I'd just opened my mouth to ask for said ID, when an authoritative voice came from my left, up the front walkway.
“Polly?”
In horror, I turned to see my father, Judge Alan Alberton himself, walking toward us. Wearing a crisp shirt and black slacks, he was eyeing me and the clown. Hard.
“Father!” I exclaimed, painting on a smile wider than the clown’s. “I didn’t know you were coming!”
He stopped a few feet from the clown, giving him one more long look, then turned to me. “I received an invitation in the mail.”
He had? How could he have . . .Jeffrey.I’d sent him a mock-up of the invitation last week to ask if I could have a petting zoo in the backyard. He must have sent it to the judge.
My father’s gaze continued to move between me and the clown. “The invitation didn’t say anything about clowns.”
Yeah. No shit.
“Didn’t it?” My voice was high and tight. “This is Ryla’s birthday surprise. She LOVES clowns. Carlos here”—
“Kent,” not-Carlos murmured.
—“KENT!” I said loudly, correcting myself, “is the uh, minister of magic and the baker of balloons!”
Nope. That wasn’t it.
“The kids are going to love him!”
Keep going, Polly! In for a penny, in for a pound!
“Ryla will be thrilled to see you!” I lied. “Please, come inside.” Realizing I’d been twisting my earring, I dropped my hand to my side and stepped back, waving my father inside. It should be troubling how easy the lies came to me, but I’d spent a lifetime lying to this man. He practically harrumphed and strode past me.
“The refreshments are in the kitchen!” I shouted after him, wide smile in place. My smile fell immediately after turning to find that the clown had also begun to make his way inside.
“Not so fast!” I hissed, stepping in front of him as he was about to cross the threshold. I put my hand to his stomach, effectively blocking him. I almost reared back because his abs wererock hard.
Apparently, this clown went to the gym.
Shaking off the weird thought, I took a quick glance behind me to make sure the coast was clear, then glared at Carlos the Creeper, lowering my voice.
“Look, Carlos,” I started, then seeing the clown open his mouth, I shook my head. “I mean Kent. Whatever your name is. If you were hired by the company, great. I wanted a magician, but who the hell cares. I’m only letting you in the house to save face with my father. If you scare or hurt anyone, including but not limited to my children or any other child here, I will cut your balls off with a razor and feed them to the goats out back, you got me?”
The clown’s face went slack. Satisfied, I stepped back, removing my hand from his washboard abs, and nodded.
“Fantastic.” I hooked a thumb over my shoulder. “Party’s through here.”
CHAPTERTEN
JACE
“We all paint on a face to show the world," Nicholas replies philosophically. "For some of us, that's quite literal.”
L.H. Cosway,Painted Faces
Sweat poured down my body underneath my neon yellow clown costume. It was over a hundred degrees outside, the sun mercilessly beating down on me as I set up my clown show in the backyard of Polly freaking Alberton’s house. The sweatband I wore under the rainbow wig was already soaked. My skin had begun to itch a few minutes ago. What the hell was in this makeup?
These were only some of the reasons that Sam, was now a dead man.
Polly already thought I was a pervert before I showed up at her daughter’s birthday party dressed as a clown. If she found out it was me underneath this neon yellow monstrosity, I was almost certainly going to end up in jail. I could only hope Jackson was the officer who was called to the scene. On second thought, I hoped it was anyone but Jackson. He’d be all business, taking my mugshot, fingerprints, the whole deal, and then he’d tell Rae, who’d tell Sienna, and I’d never live it down.
“Are you my magician?”
