The Tease (The Darling Killer Trilogy) by Nikki M. Pill Read Free Book Online Page A

mine without crushing them.
    I escaped through the front doors and breathed deeply, the crisp autumn air filling my lungs. I headed around the back, the sound of my suitcase wheels on cement filling the open space. As I got to my car, I reached into my overcoat pocket for my keys, but they weren’t there, so I lifted my arm to check my purse… which I had left on a chair in the dressing room.
    I swore and turned back to the building, plastic wheels of the suitcase continuing their low grade rattle over the asphalt. I must have had a particularly black look on my face, because Grant was visibly taken aback when I almost bowled him over at the edge of the lot.
    “Hey,” he said, catching me when I stumbled. His hair was always adorably disheveled after he changed back into his street clothes, wisps from the ponytail falling into his dark eyes. “Where’s the fire?”
    “I forgot my damn purse,” I said. “I was just heading backstage to get it.”
    “Let me get these for you then,” he said, taking my hanging bag and suitcase from me. He slung the hanging bag over the shoulder with his beat-up, grey duffle bag on it. I protested, and he said, “Really, it’s no trouble.”
    “Thanks,” I said, and we headed back towards the building.
    “What’s up?” he asked.
    I didn’t want to get into the whole thing about Max. “Nothing,” I said. “Just tired. And Tish introduced me to someone as her single friend. I could’ve killed her.”
    “Awkward,” he said. “Did he hit on you?”
    “I don’t think so,” I said.
    He laughed. “Don’t you study human behavior for a living?”
    “There’s a reason people need an objective listener,” I said. “I suck at clinical detachment with my own life.”
    “That’s a good thing, right?” he said. He opened the back door and held it for me. “I’ll make it easy for you. If a guy is not gay, he’s attracted to you.”
    My pulse sped up a little. I wanted a glass of wine and a pint of ice cream. “Some guys are happily married,” I pointed out.
    “Yes,” he agreed, looking at me out the corner of his eye. “And if they have manners, they won’t actually hit on you. But they’ll notice you.”
    He set our bags in the wings near the staircase and walked upstairs to the dressing room. As we neared the door, I drew in a breath to ask him point-blank,
And you?
Because even though I wasn’t ready, the tension was killing me. And he was nice. Wasn’t nice good? Maybe meeting Kevin proved that the circumstances are never just right.
    But the show.
    I don’t date colleagues. He could play piano well, and my God, could he sing. Maybe we could be one of those power couples like Franky Vivid and Michelle L’Amour. I thought again of the bliss and ease on Lynne’s face. The way she held her husband’s arm and snuggled in to his side made loneliness blossom in my chest like some kind of metastatic nightshade.
    As bad as that loneliness felt, it was worse when I lay in bed with Josh’s arm encircling my waist, watching the red numbers on my clock mark the steady progression of my anguish. I was afraid to move, almost afraid to breathe, as if any motion would tip the fragile balance into more tears and accusations.
Why are you holding me after what you said? What does this mean?
    I couldn’t do it again.
    Grant opened the door and reached in for the light switch. I looked away from him as light flooded the room, and the breath I’d drawn in left me in a rush when I saw Lisa crumpled on the floor. I ran to her side and listened for her breath, but I couldn’t hear, and then heard my own voice calling, “Lisa? Lisa?”
    “I’ll get help,” Grant said, and ran down the hall.
    Help for who?
I wondered. Her tangled red hair pooled around her face, false dark eyelashes curling against her white cheeks, sparkly red lipstick garish around the nylon stocking stuffed into her mouth. She wore only her red merrywidow, lace panties, bow necklace, and heels. Her