I’d been home almost two weeks now, yet none of Doc Rosen’s ‘therapeutic’ suggestions had helped. Renovating the house. Burying myself in work. All were creative ways to pass the day, but the nightmare ruled my dreams.

Geographically speaking, I was free, but I still thought like a con. Still felt like a caged animal. Something told me that to survive this alien place, I’d have to define stuff in terms of Gainstown. Nothing made sense outside of it.

I swung my legs over the side of the mattress and rested my head against my palms. Damn if I didn’t miss my cell, the concrete walls, the iron bars, and the heat-packing guards who prowled the catwalks. I felt like a total girl for all the missing I was doing. Had twelve years of being told when to take a leak turned me into a pussy?

Amber stirred. “Bad dream again?”

I nodded as her bare nipples brushed my back. She rescued the covers, and once she’d reassembled everything, she drew me down to lie with her. Foreign sounds drifted in from outside: snow shovels scraped the sidewalks. Engines turned over. Car doors slammed while the neighborhood canine chorus performed their early morning barkathon.

“You’ve been stressed out all week, shug.”

I wiggled a brow. “Well, I can think of a way you could take the edge off.”

“Oh, really?”

“Uh-huh.”

Amber grinned and slipped her hand over my cock. Wasn’t long before I was spike hard and ready for business.

I reached for a rubber, then scowled. “Shit. The box is empty.” I gave her a hopeful look. “I could pull out.”

She shook her head.

“Aw, come on, you know I’m clean.” I sat up. “Don’t you have any more of those sponge things?”

“Nope.”

Desperation set in. “Well, you’re on the pill right?”

“Not anymore. They made my ass spread.”

I barked a laugh and collapsed on the bed. “Well, damn.”

“All’s not lost.” With a sly curve of her lips, she lifted a brow and drew a teasing circle over my chest. “How about I kiss it and make it better?”

The alarm clock buzzed rude and loud. “Crap.” I slapped at it blindly. “There’s no time. I forgot I have to be in New Dyer in less than an hour.”

Amber rose on an elbow and frowned. “At The Slam Dunk? I thought Cholly had you working at his daddy’s garage?”

“I still am, but we switched things up. I’ll be back there next week once the Porsches come in. I’m restoring them. Think one’s a Speedster.” I pushed to my feet, flipped the light on and started rummaging around the room. “In the meantime, he’s driving Wynter back to school this morning, so he’s got me painting and hanging drywall at the club.”

“Wynter?”

“His baby sister. She goes to Howard. Anyway, we’re expecting a big delivery. I gotta be there to sign for it.”

Still wearing the blush of sleep on her tall and very naked body, Amber slipped from the bed and stretched. She scrubbed a manicured hand through her bed head, disappeared into the closet, and emerged wrapped in a frilly blue robe.

“Hey, shug, is this yours?” A lacy white square stained with blood dangled from her fingertips. “I found it when I was washing clothes last week. The initials say S.M.B.”

Shannon Marie Bradford. It was the hanky she’d given me in the limo, a hanky that had accidentally landed in my pillowcase. Since then, I’d taken a few whiffs of the faint scent that still lingered on it—accidentally, of course.

“Uh, that’s nothin’.” I snatched the thing, shoved it in a drawer. “Just an old rag.”

Amber’s lips pinched. “An embroidered ‘old rag’ smelling of Poison? That’s the name of the perfume, in case you’re curious.”

Heat climbed my neck. Before it could reach my face, I shrugged and escaped down the hallway to the bathroom.

SHANNON

____________________________

Nothing could have prepared me for Darien’s fax. A week had already passed, and I was still at a loss for words.

The day I’d gotten it, I scoured the first page and barely stomached the second. Reading the rest was sheer torture. After obsessing for days, I finally found the courage to show it to Trace. I just prayed I’d find him in a reasonable mood.

The sky had turned a wicked shade of gray once I got to Temptation. I purposely parked two blocks from Fontana Exxon. Last thing I needed was for someone to see my car outside Trace’s job. Darien’s words hadn’t fallen on deaf ears. He was right. Tongues were still flapping. I’d be darned before I’d give anyone more ammunition.

I threw my hood on, tugging it over my brow. I had to do something, what, with my own face towering over me a block away. No matter how many times I saw those billboards, I’d never get used to them.

The car alarm’s chirp bounced off the ugly fleet of concrete buildings that dotted this busy road. Even the halfhearted Christmas ornaments decorating some of the storefronts couldn’t lift the gloom. Temptation needed a serious face-lift.

I covered the two blocks in record speed, and like a diamond on a gnarled finger, the newly renovated gas station stood out in relief against the dreary backdrop. Twin mounds of black snow walled both sides of the pavement, which lay smothered in dirty slush. Flicking a wary glance over my shoulder, I gathered my coat and trudged up the crudely shoveled footpath to the entrance.

Frost and Christmas garland bordered the building’s storefront window, and inside, behind a long, slate-colored counter, Cholly Fontana sat with two other men, their backs to me. They all wore matching gray shirts with Fontana Exxon written in bold script on the back.

Their attention was riveted on a TV they’d set atop a file cabinet. The wadded tin foil crowning its makeshift antenna didn’t help the basketball game’s grainy picture.

Christmas lights framed the two-way mirror that centered the cinder block wall to their right. Photos and certificates lined the other walls. A cracked flat screen TV peeked out from a box in the corner.

Cologne, burned coffee, and prehistoric BO were just a few of the odors that assaulted my nose upon entering. I stomped the sleet from my boots, but the noise, along with the clang of the jingle bells against the glass door, didn’t rouse the men. They were too busy yelling at the TV.

I tugged off my hood and cleared my throat. Nothing. Who could hear with all that racket? Rap music, a blasphemous tune featuring a chorus of ‘Hail Mary’ complete with an assorted collection of swear words, blared from the sound system.

Face burning, I stepped up to the counter and tapped my keys on the Formica, but the chaotic din drowned me out.

This time I raised my voice. “Excuse me.”

Three sets of eyes swung my way. The blonde, stringy-haired man on Cholly’s left gave me a lecherous smile that revealed a yellow corncob of misshapen or otherwise, missing teeth. The one seated next to him with the red Mohawk and skin that resembled a sausage pizza, let out a wet-sounding belch.

It took all my strength to keep my lunch down.

My eyes widened when Trace’s best friend uncoiled from his chair. At six-foot-six, Cholly Fontana looked like a formidable giant. His short afro was cut into a fade on both sides of his head. Butterscotch-colored arms that had scored many a three-pointer were covered in tattoos. He was quite handsome, despite his trademark scowl. He’d played for the Washington Wizards until a tragic knee injury ended his career a few years back.

The hostile ex-ballplayer and his aftershave approached the counter, but I’d smelled him ten feet ago. Using my brilliant powers of deduction, I determined the BO wasn’t Cholly’s. His cohorts were the proud owners. Not that it mattered. Cholly’s cologne, plus the stench from his pals, equaled nausea.

He stabbed a button on the wall and the music stopped. Then he plopped a king-sized forearm on the counter and glared down at me as if I were a succubus from hell. “Yeah?”