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But I just wanted to disfigure him the way he disfigured me. I wanted him to face a lifetime of feeling different, of feeling unpure, disgusting, and unlovable. I wanted him to know what it was like to have people stare at you, to have them wonder what had happened. I wanted him to be as lonely as I was. I wanted him to wear his ugliness on the outside, the way he had forced me to. As I told Gus, I wanted an eye for eye, his scars for mine.
And with all of that in mind, I eventually bit the bullet and made my way to Gulfport, the place where my parents and I had lived for a few years while they were trying to go legit. I drove past the casino where my dad had worked, the weed-strewn park where I used to play, the downtrodden neighborhood that had become my home. I pushed back the memories like a slideshow of someone else’s life and moved on through.
Eventually I found my way to the northern suburbs of Biloxi where the mansions and manicured yards mocked the refinery smoke and broken pieces that Hurricane Katrina had left behind. I spied Travis’s sprawling house, looking less sinister than the one I saw all those years ago. Gus had done a little digging for me and I was surprised when I found out that Travis still lived in the same place, the very one I had broken into, the one that held the basement where he caught me. I guess that said a lot about him—he was so cocky and sure of himself to hang onto a house where a child’s life was ruined that he’d never see me coming.
It was lucky that his house was right next to a gated community with lots of traffic coming in and out. I was able to park on the side of the road, a few palms blocking his view of my truck, and watch him through binoculars, completely unobserved.
For the first few days, I didn’t see much going on. Some people coming in and out of the house who looked like gardeners or housekeepers. It wasn’t until I slipped on a dark wig and a sun hat and went for a walk down the road, big sunglasses blocking my eyes, that I finally saw Travis.
He was leaving the house, striding confidently toward his Cayenne parked in the driveway. My memories had been wrong, distorting the truth until I remembered an emotion, not the reality. I had thought he was a short, gruesome monster with missing teeth and beady eyes, but the man I was watching, though I knew he was Travis, did not look like that at all. He looked like a regular, albeit handsome, rich man. He had shiny salt and pepper hair with a sharp widow’s peak, a thin face with discerning eyes, and a long and extremely lean build. A slight mustache made him remind me of actor David Niven—if David Niven had ever played a complete psychopath.
At first I froze to the spot, paralyzed with hatred and fear. If he had cared enough to glance in my direction toward the end of the driveway, I would have been seen. I was in disguise and there was no way he’d recognize me even without it, but I had to be as unmemorable as possible. Luckily he got into his car, while I gathered up my wits and kept walking, making myself promise to never be caught so emotionally compromised again. Just seeing him in the flesh, knowing he was so real, so alive, and doing so damn well for himself, made me feel like my guts were bleeding out on to the ground. If one glance was already unraveling me, how was I going to survive the long con?
After I saw him, I went back to the tiny apartment I had rented in Biloxi and drank myself into a coma, questioning if I was really cut out for this. But the answer, which I found somewhere in the fifth can of Miller Lite, was yes, I was. I’d come too far to give up. I had seen my mark today. And I had to get started on my other one.
The next day, I resumed my amateur stakeout, parking farther down the road and hiding out in the wild tangle of bushes that ran between the gated community and his house. I saw a few men pulling up to the house in a dark SUV. There were three of them, all obviously bad news. None of them seemed like someone I could even imagine seducing, but I knew that it didn’t matter in the long run. I thought about turning away and giving up my ghost, but I couldn’t do that either.
Finally, a few days later, I spotted the man with the haunting eyes. The man in the sharp linen suit, the mix of casual elegance. I saw him visit day in and day out, and when I saw him and Travis together, I knew he was someone with potential. Travis seemed both enamored and frightened of him. That’s all I needed to know.
So I started following that man, who drove off in his vintage Pontiac GTO, a car that only added to his burgeoning sex appeal. I followed him to his beautiful white house on the beach of Ocean Springs. I sat outside his house at night, wondering when I’d lost my mind. I sat outside his favorite coffee shop, wondering when I’d gather up the nerve.
And then one day, I did find the nerve. On that day, I met Javier.
CHAPTER FOUR
It took a good forty-eight hours of staring at Javier’s cream-colored business card before I decided to call him. In that forty-eight hours, I’d managed to throw up several times from stress, found a job down the street as a bartender (hey, Eden White is of legal age), and watched several porn movies on my computer. Yeah, I know, porn’s not exactly the best teacher of sexual skills, but I was going to have to get comfortable with the idea of sex and seduction somehow.
Actually, in a weird way the porn helped with my mindset. The actresses were fake to the teeth and faking everything. That was their job and it wasn’t any different from my job. I had a fake name and a fake life, and I was probably going to have to spread my legs for someone to get what I wanted. They wanted money and I wanted revenge, but our reasons didn’t matter, only what we had to do to get it.
