time to lie in it. Sweet dreams, Rob.
I did this for myself, of course, but it’s really a service to every person who’ll ever encounter Rob in the future.
Without this setback, he would have spent his whole life
leaning on others and taking all the credit for himself.
That tactic was working very nicely for him. He became
successful because of bad habits, and those habits needed
to be corrected.
Now, when he finds work at another, lesser law firm,
he’ll be the low man on the totem pole. Forced to be on
his best behavior to make up for his tarnished past. Forced to try hard and get better.
You’re welcome, Rob.
I hear a shout from the bathroom and tip my head to
concentrate. “What?” I yell back.
“What’s the Wi-Fi password?” she screams.
I yell it out for her, then open the email that has just
dinged in from the office. Thank you so much, Jane. This is wonderful news about your niece, and we all hope she will be okay. Please take time with your family today and I’ll call this evening if we need anything urgent from you. We’re eager to have you back as soon as you’re able, of course. Rob’s cases will be redistributed, and I know you are familiar with most of them.
I type back a quick and earnest reply before closing
my laptop with a grin. What a day.
I’ve already showered, but I want to change into
something more stylish for our shopping trip, so I carry
my luggage to the bedroom. When I pass the bathroom
door, I hear the dulcet moaning and tinny grunting of
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porn being viewed through a small-screen device. I guess
the girl has needs, and it’s none of my business, but I make a note to use the shower tonight instead of the tub.
I dig out some black skinny jeans and a pink sweater to
wear with my black boots; then I settle in with the room
service menu to plan a delicious lunch. Flatbread, a spicy-
chicken-and-avocado sandwich, french fries, and several
desserts. I also add a glass of wine for me and a Coke for
her, and then I stretch out to doze until the food comes.
A drop of water wakes me. I open my eyes slowly to
find Kayla standing over me, wrapped in a robe, her hair
hanging in wet ropes like the goddamn ghost child from
The Ring. “What?” I snap.
“There’s someone at the door.”
“Yeah, it’s room service. I ordered lunch. Answer it.”
“It could be the cops,” she says calmly.
“Why would the cops be here?”
She shrugs, and I elbow her out of the way so I can
answer it. It’s room service, just as I thought.
I don’t trust Kayla not to steal it, so I sip the wine as
the server is laying out the meal on our dining room table.
I offer Kayla half the sandwich and half the flatbread, and she happily accepts both and pulls the platter of french
fries to her side of the table.
Fine. I’ve got my wine.
“This place is cool,” she says between bites.
“You like it?”
“Yeah. It’s nice.”
“It is nice. Tell me why you were worried about the cops. You didn’t seem concerned when I knocked on your
door this morning. Is this about Brodie?”
She shrugs and stuffs more food into her mouth.
“Kayla, I want you to be honest with me.”
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“Why?” she asks simply, and it’s a great question. I’m
sure she’s never been truthful with anyone in her life—
and, really, what is the point of truth?
Who have I ever been honest with? No one.
Luke has no idea I’m a sociopath, just as he has no idea
of the double life I was leading when we reconnected in
Minneapolis.
My best friend is dead now, but when she was alive,
I mostly told her what she needed to hear so that she’d
keep being my friend, because she was my only anchor
in this world.
I tell people things that benefit me and keep them
close, and I’m sure Kayla has learned the same trick. If
she and I are going to get along, it will take months of
proving to her that she can be herself with me. Maybe
years. And I do want us to get along.
This is a shallow, reckless idea, but that’s my specialty.
That was how I ended up with my cat, and look how
happy we are together.
And now a family. Just for me.
Some people want to have children so they can create
people who will have to love them. People they can be
around constantly, with no question of divorce or be-
trayal. A spouse is fine, but a child … That’s so much more permanent. Any tiny thing can send a friend or lover or
spouse far away, but you really have to screw up to lose
a child completely. They’ll love you through your worst
days, even if the “worst” is just your natural personality.
I’ve seen it a million times in the warped relationships
of people around me.
But I don’t want love. I want that other big thing
people search for in their own children. Themselves.
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She is like me, I’ve decided. A wild little me. A flat-
tering, fascinating mirror. A legacy. That’s what I see in Kayla. That’s what excites me. This wouldn’t be settling
down, not at all.
Just look at her, stuffing her face. Her friend died, a
boy she spent countless days with, a boy she used for her
own benefit, and she hasn’t missed a step at the news of
his death. After all, he was likely in the act of betraying her when he was murdered. Why should she care at all?
