Part 6 (1/2)
A park bench. Jesus. Tossed out like a piece of litter. Sounded a lot like what happened to Val.
”Did you go to the police?” Stacey asked.
”No.” Rachel's face fell. ”Sometimes weird s.h.i.+t happens. You get used to it. I need to finish getting ready. Sorry I can't help more.” She disappeared down the hallway, her steps quick to avoid being pulled back into another painful conversation.
You get used to s.e.xual a.s.sault? That was not f.u.c.king right. No wonder Val didn't want to go to the police. Stacey turned her attention back to Cindi. ”Has that happened to anyone else you know of?”
Cindi tapped her lips. ”Something sort of like that happened to Becca, but she was at some other club, not the Pana Sea.”
”Where can I find her?”
”I don't know where she lives. I haven't seen her in a while, since she...got sick.”
Stacey shook off a moment of terror for Val. She knew Val's STD and pregnancy tests had come back negative. The illness and the memory loss were probably unrelated. Probably.
”Everybody's nervous to go solo these days, but the bills gotta get paid, you know? At least we can look out for each other at the parties.” She glanced at a clock on the wall. ”That's all I know. I have to finish getting ready, too. Will you tell me if you find her?”
Stacey's gaze flickered to Cindi's seash.e.l.l bikini. ”Of course. I'll come by as soon as I know. Hey, can I walk around and talk to the other ladies for a few minutes?”
”Sure.”
Stacey didn't think she could learn anything more, but she really wanted to look around. In the bathroom, three women in thongs and the same mermaid bikinis as Cindi giggled with each other as they painted on makeup. Stacey eyed the perfect curves of their a.s.ses, imagined what it'd be like to run her fingers down that skin. They sent friendly waves her way. Stacey grinned back and moved on before they could sense her less-than-innocent motives.
She heard animated discussion among three or four women in a room at the end of the hall-probably the master bedroom-but she poked her head into a small guest bedroom first. A single woman inhabited this one, her back to Stacey as she sat in front of a vanity mirror and applied lotion to her completely nude body. Stacey did a double take; not because of the woman's flawless skin or exquisite form, but because Stacey recognized her.
”Kat?”
It couldn't be. Stacey's ex-girlfriend had disappeared right after the Pacific Science Center shoot-out, where her car had exploded-a car Kat had somehow rigged to explode, right before she lent it to Stacey. The official report said the car belonged to Norman Barrister's henchman, but Stacey knew differently. She had a.s.sumed Katrina fled the country after stomping on Stacey's heart in service of whatever crazy s.h.i.+t was going on with Val, but obviously she'd a.s.sumed wrong.
Kat looked in the mirror at Stacey, her icy blue eyes betraying a rare moment of surprise before melting into the alluring stare Stacey still imagined when she was with other women. ”Hey, babe,” she said in her familiar velvet voice.
”Hey, babe? Are you f.u.c.king serious?” Stacey crossed her arms. ”I should turn you in to the G.o.dd.a.m.n police, you b.i.t.c.h.”
”But that won't match the established narrative.”
No, it wouldn't. A lot of anonymous, powerful people had worked hard to hide the truth of what actually happened at the Science Center that day-people Kat worked for, Stacey guessed.
”So you're a hooker now? Terrorism didn't have a nice enough retirement plan?”
Kat smirked, an elegant curve on her lips. ”I like to keep my options open. Prevents being stovepiped.”
”Sure, talk around me with your bulls.h.i.+t answers. There's no way it's a coincidence Val and I are looking for a missing woman she saw in a vision and you just happen to be here.”
”That is strange.” Kat squeezed lotion into her hand and rubbed it on her long legs, up and down her thighs. Heat blossomed in Stacey's belly. This b.i.t.c.h knew how to play her.
”Do you know where Margaret Monroe is?” Stacey asked with a sneer in her voice. Maybe Kat would surprise her and actually tell the truth for once.
”No.”
”Do you know who raped Val?”
Another flash of surprise crossed Kat's face. ”I didn't know she was raped.”
Stacey lifted her chin, enjoying a moment of knowing something Kat didn't-unless Kat lied about that, too. ”She was drugged by a guy named Lucien Christophe, then raped by three men while she was unconscious. You don't know anything about that?”
”No...” For a second Kat looked lost in thought, then her controlled demeanor took over again. She squeezed a glob of glittering goo from a tube, then rubbed it on her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, making circles around her nipples with her fingers. She met Stacey's eyes, and Stacey thought she might come right there. ”I'm sorry about Val, if that's true.”
