by Tracy Wolff
“You’re wrong.” The woman’s voice broke again, and Lacey’s heart broke along with it.
“I don’t think so, Mrs. Winston. Believe me, I wish I was. She didn’t look like she wanted to be there—a lot of the girls in the pictures didn’t—and I can’t help wondering what a girl who went missing from a university in western Canada ended up doing down here in New Orleans.”
Carrie Winston didn’t say a word, and the silence would have been eerie if not for the ragged sound of her breathing coming loud and clear through the telephone line. More than once Lacey started to say something, but in the end she kept her mouth shut.
Finally, Anne Marie’s mother spoke. “You think whoever took my daughter forced her to do . . .”
“I think it’s a strong possibility. Mrs. Winston, was there any indication that Anne Marie left school of her own free will?”
“No.” The word was choked, barely understandable. “There were no withdrawals from her bank account, no charges on her credit card. None of her clothes were missing.”
“There’s a prostitution ring that got broken up here in New Orleans not very long ago, and a number of the girls from the ring didn’t have identification on them when they were arrested. Plus, a few of them disappeared after being released on bail.
“When I found out about Anne Marie being taken and then working as a stripper, I couldn’t help wondering if there was a connection. Couldn’t help wondering if what had happened to your daughter had happened to other girls like her. If it has, I need to know why and how. I need to know if it’s still happening to them. If there are more parents like you, who woke up one morning to find out that their entire world had caved in. If there are, if other parents are suffering as you and your husband have, then I have to try to stop it. I can’t just let it keep happening, not if there’s a chance I can do something about it.”
Ragged, tortured sobs came from the other end of the phone, and Lacey held her breath as she waited for Anne Marie’s mother to collect herself.
It took a few minutes, but finally the tears stopped. Carrie cleared her throat, and when she spoke, the anger was back. But this time it wasn’t directed at Lacey. “What do you want to know? I’ll tell you whatever I can.”
Lacey’s smile was grim as she reached for the notepad she’d recorded her questions on earlier that morning. Then she settled in for what she hoped would be a long and fruitful talk.
It was over an hour before Lacey hung up the phone, sickness and bile churning in her gut. That last day, when Anne Marie had called her mother, she had been hysterical. Had begged her parents to come find her. She’d told them that she’d run away, that one of the other girls had been killed and she was terrified they would kill her too. Then someone had hung up the phone before Anne Marie could say anything more.
Anger was a living, breathing animal inside Lacey as she shoved away from her desk and began to pace the narrow confines of her living room. The Winstons had flown to New Orleans within hours of receiving their daughter’s phone call, had talked to the police and the FBI, the district attorney and a private investigator they had hired. And nothing had been done. They hadn’t heard from the police again, except when they called for a status update, until the day they’d received the call that their daughter’s body had been identified.
No connections had been made between Anne Marie’s death and the strip clubs—or at least none that Mrs. Winston knew about. What Lacey needed, she thought with a grim smile as she stared blindly at her living room walls, was to get her hands on Anne Marie’s file. Not that she had a chance in hell of getting it; public disclosure laws obviously didn’t allow cops to share open files.
Still, it wouldn’t hurt to talk to the detectives who worked Anne Marie’s case, to see what they said. And in the meantime, she was going to rattle every contact she’d managed to make in this case, was going to shake the trees and see what fell out. Because there were only a few things she knew for sure, and one of them was that if this had happened to Anne Marie, it had happened to other girls as well. She just needed to find out which ones.
Settling behind her computer once again, she started running a search in the Times-Picayune database on girls found dead in the French Quarter in the last three years. Then nearly cried when she saw just how many there were.
Chapter Ten
So, how’s that piece for the governor’s mansion going?” Mike asked as he reached into Byron’s fridge and grabbed two beers. Mike was tall, skinny and could hold his liquor like a lumberjack.
“You don’t want to know.”
“Why not? You were really excited about it the last time you brought it up.”