I get that. I feel it in my deepest spots. I wouldn’t care
about him either.
Kayla has been taking on grown men since she was
fourteen or fifteen, shaking them down for their money.
Imagine what she could do at twenty. At thirty. With
education and class and an expansive understanding of
how the world works, she could have it all. Because of me.
I’ll need to be careful. The girl is lightning in a bottle, and she could be very, very dangerous to me. But danger
is intoxicating, isn’t it? What’s the fun in living a safe life?
That was what I was resisting with Luke, after all. The
stultifying horror of settling down. As far as I can tell,
settling into your life is just waiting patiently for death.
Slowing everything down until you just don’t care and
you welcome the sweet embrace of eternal darkness.
Screw that. I’ll fight that nothingness until the day it
violently strangles me into submission.
Kayla isn’t nothingness. She’s excitement. Possibility.
Risk. If I take her under my wing, who knows what could
happen? What a little treat she could be. Maybe there
could even be affection between us and real understanding.
People think we have no feelings at all, but that’s not
true. We get lonely. We crave companionship. We chase
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after it, hoping for a real connection just this once. Kayla and I might click together like dangerous puzzle pieces.
I push the de
sserts at Kayla and tell her to pick one.
She snatches up the fried ice cream sundae without saying
thank you. She hasn’t said it once. She’s waiting for the
moment when I reveal the catch, because this girl knows
damn well that nobody in this world is nice without a
reason. There will be a catch, so why offer gratitude and
then look like a gullible idiot later?
She’s right. Even love comes with strings attached.
We fall in love with people because of how they make
us feel. We don’t just fall in love with any random kind
person we encounter. It’s more than admiration. It’s siz-
zling need. Your need, not theirs. Your crush, your wants,
your desire for them.
Everyone is a monster, as far as I can tell. I’m not
alone in this.
Luke is a good and decent person. He works hard and
does the right thing, and he loves his brother, and his
brother-in-law, and his adorable niece. He loves them all
so much because they bring warmth and joy to his life.
His mother? He stopped loving her when she became too
much of a nightmare to live with, and good for him. It’s
more than most normal people can manage.
But do you want to know why he loves me? I know.
It’s because my coolness reassures him after years of his
mother’s erratic, obsessive love. Because I pump up his
ego when he needs it and I make him laugh. And be-
cause I give the most mind-blowing blowjobs he’s ever
experienced and I’m down for sex at the drop of a hat.
That’s it. That’s love. No need to write poetry about
it; I’ve solved the riddle.
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So no, I don’t need Kayla’s love. But I really, really
want the spark of her companionship.
I smile widely at her as she hums over her first giant
bite of ice cream. “When you’re done with lunch, we’ll
go shopping and get you all fixed up. Some new clothes.
A haircut. Beautiful toes.”
Kayla nods and smiles back, a dollop of whipped cream
adorably perched on the end of her little nose. But her
eyes stay cold and careful, waiting.
Good girl.
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CHAPTER NINETEEN
We have a fantastic day on the town. There’s no need to
relive the boring details and write them in our diaries.
Everyone knows what a fun shopping day is like.
Kayla’s hair has been tamed. It’s nearly the same length,
but it’s cut at a sharp angle now, the front sliding about
two inches longer past her shoulders than the back. The
dirty blond is brighter too, with a few light streaks near
the front that Kayla asked for. Her eyes look less muddy
and more green.
Her fingers and toes are aqua blue with tiny green
crystals on the pinkie nail of each hand. They look nice
against her expensive new jeans and white rhinestone
flip-flops. Her new ruffled black shirt cost nearly one
hundred dollars, and it makes her pale skin glow.
She’s flushed with excitement, and the rush of blood
has chased away her sickly waifishness. Now she looks
like a healthy little colt of a girl instead of a hungry child raised on the streets. This relationship might be just what we both need.
“Do you want to go out for dinner or order in?”
She glances around the living room with an assessing
eye as we drop our bags next to the big dining table. “I
liked the lunch here,” she says.
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“It’s good food, but it’s much more exciting to go out
and show off your new hair and nails and clothes after a big day. You get to enjoy the fruits of someone else’s labor.”
“Can we go somewhere fancy?” she asks, her jaw jut-
ting out as if she’s ready to challenge any denial.
“Obviously. I already checked Yelp and found a high-
end Northern Italian place nearby. Does that sound good?
Or would you prefer steak?”
“I like meatballs,” she says, so I shrug and grab a res-
ervation for fifteen minutes from now. Northern Italian
or not, I trust they know that folks in Oklahoma would
expect meatballs.
