“Hey, Angela!” Stephanie exclaimed, hugging the woman’s neck. “What brings you here?”
“Well, I stopped by Ethan’s house to drop his father off, and they told me where you ladies had run off to, so I figured I’d come over and say hello.” Angela turned to Lacy and extended her hand in greeting. “Hi, I’m the boys’ mother, and you are?”
“I’m Lacy. I model with Ethan.” Wow, did this woman have a grip! Her blonde hair was perfectly styled, and she had a rather unnerving way of staring you right in the eye. If Lacy didn’t know better, she’d swear the lady was trying to assert her dominance.
Weird.
“So you’re the girl my Ethan has taken a liking to? Can’t say that I blame him. You’re a pretty little thing.”
That was a compliment, right? “Um, thank you.”
Lacy was desperate for someone to jump into the conversation and save her from what was sure to end up as a mother’s interrogation, but instead of the two girls she’d come with, her salvation arrived in the form of one extremely drunk local named David Ricker.
“Hi there, sexy lady,” he slurred as he shamelessly ogled her breasts.
“Hello,” Lacy replied, shifting a bit to recover some of her personal space. His breath was downright lethal! She wondered how long he’d been drinking that night when he spoke again.
“You ever been to the cir-circus?”
What a strange question. “Sure.” Stephanie and Sarah watched her now as if her byplay with the town drunk was the best entertainment they’d seen all year.
“You wanna play one of those circus games?” he asked. Before she could reply, he kept on going, drunken excitement dancing in his glazed eyes. “You come with me, and we’ll play the ‘Guess My Weight’ game. You sit on my face, sweet-cheeks, and I’ll guess your weight. If I’m wrong, I’ll eat the difference.”
Lacy was appalled, but even more disturbing was how the man’s skull bounced off the table after Angela delivered a good swat to the back of his head. Blood gushed from his nose, but when Lacy went to offer him a napkin, he swung his arm up.
Going purely on instinct, Lacy threw up her own, blocking the blow with her forearm then grabbing his wrist and deftly twisting his arm behind his back. She bent him over the table, effectively bringing his movements to a halt.
“Two things, Mr. Ricker. One, you need to sober up before you end up biting off more than you can chew. And two, you don’t ever hit a woman. Do you understand me?”
“Yes’m,” he replied, his voice now more of a nasally whine due to his rapidly swelling nose. The guy was bleeding all over the place.
One of the bartenders had witnessed the exchange and made her way over with a small towel.
“You handled that quite well, young lady,” Angela noted, studying Lacy a little more closely now that she was up and had released the inebriated fool’s arm. “Where did you learn to do that?”
“Self defense,” she answered. It technically wasn’t a lie, but Lacy still felt bad for having to dance around the truth with Ethan’s mom.
“Well, I’m glad to know that you can take care of yourself, if needed.” Angela relieved the bartender of her towel and thrust it into Mr. Ricker’s face. “Mop up that mess you made, young man. Lord knows, this sweet young girl shouldn’t have to.”
“But it was…” he began, although when Lacy cleared her throat, he quickly cut off whatever he was going to say and began applying pressure to his nose, his eyes now downcast.
“I’ll go grab another towel or two,” the bartender said. “I didn’t realize there was that much of a mess.”
“Thanks,” Lacy offered. “What’s your name?”
“Cash, well, Cashmere, but everyone here just calls me Cash.” The girl was something else. Extremely petite, she was almost pixie-like, with pale skin and short spiked dark hair. A piercing in her eyebrow twinkled in the low lights, she wore gothic-style clothing and a large yet intricate dragon tattoo ran down her left arm. She was clearly out of place in this little town.
“Are you from here?” Sarah asked, obviously thinking the same thing.
“Nah, I’m just here to help out my grandma. She’s not doing so well,” Cash explained. “I’ll be back in a sec.” And with that, she took off, winding through the crowd with ease despite her size—or perhaps because of it.
“Is it just me, or does she seem to be more than a little out of place in this town?” Lacy asked, the question directed at nobody in particular. With what she knew about the killer, and the fact that this girl was new to the area, she couldn’t help but be a little suspicious. After all, the killer had very small feet, and she already suspected it to be a woman.