”Of course it's true!” Anger stomped over her arousal. ”Why the f.u.c.k would I lie?”
Kat shrugged. ”You've always been protective of Val-too protective. Seems a little one-sided, don't you think?”
Stacey scoffed. ”You sit there and talk like you know me, but you don't know s.h.i.+t.” She turned to leave, then turned back. ”And you have no right to psychoa.n.a.lyze my life. I gave my heart to you based on a bunch of lies you told me. If you think I care for Val more than she cares for me, you should've given me something else to hold on to. I could've loved you like n.o.body else. Instead you f.u.c.king used me.”
Kat's face fell into an emotion Stacey had never seen her express before; it looked like regret, or sadness, or both. No, it was Stacey's imagination. Wishful thinking. With tears in her eyes, Stacey left Kat and the apartment, to follow Val's lead and fall off the grid for a while.
Chapter Eleven.
This is it!” Ginger said as he pulled up to a mansion in Blue Ridge isolated by a patch of evergreen forest.
”Whose house is this?” Max asked from the pa.s.senger seat of Ginger's Porsche. The modern gla.s.s walls brought back unpleasant memories of his father's mansion on Mercer Island, though with all the drapes drawn, it could look completely different on the inside.
”Dunno,” Ginger said. ”It's always different. I think the guy who runs these things just rents a place for the night.”
”So you've met the guy in charge?”
”I've met the guy who takes my money. I'm pretty sure he's not the one in charge, though.”
”And he throws one of these things every weekend?”
Ginger chuckled. ”I wish. They come in cl.u.s.ters. Every three or four months or so, there'll be a bunch of parties. Then nothing. You got lucky, bro. Picked the right time to get on board.”
Ginger stopped his Porsche behind a Ferrari-real subtle for a secret-club party-and hopped out. A valet in plain clothes rushed forward and drove off with the car as Ginger strode toward the entrance, eager antic.i.p.ation quickening his step. Max lingered at the curb for a minute to check his cell phone. He queued up a voice mail he'd been waiting for over a week to receive, and crossed his fingers it was what he wanted to hear.
”h.e.l.lo, Mr. Carressa,” a woman's no-nonsense voice said. ”This is Josephine Price. I appreciate your offer to start a scholars.h.i.+p fund in my brother and father's names, but I don't think it's a good idea, since their deaths were so...controversial, and you are also...controversial.” She sighed, and her tone turned angry. ”Look, I don't know if you're trying to rehabilitate your image or add another notch to your philanthropy belt, but my family doesn't need your money. So stop offering.” The message ended.
”s.h.i.+t,” Max muttered. He wished he had something other than money to give her, but he didn't. Maybe if he told her the truth, she'd finally stop hating him for the indirect role he'd played in Robby and Dean Price's deaths. I'm your brother, he'd practiced telling her hundreds of times in his head. We have the same father, so...How 'bout them Mariners? He'd never had a sibling, or any other family besides his horrible father, after his mother died. He thought he never wanted a family, but when he discovered he had a sister, he found himself irrationally curious about her. So far she'd rebuffed all his indirect attempts to meet with her. Telling her the truth seemed more and more like the only option. It made his palms sweat.
Max resolved to come up with another plan later and slipped his phone back into his sport coat pocket, then caught up with Ginger as the man-child wrapped on the front door. A gorgeous black woman in a tight satin dress answered, all inviting smiles. Max repressed a frown in response. He had hoped the party would consist of lonely, rich men wearing black robes and exchanging secret handshakes while they drank highb.a.l.l.s and chatted about sports, or something equally inane. Above all, he prayed this thing wasn't, in fact, an orgy, even though Ginger's enthusiasm argued to the contrary.
”Hi, Daneeka,” Ginger said. He grabbed her a.s.s and pulled her into a sloppy kiss.
She pushed him away and giggled. ”Oh, you.”
Max cringed and started planning his exit strategy. He'd owned a s.e.x club not long ago-the Red Raven in Moonlight, now divested-though he wasn't himself a fan of public or anonymous s.e.x, especially with his condition. Even if he had been, a quick roll in the hay was out of the question now that he had Abby. He'd scope the place out, get a read on the situation and anything suspicious for Val, then bolt. He didn't want to be at this party one second longer than necessary.
”Will you be having the usual?” Daneeka asked Ginger.