Read Online She's Not There by P. J. Parrish - Free Book Online Page A

that really been her? What else was the tablet going to be able to tell her about herself? And what was she going to be able to find out about Alex?
    Fast away the old year passes! Fa la la la la, la la la la!
    A sudden wave of nausea overtook her, and red and green sparks shot across her vision. Amelia stopped and shut her eyes, clutching the plastic bag from the Apple store to her chest.
    Someone was laughing, a cruel shrieking laugh.
    Fa la la la la! Ha la la la la!
    “Hey, are you okay?”
    She opened her eyes. A young man with spiky platinum blond hair was standing in front of her. He had a tiny silver ring in his nostril, and she focused hard on it, trying to stop the spinning.
    “I just need to sit down,” Amelia said.
    His hands were gentle but firm as he led her into a store. He sat her down in a chair and she bowed her head, closing her eyes. Slowly the dizziness began to pass.
    “Here, drink this.”
    She opened her eyes to see the young man holding out a glass of water. When she didn’t take it, he added, “I’ve got some wine in the back. Do you want that instead?”
    She shook her head and looked around. It was a beauty salon, but all the other chairs were empty. The whole place was empty except for a sleepy girl with pink hair manning the desk by the entrance.
    Amelia looked in the mirror, catching the eye of the young man standing behind her. “I had a concussion and get dizzy sometimes,” she said. “Thanks for helping me. I’m okay now.”
    He was studying her, with one palm cupping his chin. “Are you sure? I mean, are you sure there’s not something else I can do for you?”
    Her hair, she realized—he was staring at her hair. It looked even worse than it had this morning when she got up, matted lank ropes hanging to her shoulders.
    “What happened?” he whispered.
    She let out a long sigh. “Can you fix it?”
    “Girl, I can fix anything,” he said, smiling. He drew a pink cape over her and picked up a brush but then paused. “You have extensions,” he said, feeling her scalp. “I don’t think I can save them. They’re put in with glue, you know.”
    “Then cut them out.”
    “I’d have to cut you pretty short. You sure?”
    Amelia nodded.
    “What about the color? I can touch you up. Same shade of blonde?”
    Amelia took off the purple plastic glasses. “No, change it back to my natural color.”
    “What is it?”
    She couldn’t tell him that she wasn’t sure. “Why don’t you just decide what will look good.”
    He gave her a huge smile. “God, I wish all my clients were like you.”
    The next hour went by like a sensual dream. The warm scented water of the shampoo, and the stylist’s hands—his name was Martin, and he was working at Supercuts only until he could get to New Orleans—were ever so gentle as he cut out the extensions. The pink-haired girl went next door to Sbarro and brought Amelia pizza, which she ate with slow and deliberate pleasure.
    As she was finishing a second pizza slice, she had the odd thought that pizza was not something she was allowed to eat.
    Allowed?
    That Russian voice was there in her head again and she heard the words more clearly now than she had back in the thrift store.
    I need to see your bones .
    The Russian man’s face came slowly into focus—a thin hooked nose and sparse white hair—and he was poking her in the ribs, telling her she was too fat, while the girls around her giggled. And a different man was telling her to put the cookie down and calling her Jelly-Belly.
    She swallowed the last bite of pizza, and along with it the anger over the old man who had made her cry and the other man who had called her that name. What kind of a person had she been that she had given these men such power over her?
    Finally, Martin stepped away from the chair and Amelia put her glasses back on. In the few times she had seen her reflection since waking up in the hospital, she hadn’t recognized the woman staring back at her. She still