“That was before I fucked it up. I spent half the morning trying to figure out how to fix the mother of all scratches that runs down the center of it, but I think I’m just going to have to start over.”
He flopped down on the couch and picked up the remote, doing his damnedest not to glance across the courtyard into Lacey’s apartment as he flicked through stations. It wasn’t like she was home anyway; the place was still dark as a tomb. Or at least it had been when he’d checked ten minutes before.
“Hey, what station’s the game on, anyway?” he called to Mike, who was currently rifling through his pantry in search of some sports-worthy snacks.
“Seriously? It’s on NBC.” Mike pulled his head out of the cabinet long enough to toss him a disgusted look. “Grow a pair, why don’t you?”
“I have a pair, thank you very much. Just because I prefer contact sports to watching a bunch of grown men wave a stick at a little white ball doesn’t mean shit.”
“Yeah, well, the Sox are playing, so keep a civil tongue in your head, all right?”
“You can take the boy out of Boston . . .”
“Damn straight.” Mike finally settled on a bag of potato chips and headed for the other end of the couch, just in time to watch a beer commercial flash onto the screen. “Come on with the commercials already. Where are my guys?”
“You’re calling a group of grown men your guys, and you think I need to grow a pair?” Fuck it—Byron gave up the fight and darted a look across the courtyard. Lacey’s kitchen light was on.
“At least my pair is getting a workout, which is more than you can say. How long’s it been for you anyway? You’ve been grumpy as shit lately.”
Byron ignored him as he wondered what Lacey was doing over there. Was she writing on her damn blog again, or had she already posted something? He’d been dying to check all day, but had forced himself to avoid it.
Ignoring his instinct to head over there and demand that she talk to him was hard enough—especially after the way he’d left things that morning. If he read one of her fantasies, imagined Lacey in the positions she described in her blog, he’d be lost. Especially if some asshole posted a particularly graphic response in the comment section.
Just the thought of a bunch of guys sharing Lacey’s fantasies had Byron across the room and logging on to the Internet before he thought twice about it. And sure enough, when he pulled up What a Girl Wants, there was a new fantasy there.
I want you naked, your body gleaming in the moonlight coming in from my window.
I strip you, pulling your shirt off slowly. I run my hands over the smooth muscles of your shoulders, the lean hardness of your abs. I kiss my way down your chest, over your stomach, to the raging erection of your cock.
I take my time undressing you, take my time slipping off your belt, feeding the button of your jeans through the buttonhole, pulling down your zipper until I take you in my hand.
I can feel your eagerness, feel how much you want me with every breath you take. But I’m not done, though I hold you in my hand. Though I stroke my thumb over and around your broad head and make you groan for me.
It’s too soon, too quick, and I want to make you suffer a little. Want to turn you inside out. Want to tease you as you have so often teased me. Behind me, the radio is playing—something smooth and sexy
and so very perfect that it is hard for me to resist.
I let you go, move away, watch the disappointment and the desire cloud your gaze. You think I’m taunting you, that I’ve brought you this far just to leave you. But this is just the beginning of the show.
I begin to sway to the music, my arms and hips and breasts and ass all moving in time with the sweet melody that fills the space between us. I reach for the hem of my T-shirt and pull it up slowly, revealing the soft skin of my stomach inch by inch. I hear you groan, hear your breathing speed up despite the music swelling between us.
Finally, I pull the shirt off and fling it away. I skim my fingers over my stomach, beneath the waistband of my skirt, and shiver at the feel of them on the raging heat of my skin. They feel good, but I wish it was you touching me. Want it to be you with a need that borders on the obscene.
I shimmy out of the skirt, let it fall in a puddle at my feet.
I stand before you in my scarlet bra and panties. A little obvious, I know, but I want to be your scarlet woman. Your exotic dancer. Your harem girl.
Your deepest, darkest fantasy.
As you are mine.
