Shiver

A blue neon ‘BEER’ sign hung from the ceiling just above the bar, where we also served hot and cold snacks. Two pool tables were at the rear of the bar near the restrooms and the flashing gambling machines.

The bar wouldn’t officially open for another fifteen minutes, so the stools lined up along the bar were as empty as the booths and the heavy wooden tables. The rear doors would soon be opened, allowing patrons to sit outside and enjoy the sun.

There were only two people in the large space. Reed, the bartender, was fussing with the cashier till while Sarah was leaning over the bar, looking destroyed. Her head slowly lifted when I entered, making her mocha-brown hair part like a curtain to reveal a pale, haggard face.

“Regretting the festival yet?” I asked.

“Fuck, no,” she said. “But I regret the Vodka. Definitely regret the Vodka.”

Planting his meaty fists on the bar, Reed narrowed his wide-set blue eyes on me. “You look a little off.”

“Duh, Vodka. And you’re no spring chicken yourself, you know.”

He snickered and patted his slightly rounded stomach. “I just love my abs so much that I protect them with a few layers of fat.”

Snorting, I walked behind the bar and through the door labeled ‘Private.’ After stuffing my jacket and purse in my locker in the breakroom, I went back to the bar and made Dodger’s coffee—black, just how he liked it.

“I got a favor to ask you,” said Sarah.

I lifted a questioning brow. “Oh, yeah?”

“The thing is … my landlady’s doing her annual inspection in a couple of days. She and her son will want to take a good look around my apartment.”

Knowing where this was going, I gave her a pained look. “Don’t ask me to tidy your place again.” Sarah’s idea of tidying was to shove everything at the back of her closets or cupboards. For Sarah, if she couldn’t see the clutter, it didn’t exist.

“But you’re so good at cleaning! You’re the only person I know who has a ridiculously and abnormally tidy home yet has still managed to make it feel like a haven rather than a showroom.”

“Sarah, you know how to clean. You just don’t care if the place is tidy.”

“I do when my anal landlady is coming to inspect it.”

“Each time I walk into that post-apocalyptic war zone, I die a little inside.” Okay, not really. Cleaning wasn’t a compulsion for me. I didn’t need order and cleanliness to feel in control of my life. Everything didn’t need to be immaculate or have its own place. I wouldn’t panic if I found a sock on the floor, and I didn’t feel an immense need to color-coordinate or alphabetize anything. Really, I couldn’t give a tinker’s shit if others lived in filth. No, but I liked there to be order in my own territory.

I also liked to be able to find things quickly and easily—it was imperative, really, as I always seemed to be running late. My apartment was so damned tiny it didn’t have room for clutter anyway.

I wasn’t gonna lie, there were times when I disappeared into cleaning if faced with stress. But was there anything wrong with channeling your anxieties into something productive rather than sitting around moping or worrying? I didn’t think so.

“Please,” Sarah begged, hands joined in prayer, brown eyes gleaming with a rather dramatic amount of despair.

I sighed. “Fine.”

Sarah did a little clap. “Yay.”

“You’re a total softie,” Reed said to me. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”

“I’m no softie. I’m a bitch of epic proportions.” Rounding the bar, I said, “I just need to pass this coffee to Dodger. I’ll be right back.”

Hoping Maserati Guy was gone, I slipped out of the door with the take-out cup in hand. Dodger was standing in the parking lot, talking to someone. The black Maserati was still there, though, which meant its owner wasn’t far away—he was possibly even inside CCC. Well, I wasn’t going to just stand there until Dodger was done talking. I’d leave his coffee on his workbench or something.

Steeling myself, I headed toward the open bay door. The murmur of voices drifted to me, and I halted as the words penetrated.

“I was surprised to find out you have Michael Bale’s stepdaughter working at the bar,” said a voice so deep and rough that it almost seemed to vibrate. “You really think that’s a good idea, Sherry?”

“Being his stepdaughter does not define Kensey,” said Sherry. “She’s a person.”

“Yeah, she is. And I’m not saying she should be punished for a family dynamic that she has absolutely no control over. But she must draw the kind of attention to the bar and, by extension, CCC that you don’t want.”

“It’s not like she has serial killer groupies following her around or anything, Blake.”

Ah, so Maserati Guy was Blake Mercier. He’d recently bought half of both CCC and the bar from Dodger’s old silent business partner, who’d wanted to sell his share and relocate. I didn’t know Blake, but I knew of him. Most people in Redwater did.

I knew he owned a chain of nightclubs and had invested in a lot of the businesses that were scattered throughout the city. It was rumored that not all his businesses were above board, but I had no idea how true that was. I’d also heard that he had connections just about everywhere and was not a man to be crossed. It was said that you never wanted to owe Blake Mercier a favor.

“Maybe not,” he allowed. “But isn’t it bad enough that she’s an attention junkie?”

“When has Kensey ever been an attention junkie?” asked Sherry.

Yeah, when had I ever been an attention junkie? If anything, I despised attention. I’d made an art out of avoiding it.

“Have you ever even met her, Blake?”

“No. Never set eyes on her in my life. But I made a point of finding out what I could about your employees, since they’re now also mine. Nothing I heard about Kensey Lyons was good. Why would she dress like something out of a fucked-up Tim Burton movie if she wasn’t crying out for attention? Seriously, Sherry, who wears reptile contact lenses?”

I winced. Okay, it was fair to say that I’d taken my goth phase to freaky levels. I’d grown out of it by the time I graduated from high school, but apparently his source of information hadn’t told him that.

“That was a phase, Blake,” said Sherry. “I’m sure you went through some of your own. Everybody does.”

“I didn’t go through a phase where I did shit like slit my wrists for attention.”

I rocked back on my heels. Where the hell had he heard that lump of crap? Sherry must have been equally shocked, because she was silent for a few moments as if speechless—and that didn’t happen a lot.

“Well neither did Kensey, so you both have that in common,” Sherry finally said.

“Or maybe you just didn’t know about it. From what I heard, she got tattoos on her wrists to cover the scars.”

Oh, I had tattoos on my wrists—pretty French, black lace cuffs. But there were no scars beneath them.

“I would know if my goddaughter tried to kill herself, Blake.”

A rough sigh. “Look, I can handle stepdaughters of serial killers, goth girls, and even attention junkies. But I don’t like crackheads. Put all those things together and, no, I’m not thrilled to hear that one is working at the bar.”