“I reserved a table. Let’s go.”
When we get back to the lobby, her flip-flops slap the
granite with the same echoing volume of her old shoes,
but at least these sparkle and shine as she walks. I watch
her gaze slide over the happy hour crowd in the hotel
bar. There are dozens of men in there, all in dark suits,
all loosening up their already loose morals with booze.
Her eyes narrow as if she’s counting their money.
“Come on, girl. You’re off the clock right now.”
“What?” she snaps back in a sharp whine. “I wasn’t
doing anything.”
“Do you think you can get past this sex-scheme phase,
or is this it for you?”
“Whatever,” she mutters. “I was just looking around.”
“Okay, sure.”
The wind has picked up since we were out shopping,
and she’s obviously cold as we walk, but she doesn’t admit
it because I told her to grab a sweatshirt or something
and she didn’t. She doesn’t want to cover up her cute
new clothes. I understand that completely, and I admire
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the way she just clenches her fists and refuses to even
cross her arms against the wind. I grin at the mountains
of goose bumps that erupt on her skin as I lead the way
around the corner.
A few minutes later we’re sliding into a booth with a
street view. I order myself a fancy gin fizz and tell Kayla to try an Italian crème soda. The server brings bread, and
Kayla grabs a slice as if she’s afraid he’ll return to take it back.
Chewing, she watches me with a cool stare.
“Warming up yet?” I ask.
She ignores that and lifts her chin. “So are you going
to explain what all this is about or not?”
I tilt my head and study her for a moment. “Do you
like your nice clothes?”
“Sure.”
“Your new hair, new nails?”
“Obviously.”
“You can tell when people have money, right? You
can see that they look different and carry themselves
differently?”
She shrugs.
“They pay for that look. The shiny hair, gorgeous
nails, perfectly hemmed and tailored slacks. They look
good because they can afford to pay for those things. They
can afford suites at the Skirvin and massages to help them
rest and relax. They get vacations. Time off to lie on the
beach. Skin care. Personal trainers.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“You can have that too. You don’t have to scramble
every damn day of your life. But you have to be willing
to work for that money.”
“I already—”
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I hold up a hand. “Not that way. Not if you want real
money, Kayla. Sex has its place in ambition, but it’s not
the only tool.�
�
“Whatever,” she growls.
“I came from the same place you did, and look at me.”
She doesn’t. “I mean it. Look at me. Look at my hair,
my skin, my boots. I own a gorgeous downtown condo.
I drive a nice car. I go out to dinner anytime I want.
Travel overseas. Shop without a budget. And I do it all on
my terms, not by negotiating with some wrinkly-sacked
sugar daddy who’ll throw me a coin now and then. It’s
mine, Kayla. You get that?”
She turns her eyes resentfully in my direction.
“I earned this life. I’m not rich, not by one percent
standards, but I sure as hell will never again in my life
need to hitch a ride with a pervie truck driver so I can
get out of some shit town. Never.”
“Good for you. So … what? You’re going to write
me into your will or something?”
“Boy, that would be a huge mistake, wouldn’t it?” I
grin until she finally grants a tiny smile before ducking
her head to hide it. Not out of shyness, but because she
can’t conceal the hard amusement of picturing me dead
and passing on my belongings to her.
“Thankfully,” I say, “I’m smarter than that. No, what
I’m saying is you need to work hard in school and learn
to control yourself if you want a better life.”
“Oh, Jesus Christ,” she moans, eyes rolling so hard,
I wonder if she strained them.
“This isn’t a pep talk, so shut the hell up, little girl.”
The server was sliding up along my side to take our
order, but I watch him freeze and hesitate now.
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“We’ll need a minute,” I say, then wave at Kayla to
look at her menu. “Decide what you want.” Picking mine
up, I spy lobster ravioli, but I’m sure it won’t be the lobster ravioli I like, so I take a few minutes to study the food.
“Osso buco,” I say aloud.
Kayla frowns. “What’s that?”
“It’s sort of like the best pot roast you’ve ever had in
your life. But don’t ever explain it that way to anyone.
They’ll think you’re hopelessly ignorant.”
“So it’s fancy?”
“Sure.”
She keeps frowning at the menu.
“If you want to try it, we can order meatballs as an
appetizer. Then you’ll have the meatballs you wanted and
you’ll get to experience something new.”
“Yeah. Yeah, let’s do that. I want to try it.”
“Good choice.” I shoot a look at the server and he
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