He stared at Lacey’s blog with a bewildered frown, reading and rereading her newest post. Behind him, Mike yelled obscenities at the umpire, but Byron ignored him.
Skimming through the comments—many of them sexually explicit—he told himself not to get upset. Told himself that the fact that she was still posting fantasies—frank, exciting fantasies that would have at least half of her readers throwing wood—was no reflection on him. Just as he told himself it didn’t matter that hundreds, maybe thousands, of men were reading this and imagining Lacey, imagining his woman, pleasuring them. Stripping for them. Dancing for them.
It didn’t work, and he could feel the confusion inside him giving way to an anger he knew he wasn’t going to be able to hide. It was stupid—ridiculous, really—to feel like this. Lacey had been running this blog for months. Why should she change her modus operandi just because they’d spent the night together?
Just because her sexy body and incredible responsiveness had fulfilled his deepest, darkest fantasies didn’t mean he’d done the same for her. Judging from the way she’d kicked him out of her bed—and her apartment—with that no-strings-attached garbage, he hadn’t come close to satisfying her. She obviously had more fantasies, obviously had—
He slammed his fist down on the desk so hard it made his laptop jump. He wanted to be the one to fulfill her fantasies. The idea of her being unsatisfied, of her needing more than he could give her—than he had given her—literally turned his stomach.
“Hey, what’s got you so pissed off?” Mike swung off the couch as the TV cut once again to commercials.
Byron scrambled to close the window before Mike could see Lacey’s distinctive home page, but he wasn’t quick enough.
“Oh, man, are you still following this site?”
“Aren’t you?” He tensed as he waited for his friend’s answer.
“I would, but Janine’s being kind of psycho about it lately. She says my interest in this blog makes her feel like she’s not enough for me. Can you believe it?” He took a swig of his beer and reopened the window.
For once, Byron knew exactly where Mike’s girlfriend was coming from—which was too fucked-up for words, as he’d always thought Janine was a little too emotional for comfort.
Mike read for a few seconds, then whistled low and long. “She’s still cranking them out, huh, man? I swear, after reading this I’m ready to go home and make Janine a very happy woman. You should do the same.”
“I don’t think I’m Janine’s type.” Byron drained his beer, fighting the urge to smash his fist into his friend’s face. But at least Mike was thinking about Janine while he was reading the blog; that meant he could let him live. Probably.
“Damn straight you’re not—and you just remember that, okay? I don’t need a pretty boy like you sniffing around, making me look bad. Janine’s always had a thing for baby-faced white boys, and I don’t need the competition.”
“I haven’t had a baby face since I was one. And when did you start caring who else Janine looked at? I thought one woman was as good as another.”
A flush crept up Mike’s cheeks, and Byron stared at him in surprise. “Are things getting serious between you two?”
The commentator came back on, announcing that one of Mike’s favorite players was about to bat. When his friend didn’t even turn around to look, Byron had a premonition about what was coming.
Sure enough, Mike reached into his pocket and pulled out a square black box.
“Dude, I didn’t know you cared,” Byron tried to joke.
“Shut the fuck up.” He flicked the box open. “I just picked it up today. Do you think Janine’s going to like it?”
Byron stared at the round diamond for a few seconds. It was big and shiny; what was there not to like? “Yeah, of course.”
Mike studied it. “I don’t know. I almost went for a kind of rectangular-shaped one, but this one sparkled more.”
“Sparkle’s important.”
“That’s what I thought.” Mike glanced up, saw that Byron’s tongue was tucked firmly into his cheek and groaned. “I sound like a total pussy, don’t I?”
“Let me count the ways.”
“That’s what I figured.” He shoved the box back into his pocket. “I’m gonna ask her tonight. I think she’ll say yes—she’s been hinting for a couple months now.”
“Then let me be the first to congratulate you. Couldn’t happen to a better guy.” He crossed to the fridge, pulled out two more beers and tossed one to Mike. “To you and Janine. May there be a bunch of little Mikes running around soon.”
