by Janie Crouch
“No. I’m sorry. The night with DJ Shocker was crazy. There were a ton of locals here, plus people we’d never seen before.” Keira’s distress was obvious.
“It’s okay, Kee. You can’t keep track of everything and watch over everyone. Even though you try.” Andrea wrapped an arm around her.
“She was a nice kid.” Keira shook her head. “Wasn’t shy, like you. She was outgoing. Didn’t mind flaunting what the good Lord gave her, if you know what I mean. Even down here waiting tables, she still had a lot of sass. And tended to go home with men from the club, even though we all warned her that was a bad idea.”
“Everybody has to go their own way, Keira. You can’t be mother to us all.”
Keira, of course, wasn’t old enough to be mother to any of these girls, was hardly old enough to be mother to a baby. But age had nothing to do with mothering instincts.
Keira gave them a crooked half smile. “I always try.”
It was getting late in the afternoon. Andrea said her goodbyes to Keira, both of them needing time to get ready for the night’s work. He left them so they could talk privately.
The thought brought the weight back to Brandon’s chest. Everything he’d heard from Keira about Andrea did not mesh with the conclusions he’d drawn for himself after seeing her last night.
Maybe he needed to talk to her, to clear the air. To tell her what he was feeling.
Hey, I didn’t like that you pranced around for a bunch of men while being so scantily clad last night. I know you were undercover but you didn’t have to look like you were so comfortable with it.
Yeah, he didn’t come across as a jackass with that thought. The weight in his chest got heavier.
“You ready?” she asked, joining him at the door. He turned and stared down at her.
“What?” she finally asked.
“Nothing. I—” Not knowing what to say, he stopped himself and held the door open for her. Should he try to explain?
He was about to try as they walked outside, even knowing that it probably wouldn’t come across well. But she stopped abruptly just a few feet out into the parking lot.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, about to reach for his weapon.
“It’s my—” She cleared her throat and started again. “It’s my aunt. I don’t see my uncle.”
Brandon took his hand off his sidearm, but didn’t relax his guard. He saw the older woman now. She was standing next to the same car that had been parked in front of the hotel on Tuesday.
Despite any coldness between him and Andrea, Brandon knew he would protect her from this.
“You don’t have to talk to her,” he told her, stepping closer. “We can just leave. Or I’ll go talk to her if you want.”
He could see the tension outlining Andrea’s body. “No, like you said, they can’t hurt me anymore. I don’t know what she wants.”
As Andrea walked toward her aunt, Brandon stayed close to her side. The older woman took a few steps toward them as they got closer to the vehicle. Andrea stopped about ten feet away.
“Hello, Margaret.”
No title or anything to insinuate they were family.
“Andrea. You look so beautiful.” The older woman moved closer but stopped when Andrea visibly flinched. “So grown-up.”
“I have grown up since I was seventeen and left your house in the middle of the night, scared for my life.”
It was Margaret’s turn to flinch. “Andrea, I’m—”
“Where’s Marlon?”
“Your uncle passed away two years ago.”
Andrea nodded, obviously not curious how Marlon had died. She relaxed just the slightest bit. That man truly could never hurt her again.
“I don’t expect you to forgive me for not stopping him from hurting you. But I am sorry. Sorry I wasn’t stronger and didn’t stand up to him.”
Andrea nodded again. “Thank you for coming by.”
Andrea began to walk away but her aunt stopped her.
“One of the ladies from church told me you were in town and working for law enforcement. She said you knew some people here.”
Margaret just stared at the building for a moment. He wondered if she knew Andrea used to work there.
The older woman brought her gaze back to Andrea. “I knew I needed to come and make my apology face-to-face while I could. I didn’t think you’d talk to me on the phone.”
Everything about Andrea’s stance clearly said her aunt was right.
“Well, it was nice of you to make the gesture.” Andrea turned to their car, obviously finished with the conversation.
Her aunt reached out. “I also have a box of your things. Letters you received and a few items that were in your room that you left behind.” She opened the door to the backseat of her car and took out a box that wasn’t much bigger than a shoe box. “You used to like horses and collected a couple figurines.”
Andrea stopped and turned back to her aunt, her eyes narrowing. “Yes, I remember those.”
“They’re in here. Please, honey, I know you don’t want anything to do with me, but I wanted you to have these things.”
Andrea hesitated for a moment, but then walked over to her aunt. When she reached out to take the box, Margaret put her hands over Andrea’s.
“I stopped drinking. Marlon did too a few months before he died. Both of us realized what damage we’d done to you, and I’m so, so sorry. I know we’ll never be family again, but I hope someday you’ll be able to forgive me.”
Andrea nodded again, but didn’t say anything. Margaret held her hands so long Brandon took a step closer in case he needed to force Margaret to let go. Brandon’s action caught Andrea’s attention and seemed to pull her out of whatever place in the past she’d gone.
“Thank you for getting these to me.” She gestured to the box while stepping backward, breaking the contact with her aunt.
“I’m so glad you’ve done so well for yourself,” Margaret whispered. “That you were able to overcome everything and rise above it.”
Andrea looked at her aunt, then at Brandon. “I’m learning that the people who hurt you are ultimately the ones who make you stronger.”
Chapter Seventeen
The people who hurt you are ultimately the ones who make you stronger.
Andrea’s words still rang clearly through his head hours later when he sat at the corner table of Club Paradise again.
He and Andrea had left her aunt, returned to the house, and Andrea had gone into her small room. She hadn’t said anything to him besides the most basic of answers to his questions about food and particulars of the case. He’d left her at the house to take the napkin Keira had found to the locals for analysis.
