Vintage Volume One Read Online Free PDF Page B

to stop for a second.”
    “Can I get you directions somewhere?” He was young and earnest and kind.
    “No, but thank you.”
    He nodded. “G’night, ma’am. Drive safe.”
    He walked back into the building, and I chalked up one point in the Hilton column as I drove toward home.
    My eyes were glued to my mirror for any sign of someone following me, but I was safe.
    For now, at least.
    I finally pulled in front of the building housing the condo where I lived in Beverly Hills, a three million dollar gift from dear old Dad. My heart rate was mostly back to normal and I was mostly over the fear that had engulfed me.
    My thoughts shifted to my condo. Part of me was tired of relying on my dad to provide for me. It led to an existence of little appreciation for hard work. Maybe that was why I loved my job at Vintage. It made me feel like a regular person instead of the rich princess I was raised to be.
    The daughter of a rock god wasn’t the only label that defined me.
    And that was why I couldn’t face Parker. I couldn’t get involved with a musician. I couldn’t move from the princess of rock to the girlfriend of rock.
    It wasn’t me.
    I tossed my keys on my kitchen table, noting the smooth surface. This kitchen table was a far cry from the one in the break room. This one didn’t remind me of Vintage, but it did bring up memories of my ex. And Katie.
    Katie had left me first, but she’d left me in a much different way than Damien had.
    It all added up to the same thing, though. I was the common denominator. Anyone who got too close eventually left me, and I couldn’t take any more loss in my life.
     

six
     
    I woke up in a cold sweat, my heart pounding in my chest.
    It had been weeks since my last nightmare. I hadn’t realized how important a full night’s sleep uninterrupted by nightmares was until I had another nightmare.
    Sleeping had been the one time when I couldn’t block out my emotions.
    Sometimes my dreams were terrifying, and other times they weren’t. But they were always vivid.
    When I was awake, I could consciously block out emotions. But when I was asleep, that was a different story. I couldn’t control what my subconscious wanted me to feel.
    And apparently that night, my subconscious wanted me to feel fear.
    Panic.
    Devastating grief.
    I sat up in bed, panting. These were the moments when I hated living alone.
    Images of the crime scene were burned into my memory.
    It was a dark memory that would never fully leave me. It was the most painful loss of my life, and watching her parents break down when the police informed them of the tragic news was something that would haunt me for the rest of my life.
    Katie and I had been best friends since I was born. She was four years older than me, the daughter of Mikey Reynolds, drummer of Black Shadow and my dad’s best friend. We were raised together, but the difference was that Katie’s mom stuck around. Katie’s mom, Fern, and Mikey were married at the young age of eighteen, and they had Katie when Fern turned nineteen. I had always envied the relationship they shared.
    Fern treated me like a second daughter. She loved me, and I loved having someone to turn to as a mother figure since my own was essentially nonexistent. But it wasn’t the same.
    But when Katie was murdered, Fern couldn’t take the loss. She divorced Mikey, and the last I heard, she’d holed up with some banker in Florida and bought a bunch of cats. She was never the same.
    It had been a brutal crime scene, one that still haunted my dreams.
    In fact, the images of the crime scene were so burned into my mind that I had started experiencing insomnia shortly afterward.
    It was the pictures of the crime scene that burned in my memory. Photo after photo shown during the trial replayed in my head and maybe always would.
    My doctor prescribed sleeping pills and told me to write my feelings in a journal or diary.
    So it was either stay awake all night or wake up from a nightmare.
    The