That was the only trip we ever took. The past seven months, we’d never left the A.C. strip. Adrian didn’t like to stray too far from the casinos. (The men he owed money to liked it even less.)
I stepped out into the mellow light of the corridor and let the front door click shut at my back. I pulled the sweatshirt hood up over my head to conceal my bright fall of platinum blonde waves as I waited for the elevator, conscious of the cameras in the ceiling that recorded my every move.
The less attention I drew, the better.
Adrian wasn’t friends with the late-night doormen or lobby security guards — he wasn’t really friends with anyone, seeing as he was too narcissistic to form genuine relationships — but he knew how to charm information out of people. If he planned to chase after me, I needed as much of a head start as I could get.
Not that he was going to find me.
This wasn’t my first time starting over. My life was an endless series of fresh starts. I was the master of reinvention. The queen of new beginnings. I’d lived just about everywhere on the East Coast since I split home a decade ago. Big cities, small towns, medium-sized metropolises, barely-populated backwaters. At this point, I could blend in pretty much anywhere.
For a little while, at least.
Until people got too familiar. Started asking questions I couldn’t answer. Pushed for information I wasn’t able to give. That’s when I knew it was time to disappear again. A ghost in the night with no forwarding address, leaving nothing but curiosity in my wake.
What ever happened to that Imogen girl? With the spooky blue eyes and bright blonde hair?She just up and left, no word, no warning…
Oh well.
Strange bird, that one.
Flighty.
Not a real loss…
I’d worn out my welcome in Atlantic City. Stayed too long. I’d allowed myself to hope, at least at the very start, that things might be different here.
That proved to be a mistake.
One I would not make again.
I didn’t quite know where I was headed this time, but wherever I ended up wouldn’t be any different than all the others that came before. Not a home. Nothing permanent. Just another stop on the Imogen Warner International Tour of Misery.
I wasn’t wallowing in self-pity, or anything. I was just being honest. Speaking from experience. Because, in a quarter-century of life, I’d never felt like I belonged anywhere. Never felt like I truly fit in. It wasn’t hard to imagine why.
I mean, really…
What sort of place could a person likemeever hope to call home?
Chapter Two
I’m not much of a party girl.
(Pity parties don’t count.)
- Imogen Warner, tucked in bed by 9PM
THREE MONTHS LATER…
“WELCOME TO WITCH CITY!” the old-fashioned wooden sign proclaimed in cheerful gold-painted letters. I quirked an eyebrow at it, wondering what sort of place so boldly advertised its occult history. Wasn’t that the sort of thing tourism boards and town officials were always trying to sweep under the proverbial rug?
In any case, I was about to find out exactly what Salem, Massachusetts had to offer. I had no choice in the matter. My car had begun to make a scary grinding sound as I crossed the bridge into the city limits — which I pointedly ignored by turning up the radio a bit louder, blasting a Hozier song to ear-splitting decibels. It was somewhat harder, however, to ignore the smoke that began to pour from beneath the hood several moments later.
Damn and blast.
I pulled over to give the overtaxed radiator some respite. At least, I thought it was the radiator. I wasn’t a mechanic — especially when it came to cars that were nearly as old as I was, with over 200,000 miles on the odometer. My car-related expertise came to an abrupt end after the ability to swap a spare tire and refill my windshield wiper fluid. A quick glance beneath the hood was enough to tell me preciselynothingabout what was wrong with my rust-bucket, besides the fact that it was giving off enough heat to fry an egg.
Frankly, it was something of a miracle I’d made it this far before breaking down. Three months and four whole states north since I left Atlantic City in my rearview. Considering the old clunker only cost me five hundred bucks, I figured I got more than my money’s worth. That said, I didn’t have another five hundred to my name to fix it.