“I can’t remember what happened,” she muttered. “I don’t remember how I got stuck in the down below. Do you know?”

When he remained quiet, she turned to face him. “Please.”

Before he could answer, a ten-year-old Honda drove up to the front of the house. From out of the open window, a bagged newspaper went flying—but the aim was off. Instead of landing anywhere near Sissy, it went right into the bushes by the side of the house.

The car screeched to a halt, and as the driver’s-side door got shoved wide, the man beside her stiffened and shifted subtly, one of his hands going to the small of his back.

There was a weapon there, she thought.

Except as a sixteen-year-old got out of the car and trudged up the front lawn, Jim relaxed—

“Chillie!” Sissy jumped up. “Oh, my God, Chillie!”

Chillie, a.k.a. Charles Brownary, didn’t look over. Or stop in shock. Or … show any response at all. Her best friend’s little brother just kept going over to the scrubby bushes, cursing under his breath, shrugging into his Red Wings hoodie like he was beyond done with winter.

“Chillie,” she said dully, as he picked up the CCJ and turned to the porch.

The second attempt worked like a charm. The paper flew right past Sissy, nearly clipping her in the arm.

“Chillie…?”

As he turned away and headed back to the car, everything hit her hard: the terror from down below, the confusion and fear up here, the pain of losing her family, the horrible amnesia…

Sissy opened her mouth and screamed as loud as she could—and she kept screaming, the sound exploding in her head, rising to a concert level, flushing the birds from the trees at both ends of the house.

Chillie’s feet slowed, then stopped. With a twist of his upper body, he looked behind him—but his eyes were focused on the house, roaming around the windows as if he were expecting to find someone staring out of them. Shuddering like the place had Norman Bates’d him, he scurried for his car and hit the gas as if chased.

A strong hand grabbed her arm, and that was her only clue that she was listing forward. As her legs buckled out from underneath her, the last thing she remembered was the way Chillie had looked, silhouetted against the gathering light, his short hair pushed back by the cold wind as he had stared right through her.

And then she lost consciousness.

Chapter Ten

G.B. rolled over in bed and patted around the cardboard box he used as a table for his phone. He found the TV remote, the base of his garage sale lamp, that dust-covered Nietzsche book—

Bingo.

Fumbling to light the cell up, he groaned when he saw the time. Eleven o’clock. Considering he went to bed at five a.m., this might as well be the middle of the night—not that he could see daylight. Thanks to his blackout drapes and the fact that he’d put a washcloth over the front of his cable box, there was no illumination around him at all.

It was like he was floating in air, and he loved the weightless feeling as he reclined against his pillows and stared up at a ceiling he couldn’t see.

His erection was of the pleasant variety, nothing that demanded attention—more like a suggestion in the event his right palm was bored. He was a little hungover—not bad, though. After he’d left the café, he’d met up with a couple of buddies and they’d ended the night talking about songwriting in the back of a friend’s dive of a sports bar.

G.B. glanced at his phone’s digital readout again.

That children’s book illustrator had to be up by now. She’d gone home early so she could work in the morning.

Should he wait until the afternoon, though? Look less desperate?

As he considered his options, he smiled. Usually with women, he was a real straight shooter—no games, no overthinking, no drama. Then again, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d gotten turned down by one, so it wasn’t as if he needed game.

Like, last night hadn’t exactly ended at the sports bar—which was why his c**k was a little less than insistent at the moment. The sex hadn’t meant a thing to him, though.

On that note, he pulled up Cait’s contact.

He’d put her into his phone by her first name, because he still didn’t know what her last one was, and he hesitated before hitting her number with his thumb. The fact that he was na**d under his sheets and in the dark and already aroused made this a little tacky—in contrast to the chick he’d done at four a.m., who’d had her tits out and all but put up a billboard that she wanted some grind, Cait was no doubt working quietly.

His illustrator was … well, it sounded trite to put it like this, but she was a good girl.

He let the pad of his thumb go down to the screen and initiate the call. Then he put the iPhone to his ear and listened to the ringing. If it went to voice mail, he was going to keep it short and—

“Hello?”

He smiled so wide his front teeth felt a chill. “Hi. Do you know who this is?”

God, he hoped so. It would suck to be any less unforgettable than he thought he was.

“You called,” she said with a laugh. “You actually called.”

“I told you I would.” Pulling the covers up higher on his chest, he put one arm behind his head. “I keep my promises.”

Man, that throaty laugh of hers made him flex his pelvis. But he put a lockdown on that motion.

“How are you?” she asked.

He made no bones about trying to hide his yawn. “I’m still in bed, can you believe it?”

Actually, he wanted her to know where he was, wanted her to wonder what, if anything, he had on.

“Musicians probably don’t keep bankers’ hours, do they.”

“Definitely not. I went out after you left—nothing crazy, though.” For some reason, he got off on the fact that reassuring her felt right. “Just with some colleagues, I guess you’d call them. Did you go straight home?”

“I did. And got right into bed.”

Mmmm. “Did you sleep well or were you distracted by dreams of a soulful singer who managed to get your digits?”

Yup, her laugh was the goal to reach for—he loved the sound of it. “Yes, that was what kept me up. How did you know?”

“Maybe he was dreaming of you, too.” He followed that up with a quick, “How’s work going? Your puppy and you having a good time of it?”

“Actually, I’ve done three pages, which is awesome.”

