At the end of a bloody trail, Johnny Redd finds an incredible secret. While struggling with a bullet in his chest, he crawls along the ground until he finds himself surrounded by a maze of quaint carnival tarps. Inside is a world of color, costumes, false hair, nails, eyelashes -- and a man who dresses like a woman. It’s a world of trickery, deception, and lies. Johnny makes it just inside the tent when his strength fails and he faints dead away. When he awakes, he’s reminded of the bizarre reality that surrounds him. It’s that he learns he has been taken care of by a man – er. woman -- by the name of Frenchy Starr. The name rolls from the tongue of this fallen angel, this princess of darkness, this twilight queen. She’s a mystery, a dangerously beautiful mystery, and Johnny slowly becomes ensnared in the trap which she sets. After one night of incredible love, a jealous fan shoots Frenchy. Thinking her dead, Johnny’s heart is broken and he leaves in search of something to fill the hole she left in his heart. Enter Kit Dalton.

Carnival Cowboy

“Oh, God,” he mumbled, and pulled away.


He couldn’t believe it. In the time they’d been together he had learned to like Frenchy, and even found himself taking him into his confidence many times. Although Frenchy never told him anything about himself, he just assumed that he lived and worked at the sideshow, and that was the beginning and the end of it.


Now, thankful that he hadn’t been seen, he managed to crawl back to his corner, and had been there for several minutes when he saw Frenchy come out with a roll of bills that would choke a horse. As he punched it down into his built up bodice, he turned and looked at Johnny.


“Why the hell were you spying on me?”


“I…d-didn’t…How did you know?”


“I saw you, dummy, and it’s a good thing I did. If Jess had seen you, you’d be dead right now.”


“I didn’t mean to. I just heard something, and went to investigate. I’m sorry. I had no idea.”


Chapter 3