She always took me in after hours.

I didn’t even flinch as she ripped the tape off my eyebrow.

I was used to it.

I’d spent a lot of my time sitting in this very chair, trying to look perfect for some performance.

“It felt good. Really good,” I confessed. “Other than you, I missed absolutely nothing about my life here.”

“That’s because this life doesn’t fit you anymore, Anna. I don’t think it ever really did,” she observed as she carefully waxed my other eyebrow. “You’ve just gone with the flow, but can you really say you’ve ever been happy? You’ve been all over the world, but you haven’t really seen those countries because you’re on to the next show. Sometimes you hibernate for weeks at your house because you have to write music. There’s no joy in your life, baby girl. I’ve been worried about you for a long time. I wasn’t really surprised when you had that meltdown. I think your parents were the only ones who really cared about you, other than me. All of the other people who surround you sometimes are bloodsuckers. They suck the life out of you.”

“I miss my mom and dad,” I said wistfully. “I think I always will. I went to their gravesites as soon as I got to Montana. It was really hard for me to leave, just like it was hard for me to leave them after the burial.”

My parents had been buried outside of Bozeman in our hometown because that was what they’d wanted.

I’d felt compelled to get back to that cemetery as soon as I’d stepped into Montana.

“It was hard because you didn’t really have a place to go grieve,” Kim said gently.

“It’s still hard,” I told her honestly. “I think I’ll ask Kaleb if he minds if I stop in Bozeman once in a while if I’m going back to Montana in his jet. I felt a little more at peace there. God, I really hate not knowing who killed them. It eats me alive knowing that nobody is being held accountable for murdering them. They both deserve some kind of justice.”

I’d already caught Kim up on the situation with the shell company and my suspicions that it was somehow involved in their murder.

“No news yet?” she asked.

“Nothing,” I said with a sigh.

I hadn’t heard from the feds about the shell company or the police about my parents’ murders.

I’d been more patient when I was with Kaleb, but now that I was back in California where the murders had taken place, all I could think about was the fact that their murderer was running free. Probably right here in Southern California.

“I’m sorry, Anna. I know it would help if you had some kind of resolution.”

I watched as Kim finished up on my eyebrows.

“I might never get one,” I said. “And I’m going to have to learn to live with that if the murders are never solved. I still can’t shake the feeling that all of this has something to do with that bad investment. It makes sense when nothing else does. Maybe my dad figured out what was going on, and my parents were killed to keep them silent.”

“Just be careful, okay?” she said, her expression concerned. “Everyone knows you’re home for the awards show.”

“I can’t be anything but careful,” I assured her. “Kaleb makes sure that I’m picked up and dropped off anytime I leave my house. And he has his security team following me everywhere I go.”

“You know, I really do like him,” she said teasingly. “He always has your back, even when he’s physically not here.”

I hadn’t argued with Kaleb about the security.

I actually felt better knowing they were around.

They were unintrusive, following me at a distance, but I felt safer knowing they were out there.

I had a gut feeling that my parents’ murderer was still in California, and it made me a little edgy sometimes.

“He worries because he’s not with me,” I told her.

“Then I like him even more. What are you going to do about the distance between you two?”

“I’ll go back to Montana as often as I can,” I informed her. “And he’ll come here when he can.”

“You could move there and keep your place here,” she suggested. “People in the business do it all the time. If you don’t tour, you could be in Montana a lot. Write music, record, and just come here when you have to be here.”