter of rocks that separated the pool from a hot tub. I got a little closer and realized the planter was actually a fire pit that could be accessed from either side.
This is insane.
Seriously, who the heck lives like this?
The stone path continued to a small building that had the same color scheme and style as the house.
“What’s that?” I asked Vera.
“Pool house.”
That’s the…
No.
A pool house is the size of a shed. That’s a condo that would cost a few grand a month.
“You know how to swim?” Ms. Vera asked, sitting on a patio couch under the shade of an overhang.
“Yup.”
When we’d lived in NYC, my grandparents had taken me to the YMCA all the time.
“Have fun then.” She pulled a floppy hat out of her Mary Poppins bag of tricks and put it on before taking out a book with a shirtless, kilted man on the cover.
Jumping into the pool, I swam laps until my lungs burned and my arms ached. I floated around for a while before going to check out the waterfall. When I inched through the cascade, I expected to hit a pool wall, but there was a small alcove instead. I moved farther in before banging my knee on the underwater stone bench that curved around the space.
Sitting, I stretched my legs out and enjoyed the cool mist that came from the waterfall.
Just a teeny tiny bit better than the pool at the Y, with its fungusy mats, annoying kids, and speedo-clad old men.
Going back out into the pool, I felt like a mermaid in a lagoon. It was a fantasyland out of an epic fairy tale, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that the story would end soon.
And, contrary to most fairy tales, there’d be no happily ever after.
I used that to keep my walls up.
This isn’t my life.
This is a reprieve from hell.
And it’ll end.
Everything ends.
Until it did, though, I’d savor the paradise for what it was.
Temporary.
CHAPTER NINE
Normal
Maximo
“SHE’S BRIGHT.”
I glanced up at the man sitting across my desk who was wasting my time by telling me things I already knew. “I’m aware.”
Peter Reed ran one of the top private schools in the nation. He also had a penchant for high-stakes cards, top-shelf liquor, and high-class call girls. And he used the school’s money to fund his habit. He usually made back what he borrowed before anyone noticed it was gone, but a string of bad