Page 208 of Murder

By the time I glance back up, the girl has whirled around, the knot of her work apron riding up her mid-back, revealing a dancing Grateful Dead bear tattoo.

As I set my items on the Breckenridge General Store’s counter, she cups her hands around her mouth and bellows, “Come here, Silas! Jessica from End of Day is here, and she’s buying one of your dad’s gardenias!”

I hear the smack of shoes on the cement floor, then a high school guy steps out from between two aisles. He’s tall, with white-blond Justin Bieber hair. He sticks his hands in his pockets as my eyes roll up and down him, keeping his gaze on his sneakers, his face cool, while the brown-eyed, brunette cashier cuts her eyes at him. When he comes to a stop beside the nearest magazine display and doesn’t fall down at my feet, she gives him an incredulous look. “Seriously, Silas? You’re the biggest fan. Can you believe she’s fucking here?”

Never meeting my eyes, he gives her a sideways smile and murmurs, “No.”

I’m betting this boy has my Abercrombie pool party stuff, or my Burberry nothing-under-the-jacket campaign bookmarked in his spank bank. Which means it’s time to change the subject before we all end up embarrassed.

“Your dad grows the gardenias you guys sell?” I ask him, hoping to put everyone at ease, as well as steer the subject away from the movie. I’m a singer, not an actress—although I am proud of the movie.

The guy nods and finally, he looks me in the eyes.

“It’s a kind of insanity,” he says, revealing a retainer than makes his voice sound—well, like he’s got something in his mouth. “They won’t survive for long in someone’s yard. So they’re just house plants up here.”

I hover a fingertip over one of the satiny white leaves, mostly so I can break the stare he’s aiming at me like a laser beam.

“It’s probably insanity to buy one when it’s snowing this hard. I’m not even staying at my own place.” I smile at them before I realize my publicist would smack my mouth for giving details.

“Jessica,” the girl squeals, jumping up and down.

I tug Mr. Madison’s big black jacket down around my ankles before reaching in his huge pocket to grab my wallet out.

“That’s…not me,” I murmur, joking.

“God, she’s famous,” the girl says to the boy, scanning my four-roll pack of toilet paper. I pass her the plant.

“You’re a model too,” the boys says, “right?”

I struggle to suppress a cringe. “Yep. But really I’m a singer.”

“A singer?” the girl says.

I nod. “I have a record deal. My sound is somewhere between teenage Taylor Swift and old-school country. With a kind of bluesy undertone. Singing is my true passion.”

“Damn,” the boy says as the girl takes my cash. “You’re multi-talented.”

Heat tingles on my cheeks. Clearly, I’m 12.

The girl starts belting out a Taylor Swift song I recognize while the boy shuffles his feet. Thank God, I’m out of there not long after.

I step outside onto the cement walkway and am pummeled by fat snowflakes.

“Christ…”

I cross myself for taking the Lord’s name in vain—a habit I picked up from Elvie—then cast my eyes to my boots and shuffle carefully toward the SUV.

Which doesn’t crank.

Like, seriously. This thing will not crank.

“DAMMIT.”

Just my motherloving luck.

I set the gardenia in the passenger’s seat and try again a few times. Nothing.

“Ughh.”

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