Only I wasn’t going to be seducing just anyone. It was going to be Javier Bernal, a consultant for things that I could only imagine. Part of me was disgusted that I was trying to win over a man who might be hired to pour acid down other girls’ legs, a man who could make the cons I pulled look like child’s play. The other part of me was intrigued, excited and awash with newfound lust. When I watched a girl with fake tits getting done against the wall by some Spanish lothario, I touched myself, imagining I was doing the same with Javier. I’d only met the guy once and already he was getting under my skin, and in more ways than one.
I was just about to start my first shift at the bar, named Hogan’s Heroes for some strange reason, when I decided I was already nervous enough for that, so why not add to it. With twitching fingers I entered in his phone number and brought my cell to my ear.
It barely rang before it was snatched up.
“Hello.” His smooth voice came over the line.
I nearly choked on my nerves. “Hello, is this Javier?”
There was a pause. My heart thudded once.
“Yes. Is this Eden White?”
I couldn’t help but smile. It felt traitorous. “You recognized my voice.”
“I could never forget your voice. You sound like an angel who’s gotten her wings dirty.”
I bit my lip, almost laughing at what he said. How forward he was. How right he was.
He went on. “I’m glad you called. I was afraid you weren’t going to. I thought maybe I’d scared you away. I don’t normally pick up women at coffee shops.”
“You’re not scary,” I found myself saying, and the odd thing was, he suddenly wasn’t. I was the scary one here. I was the one with the plan.
“I’m glad you feel that way. I must admit, I felt like a bit of a jackass just giving you my business card and asking you to call me. A real man would have pursued you.”
“I have no doubt you’re a real man,” I remarked coyly, dancing from foot to foot. Who was this person suddenly flirting with this stranger?
“And I have no doubt I won’t stop pursuing you after this. So, Friday night. That’s tomorrow. Why don’t we bump it up a day and I’ll see you tonight?”
I rubbed at my forehead. “Well, I work tonight. It’s actually my first shift.”
“You’re too pretty to work.”
“Yeah well, pretty doesn’t pay the bills.”
“I bet it could. And so where is this new job of yours?”
I sat down on the worn couch that came with the apartment. The whole thing had come furnished, and everything that was mine was still in my suitcases, afraid to become permanent.
“It’s at Hogan’s Heroes,” I said with a hint of embarrassment. “It’s just some bar downtown.”
“Ocean Springs?”
“Biloxi.”
“What were you doing in Ocean Springs the other day?” he asked. He sounded curious, not suspicious, but it didn’t stop me from nervously sliding my feet on the carpet.
“Checking out the area, that’s all.”
“Checking out the men?”
“That was lucky,” I said breezily.
“Very lucky. For both of us. When do you get off your shift?”
“I don’t know, I think it’s just from eight till close. But I don’t work tomorrow, so you know, I’d love to see you.” I realized how desperate I sounded so I added, “You know, if you still want to go out.” Man, I was so bad at this.
Another pause. He made an agreeable little sound.
“I do. And I will see you tomorrow. I’ve got your number now and you can bet I’ll be persistent. So good luck on your first day, Eden.”
“Thank you,” I said breathlessly, then hung up. My heart was racing and my blood was on fire. Adrenaline made everything feel alive. I was almost…giddy. But whether it was because I was one step closer to my goal or because I was talking to Javier himself, I didn’t know. All I did know was that I went into my bedroom and started unpacking my suitcase, hanging things in my new closets for the first time.
***
I’d worked as a waitress for a few months in Colorado once, at this small mom and pop-style Italian restaurant. I actually did do some bartending for them on the weekends, which meant I knew how to make some drinks, even though I was underage. Of course, my resume now said I had worked at a whole slew of places that didn’t exist, with Gus acting as a fake reference for when the time came. But Eden White got lucky with Hogan’s Heroes. It seemed all I needed to work there was breasts, ass, and sass.
It was a bit intimidating at first. The other bartenders were wearing mini-skirts and stilettos, both things I could only dream of wearing because of my scarring and nerve damage in that leg, and they seemed to know everything. They poured their drinks fast and neat, knew the names of almost every customer, and handled the men’s ogling with ease.
Me, well I messed up a lot of the first drinks I got and did a silent prayer of thanks every time someone ordered something as easy as a beer or a glass of wine. My feet, clad in wedge boots, were sore after two hours and I kept blushing and stammering awkwardly whenever some rowdy man tried to hit on me. Yeah, I had been hit on a lot before, but there was a reason I avoided clubs and bars.
Thankfully, as the hours ticked past and last call was approaching, I sort of got the hang of things. The good thing about having the men lusting after you like a bunch of drunk idiots was that they never noticed if you messed up and put Smirnoff in their top shelf gin martini or skipped the Triple Sec in their margarita. They just wanted to get drunk and then they wanted you.