As a text came through to him, he winced at the beeping notification in his ear. “How long do you have until the book’s due?”

“I’ve got another week, but you don’t want to take any chances. Better to finish early than find yourself squeezed for time and rushing things. The good news is I’m on track—I have about eight more pages to go, and I got lucky today. Sometimes the flow is just right there, you know?”

“Inspired, maybe?”

“Are you trying to sell that singer again?”

“I am. He comes with a good warranty, not a lot of wear and tear.” Kind of a lie, but come on … “He’s functional, reliable … and attractive in so many settings.”

“Is this a lamp or a man we’re talking about?”

“He’s bright, too—did I mention that?” As she laughed again, he smiled. “And he’s eco-friendly.”

“How so?”

“He eats organic.”

“A lamp with a hearty appetite?”

“Oh, sorry—I mean he only accepts those curlicue bulbs.”

“Do they sell these things at Target?”

“No, someone has to give him to you.”

Even he heard the purr in his voice at the end of that one—and she obviously got the drift, because there was a quick pause.

She cleared her throat. “Sounds … pretty magical.”

He lowered his voice and dropped the riff. “Will you come to see me sing tonight? It’s just backup, but I’d love to have you in the audience as my guest.”

Before she could answer, he jumped in. “You can come backstage, hang out with somebody famous—your Facebook status would be awesome. It’s a Millicent Jayson concert—you must have heard of her?”

Say yes, he thought. Say yes…

As he waited on pins and needles, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this way. For some strange reason, all he wanted was to be inside this woman—it didn’t make sense, but that was destiny for you.

The powerful wasn’t necessarily the comprehensible.

Duke walked out of his bedroom into a haze of pot smoke. Coughing, he went over to the cabin’s front door and ripped it open, letting the cool spring air in.

“Man, you gotta put up that damn bong,” he muttered at the couch.

Naturally, his star boarder, Rolly—short for Roland—was out like a light, the guy’s roasty-toasty pea brain taking yet another THC-induced breather.

“Freeloader.” Duke kicked the back foot of the sofa on his way to the galley kitchen. “Wake up!”

“Mom?” came a muffled reply.

“No, I’m not your mom. And you’re thirty-two—that should not be the first thing coming out of your mouth in the morning anymore.”

No response. Well, not verbally, at any rate. There was a shift of position—that led to a throw pillow falling off the far end.

Maybe the cold would wake the guy up.

Or the smell of coffee.

Worse came to worst, Duke had a claw hammer in his toolbox.

At the three-foot-long counter by the stove, Duke made a pot of nonfussy coffee—i.e., no measuring to exactitude, no flavorings, just caffeine and water, add heat and a mug. He poured himself some before things had finished brewing, and he drank the first dose at the window, staring out at the farmland that surrounded the place he rented. For the second dose, he faced in, leaning his ass against the lip of the stainless-steel bucket sink.

One story. A thousand square feet. One bed, one bath, plenty of privacy, and the cost was cut in half because he did the mowing in the summer and the snowplowing in the winter for the owners who lived down the lane.

No Warren County muni services on the roads in and out of these three hundred acres. Frankly, the family was lucky to have city water and cable.

As a familiar snoring lit off from the couch, he poured himself mugful number three. Fucking Rolly. What a pain in the ass.

“You need to get a job,” he barked when he finally put his mug in the sink.

It was like having a sixteen-year-old in the house. The good news was that on a regular basis the guy somehow found some chippie to pick up the slack. The relationships never lasted longer than a couple of months, but at least they gave Duke a break.

Would miracles please never cease.

In truth, he really needed to throw the guy out. But Rolly had him over a barrel: Old friends, like bad habits, died hard—so there was nothing he could do. Well, nothing except pray that soon, very soon, on one of the bastard’s pot buys, or a bar crawl, or for shit’s sake a trip to a Frito-Lay aisle in the local Qwikie Mart, some new version of tits-’n’-ass looked at that handsome baby face and fwelll in wuuuuuuuuvvvve.

As nauseating as that was.

Matter of fact, rumor had it there was a female on the horizon at this very moment—would that she would get her ass in gear. He was so ready to reduce the secondhand emissions in his house and get his sofa back.

Ten minutes later, he was going out the open doorway. The temperature of the “living room,” such as it was, had dropped fifteen degrees and was still falling—and Rolly hadn’t even noticed. Kinda. The guy had pulled the back cushions over his body and was doing a fetal.

Duke was of half a mind to just leave shit open, but he didn’t relish the idea of coming home to a pothead Popsicle who had to be nursed out of pneumonia.

No locking things up behind him. He didn’t have anything to steal, and he wasn’t giving Rolly a key in the event that someday he booted the guy for good.

This week he was only working twelve to five for the county, because it was a little early for the real spring cleanup and a little late for any snow removal. Soon enough, though, the backbreaking would start, and he was ready for it—the Caldwell city parks needed upkeep, and he was exactly the kind of thug to get into the brambles for ripping and tearing.

So much more satisfying than babysitting the wait line at the Iron Mask.

Getting into his truck, he started the engine, hit the gas and took the back roads to what the crews called “the Shed.” The facility was located on twenty-five acres waaaaaay outside of town—so his commute, even to an eight-hour shift that started in the morning, was just him and his truck and the farmland roads. Period. The only time he stopped was for deer crossings.