The Visitor: Alien Hunger Special Edition by Kaitlyn O'Connor Read Free Book Online

believe that. She couldn’t
move on with her life. She didn’t want to give up even if there was
just a slim chance she might yet salvage some kind of relationship
with her son.
    Because there sure as hell wasn’t any
future with Garryk!
    * * * *
    “ Hi. This is Garryk
Sinclair ….”
    “ Who? ”
    Garryk’s lips tightened. “Diablo?” he
said uncomfortably.
    “ Oh!”
    “ I’m trying to reach Marla
Parks.”
    There was hesitation on the line. “Was
there a mistake in the payment?”
    This time Garryk hesitated. “Actually,
there was, but that isn’t what I was calling about. You overpaid me
by a hundred.”
    “ Oh! No! That was a
tip.”
    Garryk wrestled with his temper for a
moment. “If that was for the private lap dance—it wasn’t
necessary.”
    “ Oh? Why is
that?”
    “ Look … forget it. The
reason I called is because I lost your sister’s phone number and I
was wondering if I could get it from you.”
    There was a long pause and he’d begun
to think she’d hung up. “She gave you her phone number?”
    Garryk felt his face heating, but only
part of it was due to his rise in temper. “You’ve got a problem
with that?”
    “ Not if she actually gave
it to you.”
    Which she didn’t fucking believe for a
minute! He could tell that just by her voice. If he hadn’t wanted
it so badly he would’ve hung up himself. A check of the phone book
had turned up empty, though. Unless she’d changed her name …. “She
gave it to me,” he replied tightly, maintaining his lie with grim
determination.
    “ I’ll tell you what. I’ll
check with her and it she’s ok with it, I’ll call you back and give
it to you. What’s your number?”
    Garryk ground his teeth. “Forget it!”
he snapped and hung up. He slammed his fist into the wall next to
the payphone in frustration. Disconcerted when the wood panel
cracked, he glanced around to see if anybody had observed him and
strode away from the phone.
    “ You’re up next, Diablo!
You need to hump it!”
    Lifting a hand in acknowledgement,
Garryk kept going until he reached the dressing room. It took
longer to oil up and apply the grease paint they used to keep their
faces from looking like a blank white mask in the harsh glare of
the spotlights than it did to change into his costume. Carrying the
mask since the son-of-a-bitch was hot and made him sweat profusely,
he took his place just off stage to wait for the performer before
him to finish.
    He was still royally pissed off,
though, and he didn’t make any attempt to peer through the curtains
to check the crowd to see if they had a good showing for the night
like he usually did. He’d been kicking himself ever since the
disaster with Chelsey—It was hard to look at it any other way
despite the fact that he’d gotten exactly what he wanted when it
seemed like it had ended up costing him way more than he’d wanted
or expected.
    He’d tried to convince himself it
wasn’t a total disaster. He’d just give her a few days to stew over
it and patch things up, but it didn’t look like that was going to
fucking happen when he didn’t know where she lived and he couldn’t
get his hands on her phone number.
    He was so deep in thought that he
almost missed his cue. Pushing his thoughts to the back of his
mind, he snapped the mask in place and double timed it onto the
stage to catch his next cue. The glaring spotlights made it
impossible to catch more than a glimpse of the audience from time
to time, but he’d ceased to either worry about the crowd or play to
them long ago.
    Just as he was finishing up his grand
finale, however, he caught a glimpse of a woman near the back of
the club that damned near made him trip over his own feet. He
caught himself with an effort and, he thought, carried it off well
enough, but he was rattled enough he hesitated longer to clear the
stage than he should have. The dancer poised to go on behind him
glared at him when he’d finally collected his clothes