It was Thursday, but Brielle didn’t know it. Rays shone through the picture window where she stood, shoulders and legs in gentle warmth. Patent-leather heels stood gleaming, upright and proper next to the door. Brielle wore a libertine smile. Out the window, evergreens cascaded to cliffs and the ocean beyond. Vignettes of last night flashed strobe-like through her mind. Snapshots of bar tops and whiskey and melodrama. Of cackling laughs and smoky white pendant lights and cigarettes with long ...