Excerpt

Then she was in a car, leaning against a side door, and cold air blew on her face. She opened her eyes. The man was going through her purse. She grabbed for it, and he pulled it out of her reach.

“I only have five dollars!”

“Just finding out where you live, sweet face. I asked, and you couldn’t seem to tell me.” He pulled out her driver’s license and held it under the dome light, which shone on his shaved head. He had a short beard and a mustache. “Kylie Ann Willis. Lansing, Michigan. Twenty-one years old. Not bad. I should have had one like this back in the day. Looks almost real.”

“It is real!”

“With that cracker accent, no way you’re from Michigan. How old are you, kid? Are you even eighteen?”

“Yes!”

He shoved the license back into her purse and tossed it to her lap. “I doubt that. Your folks know where you are?”

“Of course. I ... I’m a student at the University of Miami.”

“Yeah? Studying what, nuclear physics?”

She closed her eyes. The seat was so soft.

“Wake up.” He patted her cheek. “Where am I taking you? If you can’t remember, I’ll have to drop you at the Miami Beach Police station and let them figure it out.”

She forced her eyes open, forced them to bring the two images of his face together. She moistened her lips. “Twenny-six, east of Biscayne. Windmere Apartments.”

“Windmill?”

“Wind ... mere.”

“Good. Have you there in ten minutes.”

They passed a long line of cars from the party, huge houses with gates, then the guard house at the entrance. The striped arm went up, down. They went over a short bridge and took a right on the MacArthur Causeway. The streetlights came faster and faster.

She moaned a little.

“Are you all right?”

“Uh-huh.”

Downtown Miami. Lights going in and out of the car. The man held a cigarette, its end glowing orange. He blew smoke toward the window, which was open a few inches. He was a big man with big hands and a heavy stainless-steel watch on his thick wrist. He had taken off his suit jacket and rolled up his cuffs.

He glanced over at her. “So. Kylie. You’re a friend of Alana’s.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Good friend?”

“I thought so. She dumped me. She went off to see somebody and didn’t come back.”

“Like who?”

“Somebody, I dunno.”

“You and Alana hang out together?”

“I guess. She’s my best friend. A model. I’m going to be a model too.”

“How long have you girls known each other?”

“Since...” Kylie frowned. “After I got here.”

“When was that?”

“March?”

“What’d you do, come down from Cornpone, Alabama, for spring break and decide you liked South Beach?”

“I do like it. I like it a lot.”

She closed her eyes against the streetlights that were coming too fast, turning into strobe lights, and in the darkness she began to spin backward. She dug her fingers into the seat and held on.

Reprinted with permission by Vanguard Press © 2008