The Night Shift (Moore Sisters #2)

Prologue

Holly

I often wonder if I’m insane.

Sometimes I feel like my mind is a perpetual haunted house, ripe with these flashes, and I don’t know if they’re nightmares or memories. I don’t know what’s real and what’s not.

“Here you go. One gin martini, extra dirty, eight olives.” Loud music blares from the speakers and the bartender puts my drink on a napkin and slides it toward me.

I mutter a quiet “thank you” as she saunters off to tend to another customer, her strawberry blonde waves bouncing with each step.

I bring the glass to my lips, immediately getting a mouthful of unmixed vermouth.

The flashing strobe lights catch on my manicured green nails.

I momentarily zone out, finding a strange kind of calm in the pulsing light and the way it reflects off my nails.

My illusion of peace is quickly shattered by a burst of laughter that cuts through the music, reminding me of the busy scene around me.

Bodies jammed on the dance floor. Neon lights.

Music thumping. Glasses clinking. It’s a Saturday night, so the bar is pretty crowded.

I look to my right and see a creepy thirty-something-looking businessman hunched at the far end of the bar.

He’s been relentlessly hitting on the lady next to him.

Each time he’s tried to pull her into a conversation, she shoots him a sweet “please fuck off” smile followed by silence.

Then there’s the weirdo a few seats to my left. Greasy brown hair and slightly tanned skin. Each time he’s gotten up to go to the bathroom, he takes a seat closer to me upon returning, followed by an obnoxious “hey there” smile.

And finally, the happy couple sitting across from me on the opposite side of the bar. There’s nothing particularly “wrong” with them, but they’ve each been nursing a Long Island iced tea for the past forty minutes and it’s starting to piss me off.

Looking away, I take another sip of my martini.

Despite all the noise around me, a dangerous sort of quiet settles over my shoulders like dust on a statue.

I hear a faint buzzing sound. It’s so faint that it feels like it’s coming from deep within the walls of my own mind.

Like some sort of high-frequency humming.

A slow chill starts to set in. I drop my eyes and massage my temples.

When I look back up, I find Aanya staring at me from behind the bar with glowing white eyes.

Her dark brown hair is twisted in a loose ponytail.

She’s wearing the same mustard yellow shirt, along with the same faded overalls.

A nauseating pressure starts to crush my chest from the inside.

She moves to give the bartender access, even though she doesn’t need to.

It’s not like anyone but me can even see her.

I look down at her wrists. The gaping slashes are still there, but at least the blood is all dried up now.

My phone buzzes.

I take a deep breath and pull it out of my purse. Several texts from my sister.

Five are a bit old.

April: Hello, birthday girl. How was the mixer?

April: Meet any cute doctors?

April: What time will you be back?

April: Do you want some dinner?

April: Hol?

And one is from right now.

April: There’s some mac & cheese on the counter. Please eat before you sleep. Love you.

I set my phone facedown and go back to finishing my drink.

“Hey, there.”

I look to my left and see the tanned, muscular hand resting on the back of an empty bar stool next to me, and then up into the stranger's face.

“Are you here alone?” he asks.

It’s the guy from before. Weirdo Number Two. Greasy hair and slightly tanned skin. I notice the way his eyes dart down toward my chest. I’m still wearing my dress from the internship mixer. Dark green and satin with a high-neck halter. My breasts are hardly visible, but he looks anyway.

“No, I’m waiting for my boyfriend,” I lie. “He’s running a bit late.” Of course, I could tell him the truth and say, “no, I’m not interested,” but men tend to respect an imaginary “not-there” man more than an actual woman saying the word “no.”

A lopsided smile tugs at his mouth. He takes my remark as an invitation to take a seat next to me. “That’s too bad.” He puts his hand on my knee. “Only a fool would keep a woman like you waiting.”

I take a deep breath and shove his hand back where it belongs. “You should really ask before you touch a person.”

He laughs like I just told the world’s greatest joke, and scoots closer, repositioning his hand over my back. “Can I get you a drink?”

Un-fucking-believable. “Why? Do you work here?”

Another laugh. “Okay, can I buy you a drink then?”

“I can buy my own drink.”

“So buy me one.”

“Are you really that desperate?”

He laughs again. A sick, sputtering noise like a dying engine. “What’s your name?”

“Ashley.” Another lie.

“Hi, Ashley. I’m Nick.” He brings his hand back to my knee. “What do you do?”

