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judge stared at me like he’d seen one too many hysterical females. He wasn’t old. I pegged him at somewhere around thirty-five, which meant he saw me more as a piece of meat than a daughter. I prefer to play the daughter angle, but if I’d found him at all attractive, I might have flirted. I can flirt and cry. Fake emotion isn’t difficult. It’s the real stuff that bewilders me.
    He paged through a few documents and cleared his throat. “Ms. Hallem, the license of the dog in question does not match your address, and it doesn’t have your name on it.”
    Well, I didn’t have a dog. I probably should have just said so, but could I take the easy way out? Nope.
    I straightened up. “She lives with my mother. My apartment doesn’t let us have dogs. So, the license is in her name, but Sadie was my baby. My mom is quite frail. She has a wheelchair, but she hates to use it, so she doesn’t get out often. I took Sadie to the park every day.” I swayed a little and slumped back in the chair. The stress of discussing my deceased companion was too much to bear.
    Sadie is actually very much John’s baby. She’s also alive and kicking. She might be old, but she’s healthy and tenacious. So is my mother.
    With an aggravated sigh, the judge dismissed my case and gave me a stern verbal warning. But when an authority figure buys into my bullshit, it just encourages me. That’s one reason I didn’t tell John and my mom about the ticket. John would’ve come with me and done all the talking. He would’ve known I’d feed the judge a lie, and he was quite good at making me tell the truth. I’m convinced he’s the real reason my mom didn’t throw me out by the time I was sixteen.
    Lying is like washing my hands. Sometimes I just have to do it. I wouldn’t call it a compulsion, though, because it actually soothes me. Truly, it does. And anyway, people with compulsions can’t help themselves. I can. Or maybe it’s the other way around? In any event, I don’t take medication for it, so it’s not that big of a deal.
    After court, I meant to go home, but I found myself walking past the parking garage and in the direction of The Majestic. I’d been to the club before. It wasn’t historic, and I didn’t see anything majestic about the faux-wood paneling on it that some enterprising person had painted teal. And not a startling shade of teal like Dylan’s eyes. The hue had been dulled and weathered by time, and now it hovered somewhere between trendy and dive.
    The front door was open, so I went inside. In the brightness of the daylight and with all the interior lights turned on, it looked a lot different than I remembered. The lobby—where brief, friendly body searches happened—needed to be scrubbed down, but it was neat and tidy, and someone had recently vacuumed.
    I opened the next door and stepped into the main room. It was a large area with a smallish stage suitable for local acts. It featured a dance floor and several long bars. Small, round tables scattered along the periphery. If The Majestic had other rooms, I wasn’t aware of them. But they had to, didn’t they? A business needed an office, and a stage meant storage and at least one dressing room somewhere.
    Glancing around, I identified the likely doors and fire exits. I’m not the kind of liar who causes problems by shouting “fire” when there isn’t one, but I do like to know how to leave a space. And I know I’ll need to use the restroom. I haven’t washed my hands since before appearing in front of the judge.
    The room was deserted, but there was equipment set up on stage. After a minute, I saw someone—not Dylan—cross the stage and bend down to check something on the back of an amp. He exited without seeming to notice me.
    Then a man came through the front door. He was older than me, and I pegged him in the mid-fifties range. He was attractive in a weird George Hamilton sort of way, so I figured he was married. He smiled and set his case on the