Mick dumped two Advil into his hand, swallowed them dry. Leaned against the bathroom counter and stared into the mirror. He looked like shit. All work and no play. Hell, he couldn’t even remember what “play” was anymore. He could hear the sounds of Peterson’s party through the closed door. So many people, overflowing his living room, his kitchen, the gardens, swarming the place like cockroaches. The bacchanalian revels had been going strong for seventeen hours, and no one was showing any signs of leaving. When people got tired, they’d sleep on the spot, or stumble into one of his spare bedrooms, or pass out on a chair, a sofa, or one of the loungers by the pool. A few had been sprawled out on the lawn until the early-morning sprinklers had awoken them. Luckily, his bedroom was vacant. When the partying hordes had arrived, he’d taken the precaution and locked his bedroom, both from the hall and the door leading in from the garden. He hadn’t done that the first time Peterson and his mob of sycophants had taken over his house. He’d ended up needing to purchase a new bed and bedding. Mick glanced at the clock. Three thirty p.m. Mick had hoped against hope that when morning arrived everyone would disperse, but they hadn’t. As long as Peterson’s store of booze and gigantic serving bowl of cocaine remained, Mick would have an impossible time clearing his house of unwanted guests. Couldn’t throw them out, as he had a reputation to maintain. The “Wildman,” the “rebel from the wrong side of the tracks, who burned bright and lived hard.” It was exhausting keeping up the facade.

He heard his bedroom door open. The high-pitched sound of inebriated giggling. Shit. Had forgotten to relock the bedroom door behind him. He scrubbed his hands across his face.

“Yoo-hoo . . . Where are you, Mick?” More giggles.

“We playing hide-and-seek?”

Damn. Clearly there was more than one woman needing removal from his sanctuary. Great. If Mick had to guess, it was probably a couple of the hookers Peterson had sicced on him the moment the Mercedes van spewed the gaggle of working girls onto his driveway.

He straightened, exhaled, and exited the bathroom.