I pry his fingers off my leg and give him the short-story (false) version. “I’m in fashion school.”

“You’re a model?”

“No, I’m studying design.”

“But you could be a model, huh? You’ve definitely got the legs for it.”

I don’t miss the way his gaze lingers a beat too long on the curve of my hip as he slides his barstool a bit closer to me.

He offers to buy me a drink and I let him.

Not because I want it — I can buy my own — but because it seems easier to say yes than to argue.

Maybe if I humor him now, he'll lose interest and move on. A few moments later, the bartender returns with our order, and I’m proved wrong immediately.

For the next twenty minutes, we talk and drink and the entire time the man — I’ve already forgotten his name — keeps his hands on my knee, or my thigh, or on my back, occasionally trying to drape an arm around my shoulder, tugging me towards him.

I ask him to stop but he doesn’t. He simply laughs and never stops touching me.

I take a slow sip of my drink, letting the burn of the gin linger on my tongue before swallowing it down.

The bartender from earlier looks over at me and mouths a silent, “you okay?” Our eyes hold for a beat. I nod. She offers me a small, understanding smile. I look away, chug the rest of my martini, and request the check.

“Oh, we’re leaving already?” the man slurs, leaning toward me. I push myself off the bar stool, wobbling on my heels, not realizing how drunk I am until my feet hit the floor.

“Oh, come on,” he gets up with me, “stay. I promise, I’ll be worth your time.”

I doubt it.

“It doesn’t even have to take a long time,” he says, like it’s somehow a good thing. “My place is right around the corner.”

I’ve never felt more optimistic about a decision. “Have a good night.” I start putting on my coat.

He grabs my arm and pulls me back. “I just bought you a sixteen-dollar drink. The least you can do is give me your number. Or a smile.”

My blood turns molten. “I didn’t ask you to buy me the drink,” I grit through my teeth, trying to snatch my hand back. “But thank you for implying that my smile is worth less than sixteen dollars.”

“Is there a problem here?” the bartender asks, her fierce gaze burning a hole in the man’s forehead.

His expression intensifies, changing in a way that reminds me of a four-year-old about to have a tantrum in the toy aisle.

Eyes darting between the two of us, he scoffs and releases my arm.

He shakes his head at me, then turns the other way and reaches for his drink. “Fucking tease bitch,” he mumbles.

Too wrapped up in the need to get away, I ignore his insult and snag my purse off the counter.

I put some bills on the bar and make a direct beeline for the exit.

I push open the door and a cool November breeze assaults my lungs.

I tug my coat around my green dress, trying to combat the chill.

The bar is somewhat of a “hidden gem,” tucked away inside a secluded street near Chinatown so there’s hardly anyone around.

My heels clack against the pavement and I turn the corner, slipping into a nearby alleyway.

It’s a little over ten-thirty p.m. and my feet kinda hurt, so I pull out my phone to call an Uber and — fuck.

It’s dead.

My phone is fucking dead.

Brilliant.

My head starts to ache and a dry sort of itch forms at the back of my throat.

It’s been a long day, and I realize that I haven’t had any water all day.

No food either. Just martinis. Three at the internship mixer and four afterwards at two different bars.

I think I’m already getting hungover. My eyes feel heavy.

I’m not usually like this. Getting drunk all by myself on a Saturday night.

I don’t know what’s gotten into me tonight.

Reluctantly, I storm back into the bar and ask the bartender if she could charge my phone for me.

“Sure,” she says and then asks me to come behind the bar so that I don’t have to deal with the creep from before, who’s still sitting where I left him. Eyeing me like a lion would a wounded gazelle.

The bartender plugs in my phone next to a stack of wine glasses and I walk behind the long wooden countertop with purple lights underneath.

“I’m Camille, by the way,” she says. “What’s your name?”

“Holly.”

“Holly what?”

“Why? Are you going to look me up online?”

“I don’t know, should I?”

I point to the espresso martini she’s currently making. “Are those hard to make?”

“Not really. Take some coffee liqueur, vodka, espresso, and simple syrup. Shake it all up and —” she pours the brown liquid into a chilled martini glass, “voilà. The world’s greatest fucking espresso martini.”

“My sister is addicted to them,” I say.

“Drinking problem?”

“Or a caffeine addiction.”

Camille smiles. She asks what I do for a living. I give her the short-story (true) version by telling her that I’m a surgeon and that my internship starts in two days.

“Well, shit. A doctor, huh? Saving lives. That must be exciting.”

“Very.”