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Chapter 1 VIOLET
FRIDAYS! WORST DAY of the week for me.
I worked as a band booker for Trouble, the hottest rock club in town. Every other day of the week, I loved my job. But not Fridays.
On Fridays, I had to get the gig listings and advertising copy to the music press before the lunchtime deadline. That meant a whole load of paperwork and coming into the club at the crack of dawn so I could get all that paperwork done. Every week I planned to do it early. Every week it never happened.
Instead, I left the club at some ungodly hour on Thursday nights, grabbed a few hours’ sleep then rushed back in Friday mornings, all blurry-eyed and grumpy.
Just a few hours, Violet, I told myself. Just a few hours then you can nap on the sofa.
I took a big gulp of the coffee in my hand before getting the key out of my bag. I needed to steel myself. At any other time, the club buzzed but, in the early morning, there was nothing but stale beer smells, coldness and the thought of something lurking in the shadows.
That stale beer smell hit me full force as the door opened, as familiar as life itself.
The downstairs part of the club was a regular bar. Bands played upstairs.
The windows facing the street had been painted over. No one wanted a night of drinking ruined by the first rays of dawn. Some punters had scratched their initials in the paint, though, and slivers of light criss-crossed the manky carpet.
I had a ritual every time I entered this place alone: flick on the lights, lock the door, tiptoe-run through the empty barroom. In my head, I sang a song to stop myself thinking about how the booths in the corner might shelter vagrants or that some intruder might pop up from behind the bar.
Slipping through the “staff only” door behind the bar, I faced a whole pile of other dangers. The weekend stock came in on Thursdays but no one had time to put stuff away. That meant finding my way through precariously stacked booze cartons.
Those cartons blocked the stairs lead up to the band room, my secret stairs so I could get up to the band room without having to squash my way through a packed crowd. I kept telling the bar staff not to let them load stuff there but they always forgot. Once again, I’d have to haul those cartons somewhere else before
The cool room rumbled. That place scared the bejesus out of me, even more than the deserted bar. Maybe I'd seen one too many movies about people being locked in cool rooms. I never went in there and tried to ignore its existence.
Glass crunched, like someone walking over it. I froze, heart pounding. My coffee fell from my hands.
The cold room? Someone had broken in?
Shit.
Some punk kids trying to steal the booze or a homeless person wanting shelter?
If they wanted the booze, they could take it. No way would I put my life on the line to protect it.
But what if they didn’t know that? What if they thought I’d try to stop them?
I fished in my pocket for my phone. If I made a call, the intruder would hear me but I could text.
My heart raced so fast, fingers wouldn’t work.
The door of the cool room slowly swung open. Running seemed the safest option but my legs couldn’t move. Not even the short distance to my office.
I had nothing to use as a weapon. I swung around, looking. The broom? Where’d it gone?
Then Drew walked out of the cool room. Drew, the bus boy hadn’t worked at the club long. Nice kid but such a screw-up.
“Hey, Violet,” he said with a lopsided grin.
I exhaled. “Drew, you dumbass.”
He gazed at me through the hair covering his face, clueless about why I’d be so jumpy.
“You scared the shit out of me and made me drop my coffee.” I bend down to pick it up, hoping the lid had protected it from spilling completely. “What are you doing in here so early?”
Drew gulped. “You know that expensive imported beer that no one orders? Well, when I was cleaning up last night, I somehow smashed a case of it.”
“And?”
Drew smashing stuff wasn’t exactly news. He reddened and looked away but I didn’t care enough about the beer stock to lecture him about it.
“I bought some more to replace it.”
“Drew! That stuff costs a fortune. Why didn’t you just tell Chuck?”
Even though I asked, I knew exactly why Drew hadn’t told Chuck. Chuck owned the club and was the biggest prick boss to ever draw breath. Chucklehead we called him. Everyone who worked at Trouble hated Chuck, and Chuck had already threatened to sack Drew twice this week.
