The Purest Hook (Second Circle Tattoos #3)(18)
She’d quieted immediately, sitting still like a good girl. He’d walked around the stool and used the scarf to tie her hands behind her back.
Pixie shook off the memory and tried to focus on the heavy weight of the basket in her hands, Lia’s distracted chattering, the colorful spools of cotton. But nothing seemed to pull her back from the whirlpool of memories that bombarded her. Like how badly she’d needed to pee, and how uncomfortable the sensation of snot and tears running down her face had been.
She’d felt an odd sense of relief when Arnie had headed to the bathroom and returned with toilet paper. He’d gently cleaned up her face and walked to the kitchen to dispose of the tissue. Even now it struck her as odd to worry about such a small piece of garbage when four days of dishes had been piled up next to the sink, flies buzzing around them in the stifling Florida heat.
Pixie looked back down at the fabric.
“Pix . . .” Lia walked toward her, the floor in the old store creaking underfoot, the sound reminiscent of the trailer when he would walk toward her. Her stomach flipped, as ghostly fingers from the past stroked along her jaw line, and she recalled shouting to her mom, still unconscious. Wake up. Please, Mommy, wake up.
But she hadn’t. Not when she screamed, and not when his clammy fingers trailed to the top of the button-down sundress her mom had saved her tips in the diner for.
“Let’s see what you’ve been hiding under here.”
“You okay, Pix?” Lia’s voice brought her back to the present.
Pixie put the fabric down on the cutting table. “Sorry, still feel a little sick,” she said, coughing at the end for effect.
They checked out, then stopped at the grocery store on the way home, Lia insistent on cooking dinner for them both, which meant picking up a precooked chicken and readymade side salads. Doing something so normal chased away the chill of seeing the fabric. And it was impossible to stay down around Lia.
“Remember how the oven had never been used when I moved in?” Pixie asked Lia while they were in line to pay for the groceries.
Lia chuckled. “I used it to store my bananas. In my very first apartment, before Grannie helped me out with the condo, I kept my sweaters in my oven through the summer. Extra storage.”
They took a step closer to the checkout counter. Pixie glanced at the display, trying to find her favorite interior design magazine. Her eyes moved over the trash mags. Who read that shit? There was no way Elvis was alive and living in Ohio. The next headline stood out.
DRED ZANDER’S MIAMI VICE
Grainy as the photo was, it was still clear that Dred was grabbing a woman’s ass, pulling her tight against him in a kiss guaranteed to drive any woman wild.
Pixie’s hand shook as she opened the magazine.
It is alleged that the woman is an associate of Zander’s fellow reality show judge, Trent Andrews.
She wasn’t exactly hiding from her past. Not like Harper had. This time she had been the assailant, not the victim, no matter how many times her sponsor told her she wasn’t. But regardless of which title she went with, the facts remained the same. She’d killed a man. The thought made her head spin, as she read more of the article. The bright grocery store lights compounded the headache that was brewing. Reconnecting with anybody from her past was a bad idea, yet the article gave away enough information to make that possible. Her stepdad was equally at fault for the events that night and hopefully the totally f*cked-up way it all went down would stop him ever going to the police. She just didn’t want to ever have to deal with him again.
As Pixie glanced through the article one more time, her heart flipped. It didn’t reveal her name, but that meant nothing because as blurry as the photographs were, it was crystal clear that the purple-haired woman Dred Zander was taking on the ride of her life was her.
Chapter Five
Dred wandered to his corner of the basement recording studio where all the guitars were stored in three sections. His, Nikan’s, and Elliot’s. Jordan refused to own anything except the bass guitar Maisey had bought him. As a result, Dred had a stash of bass guitars in his section that he loaned to Jordan.
He placed his guitar on the bench he used for tuning, and systematically lowered the strings by one half step. E-flat tuning had been his preference for years. Easier on the fingers—not that he was a *—and if it was good enough for Slash, it was good enough for him.
He clicked the button on his laptop and got his reference note. In truth, he could find a key without, or he could use a clip-on tuner, but tuning was as natural to him as breathing. It also meant he didn’t have to think about why Pixie hadn’t got back to him.
They’d connected, he was sure of it. The kiss they’d shared at the concert had played over in his mind so many times as he laid in bed on Sunday morning, he’d jerked himself off to hot-as-hell thoughts of how good sex between them would be. And a vague idea was taking root, that perhaps this wasn’t purely about the chase, or burning up the sheets with a woman for a couple of nights of fun. But as much as that didn’t fit with his plans, the idea of backing off didn’t feel great either.
And there he was, thinking about her again. Tuning was mindless work he’d done a thousand times before, so it only took a few minutes to work his way across the strings.
The smell of coffee wafted down to the studio. Nikan was up then. Dred placed the guitar on its stand and wandered back up to the kitchen.