She’d liked being a redhead. And damn, if her hair was already brittle as hell, this wasn’t going to help—
Oh, look, it came with a conditioner. Sweet.
She laid out the squeeze bottle full of creamy shit, the tin tube of color, and the squat thing of postblond goo. Reading the directions took a little time, because she’d always sucked at the whole letter/word stuff, but this wasn’t rocket science.
Through the open doorway, she saw that the client had sat down in that far corner, his boots planted widely apart, his hands resting on his knees instead of at his groin. Not much showed of him, the light from above reaching up only so far on his legs. Better that way—made him more anonymous.
Funny, she hadn’t remembered these rooms being this dark.
Getting back to business, she punctured the top of the tube with the plastic cap, squeezed the stinky crap into the bottle with the pointy top, and then shook the mixture like she was giving someone a hand job. The plastic gloves were on the back of the directions, and she pushed her hands into them. Thank God they were big, because there was room at the top for her fake nails.
She hit the side part without a glitch, but tangles in the ends made it impossible to get the shit down the length. Getting a brush from her bag, she ripped through from root to split end until she could do the whole job; then made quick work of covering everything that came out of her skull.
The stuff smelled like air freshener and chemical glue, and had the consistency of cum.
Was that what turned this guy on?
Men were such pigs.
During processing time, as her scalp heated up and her nose itched, she texted people about the freak job she was on. No reason to talk to the client—he was still just sitting there, making like a statue.
Thirty-five minutes later she stepped into the shower with a bottle of shampoo that had been left on the counter. The stuff had been half-used by someone else, but there was enough to get things rinsing clean. The warm water felt good, and the conditioner smelled so much better than the bleach.
When she got out, her hair was the color of movie popcorn, all that golden yellow making her white-ass skin glow green. Putting her slut clothes back on didn’t help her image much.
Unhitching the hair dryer, she pivoted on her bare feet. “You ready for this?”
The man rose from the chair and came over, stepping into the light. He was good-looking enough, but for some reason, she wanted to give him the money back and leave. Fast.
“I’m going to take things from here,” he told her, snagging the dryer and brush from her.
The noise from the hot air roared in her ears as he began to slowly stroke the bristles through her hair. Steady. Sure. As if he’d done this before.
Freak.
When everything was dry and smooth, he clicked the Conair off and put it on the counter beside her.
Meeting her eyes in the mirror, the man just stared at her.
She cleared her throat. “I have to go—”
His face wasn’t right all of a sudden, the features seeming to change into….
She opened her mouth and dragged in her last breath to scream just as a blade lifted behind her head.
With a quick slash across her throat, the monster opened a different exhalation route for the air in her lungs, the release not making it high enough to become a cry for help.
Her final image was of a dead, animated corpse that was smiling in the midst of its rotting flesh.
“Party time,” a female voice said.
15
Suicide.
As Matthias stewed on the word, a man the size of a bus came into the garage’s studio apartment, his black jacket, gloves, and leathers making him look like a Hell’s Angel. That harsh expression fit the job description, too—and all those piercings didn’t mark him as a pu**y, either.
Jim made the introductions, classifying Matthias as “a friend,” and the leather-wearing roomie as “Adrian.”
Suicide.
Trying on the concept for size, Matthias found it fit, and waited for more to come to him: a context, a place, a triggering reason. Nothing bubbled up, even as he strained against the constipation in his head—
With sudden clarity, he looked over at Heron. “The desert.”
The man with the answers stopped talking to his roommate and nodded. “Yeah. That’s where it happened.”
“And you were right there.” As Heron nodded again, Matthias’s frustration roared. “How the f**k do we know each other—”
Any answer was cut off by the sound of a car pulling up in front of the garage. Instantly, guns were outted, and Matthias joined the party, snagging the one off the table.
God…it felt so good against his palm. So natural.
Matthias shoved himself around and played dog, looking through the drapes. As soon as he saw what was in the driveway, he eased back with a groan. “Son of a bitch.”
“You know her?” Jim asked from over at the window in the door.
Turning around again, he watched as Mels got out of the Toyota and focused on the Harley. It wasn’t a shocker that she’d found the goddamn address; if he’d done it, she could. But he couldn’t believe she’d followed through. He’d hit her with the hard reality before they’d split, and most people would have dropped out of the drama right then and there.
I’m a black belt, licensed to carry a concealed hand weapon, and I never go anywhere without a good knife.
“Let me handle this,” he said, going over to the door and pushing Jim out of the way—even though the other man outweighed him by as much as a hatchback. “And let me make this perfectly clear—no one touches her. Do you both understand that. No one.”
He was physically compromised in some ways, but it didn’t take a lot of strength to pull a f**king trigger. And if anybody got too close to that lovely woman down there, he would hunt them down and kill them if it was the last thing he did on earth.
In the heavy silence, two pairs of brows went sky-high, but neither of the men argued with him.
Good thinking, boys.
The instant Matthias stepped out onto the top landing, Mels’s head shot up.
Putting her hands on her hips, she somehow confronted him eye-to-eye, even though she was at ground level. “Surprise, surprise.”
Keeping the gun way out of sight, he said, “You need to go.”
She nodded at the motorcycle. “A dead man’s ride?”
“Of course not.”
Frowning, she abruptly crossed over the gravel and picked up what looked like one of the cobblestones. Except it caught the sunlight and sent out a flash, suggesting it was metal.