person anymore. Even when you knew you never really were. Even when you just wanted to be alone.
Maybe coming here was part of that. Part of trying to be normal, when I never really had been.
Nicolette draped a towel around my shoulders. She sprayed my hair down with a water bottle, then set about cutting my hair, and she didn’t take too long. She didn’t fuss to make it perfect. She didn’t put in a bunch of hair products and make a show of it.
She knew I didn’t really care, so she didn’t waste my time with any of that.
The haircut was just a perk of seeing her. She’d mentioned it once, that she used to be a hairdresser, and she’d offered to cut my hair. I wasn’t sure if that was a fetish for some people. Or if it was a fetish for her. But she always did a good job.
By the time she finished, I’d tapped my way through the song so many times that my fingertips were numb.
“What do you think?” She peeled the towel away and moved so she wasn’t blocking my view of the mirror. She picked up a hand mirror from the table and held it behind my head so I could see the back.
“Good. Maybe I’ll let it grow out now. By next summer, it’ll be long enough I can just tie it back again.”
She set the mirror carefully on the table. “So, then… you won’t be back until then?”
“I’ll be back.”
I stood up and turned to face her, and when my gaze locked with hers, I could see it in her eyes.
Excitement.
I still felt numb. But there were certain… patterns of behavior… that would get me there. And Nicolette knew them all.
She smoothed her hands gently down the front of her dress, her eyes shining with anticipation. “Do you want me to change?”
“No. What you’re wearing is fine.”
“Can I get you anything first?”
She meant wine. Bourbon. Pills.
She always offered.
But I never needed any of that shit anymore.
She probably also meant toys. Restraints. Ridiculous, custom made furniture designed for fucking in every imaginable position.
But I didn’t need any of that shit, either.
I just needed things to be the same.
“No,” I said. “Just get down on your knees.”
And as usual, she did.
Chapter Two
Taylor
Sparks
On Monday morning, right on time, I walked up to the address Courteney Clarke had given me and stopped in front of the big, iron gate. Her brother lived in Shaughnessy, where the lush, trim hedges and massive trees gave way to even more massive homes, most of them tucked up gated driveways. Cary Clarke’s house was one of the ones you couldn’t even see from the road.
I plucked my earbuds out, silencing Metallica. It was quiet, a lawn mower buzzing away in the distance. The street meandered through the residential neighborhood so it wasn’t really a direct route to anywhere, which meant zero traffic.
Perfect location for a former-rock-star-turned-recluse to hide out.
There was a security panel with a speaker on the stone pillar at one end of the gate. I pressed the buzzer, but no one answered.
Courteney had warned me that would happen.
I tried it again anyway. I looked around for a security camera while I waited, but I didn’t see any.
I wondered if I was being watched.
I wondered, fleetingly, what Cary Clarke would think of me.
I hadn’t removed my facial piercing for this “job” and I didn’t cover up my tattoos. Or my hair. Six months ago, I’d hit a personal low when I was fired by my horrendous boss and cheated on by my horrendous boyfriend, a mere four days before Christmas, because happy holidays to me—and I’d vowed right then and there to make some changes. Reinvent myself.
And I had. More or less.
I had indeed pierced something—my eyebrow. I’d gotten a new tattoo—Gimme Shelter, up my inner arm. And I’d died my hair—bright pink. It was now more of a soft, cotton candy pink, and I loved it.
But I still hadn’t quite started over.
I’d be turning thirty at the end of this year, and I was definitely having some kind of mini life crisis.
In my almost three decades on the planet, I’d suffered a crazy family, some crazy-ass boyfriends and some seriously psycho bosses. At this point, I was pretty fucking done with crazy people.
And yet, here I stood.
According to the world at large Cary Clarke was, in a word, crazy.
And I was about to trespass on his property.
Brilliant.
After several minutes of stalling, asking myself if I was really