“Let’s not even go there. The whole marriage thing is creepy enough without bringing kids into it.”
Mike stayed for the rest of the game, drinking beers and trading insults. When he finally left to meet Janine a couple hours later, Byron watched him go with mixed feelings. He was happy for the guy, but a little jealous too.
Not that he wanted to get married—not even close. But he sure as shit wanted to be something besides fuck buddies with the most intriguing woman he’d ever met, and he envied his friend a woman who was more open about her feelings than Lacey had been.
Of course, he was coming to believe an ice cube was more open about its feelings than Lacey, so maybe that wasn’t saying much.
Flicking off the TV, he wandered his apartment for a few minutes, cursing himself. He never should have given in to temptation and read her blog. He’d been pissed at her all day over her attitude that morning, but that didn’t seem to matter to his cock. He was hard and aching and more than willing to say, “To hell with sensibilities.” Who cared if all she wanted was to screw around? All he wanted at the moment was to get her into bed again and relieve the never-ending ache—while taking care of every fantasy she had, once and for all.
And wasn’t he jumping the gun a little with that one? Commitment? How the hell could he be thinking commitment when they’d never been on a real date? Never talked about their hopes or dreams, their pasts or their problems? It was ridiculous. And yet, as he eyed his computer, he felt like he knew her inside out. Like he knew the most important parts of her. Not just sexually, but also what she really wanted. What kind of woman she was. And it wasn’t necessarily the persona she put forth on What a Girl Wants.
When they had been in bed the night before, he’d wanted her to tell him what she liked and how she liked it. Her persona from the blog would have had no problem with it, but the Lacey he’d been with hadn’t been nearly so open. She knew what she liked, knew what she wanted, but she’d had a terrible time saying it out loud. Almost as if she was completely unused to a man asking. Or caring.
It was something he’d thought about a lot while he’d lain in bed, watching her sleep. Something he’d tested out when he’d talked her into trying out his special brand of water sports in the shower.
&nb
sp; And he’d discovered that he was right. His Lacey wasn’t shy; she loved giving and receiving pleasure and wasn’t the least bit reticent about touching him in every way imaginable. But she was leery of asking for her own pleasure, almost as if she expected it not to matter to him.
The thought still pissed him off, though he’d been brooding on it most of the day. Made him wonder what kind of bastards she’d previously hooked up with that her pleasure was an afterthought. Made him wonder if that’s why she wrote the blog.
But that was a great big if, and if it wasn’t true, then he’d feel like a total ass. Especially as her current fantasy was screaming at him like it was written in all caps. Making him wonder if he’d pushed her too far the night before, or not far enough. Maybe he was being stupid to spend so much time worrying over it, but he wanted her to be satisfied. Wanted her to get what she needed from him.
Fuck it! He stood up with a grimace, deciding he had to move on or the whole thing was going to drive him completely around the bend. One sexual encounter, no matter how fantastic, wasn’t enough to change a person. Wasn’t enough to base a commitment, any kind of commitment, on. And yet even with all the rationale, he felt surprisingly let down—like he’d been crazy to think that the night before had meant anything.
But it had meant something to him, and he’d be damned if he just disappeared into the woodwork after the best night of his life. Lacey might not be interested in more than fun and games, but that encompassed a whole range of activities. Activities he would be more than happy to share with her.
He strode to his balcony and looked out. Across the courtyard, Lacey’s light beckoned like a siren’s song. It was all the encouragement he needed. He headed for the bathroom and a quick shower to wash away the sweat and grime of the day.
Despite his pressing problems with the governor’s table, he’d spent most of the day working on the rocking chair a young couple had commissioned from him. Originally, they hadn’t needed it until mid-September, but she’d gone into labor three weeks early. The baby was fine, or so the dad said, but the mom was obsessed with having the rocking chair in the nursery when she brought her first son home in a couple of days.