When he’d come back Andrea had still been in her room, although there had been evidence that she’d fixed herself dinner. The box her aunt had given her lay unopened on the kitchen table.
They still hadn’t said anything but polite phrases to each other as he took her to Club Paradise to get ready for her shift.
The weight in his chest hadn’t gotten any less heavy, either.
She’d looked right at him when she’d said the words: the people who hurt you are ultimately the ones who make you stronger.
It was now nearly eleven o’clock and he’d been watching the men in the club—watching Andrea—for more than an hour and a half from the same table as last night.
Despite the weight in his chest, he still couldn’t stop his anger, his distaste, at seeing her flirt so easily with the men. At seeing her dressed so skimpily again, at knowing others were seeing her show off so much skin.
“How you doing there, Agent?”
Brandon’s eyes flew to the petite form, dressed in high heels, jeans and a tank top, who plopped down in the chair across from
him.
Keira.
Brandon sat back. “Hi. Didn’t expect to see you here.”
“Thought I’d come out, give a little support to our girl. I know she needs it.”
Brandon looked over to where Andrea had crouched down near a low chair so a man in his midforties could give her his order. He noticed the man never took his eyes off her breasts cupped in the bustier. Andrea didn’t seem to mind at all that the guy was salivating.
“She seems to be doing just fine on her own,” Brandon said to Keira.
Keira’s eyes narrowed, but she didn’t say anything. A waitress, with Kimmie on her name tag, came over to take her order, and when she brought the drink back, Keira took a twenty-dollar bill, rolled it up and stuck it between the other woman’s breasts—also visible from the bustier she wore. Keira winked at the waitress and she winked back.
“You into girls?” Brandon asked.
“No. Not that way.” She took a sip of her drink. “Just like to support my sisters who work damn hard for their money then a lot of times are rushing to a second job or a family or something else that also requires their time.”
Brandon hadn’t necessarily thought about it like that, but guessed it could be true.
“Let’s take our waitress, Kimmie. She’s Andrea’s age or a little younger. Maybe twenty-one.”
Brandon nodded. “Probably.”
“Maybe Kimmie got knocked up by someone who took off. Or has a husband who can’t get a job. Or hell, maybe she’s always dreamed of being a stripper. Whichever. She finds a job here. Any of that make you think less of her?”
“Not really.”
“She comes in every night, smiles at all the guys. It’s not hard for the good-looking frat-boy types. Maybe a little more difficult for the old ones or fat ones or ones that sneer at her. But she still does it, because, well, that’s how you make a living at this job. Think less of Kimmie now?”
Brandon knew where Keira was going with this, but didn’t stop her. “No, I don’t think less of her.”
“She gets up onstage and takes her clothes off and smiles. She works down on the floor serving drinks and smiles. She smiles. Because this is her job. Giving men something to look at is her job. And she does it well.”
Brandon held a hand out in surrender, but Keira continued.
“There are some girls who have to use drugs in order to do it. Kimmie isn’t one of those. There are some girls who make some extra money by going out in back and having sex with guys. But Kimmie doesn’t do that, either. Because Kimmie’s just trying to live—support her family or whatever—off the money she makes at this job. She doesn’t give guys come-ons. Doesn’t tease them. She just dresses up her admittedly beautiful body in a somewhat revealing outfit and smiles. Nothing more.”
Brandon looked over at Andrea. She was smiling. But she wasn’t touching any of the men, leading them on in any way. Like Kimmie, she was just doing her job.
Keira leaned over the table toward Brandon. “You got a problem with what Andrea’s doing here tonight? What she did four years ago?”
Brandon shrugged. “I didn’t think so until I saw her up close and in action. It’s hard to watch. Hard to accept.”
“Whose hang-up is it?” She gestured toward Andrea. “That sweet girl right there? I don’t think so.”
Keira took another sip of her drink. “Do you know why she was so popular onstage? Because everyone could tell she didn’t really want to be there. Made her seem untouchable yet available at the same time. Guys ate it up.”
Brandon shook his head. He didn’t want to think about Andrea onstage, and thinking about her being up there when she didn’t want to be was even worse, but Keira wouldn’t relent.
“You see me? I am what I am. I go up onstage and I’m confident and strong and hot. It’s not every guy’s thing, but it’s enough that I’m pretty popular. Do you think you could make me feel bad about myself?”
Brandon began to answer but she stopped him.
“Let me help you—no. Nothing you could say to me about my chosen profession would make me feel bad about myself. Because I am how I dance—confident and strong. I own my choices and I don’t second-guess myself.”
Brandon raised his glass in a sort of salute. Everything Keira said was obviously true.
“But you know what I’m not, Dr. Han? It is doctor, right?”
“Not medical, but PhD, yes.”
“I’m not kind. I’m not willing to put myself on the line to help other people. I’m not willing to fight through hardships and claw my way up from the holes life tries to throw me in.”
“I’m not sure life would be able to throw you in a hole.” And he didn’t think the other part was true, either.
She shrugged a delicate shoulder and glared at him. “One thing I know—I sure as hell wouldn’t be willing to go back and do something that sickened me about myself, that broke my own heart, because it might help a complete stranger.”
She pointed across the club where Andrea was talking to another group of men. “But I think we both know someone who did. Who is.”
Brandon stared at Andrea for a long time. Finally Keira stood up, her drink empty. “It’s time for me to get going. I have responsibilities having to do with stuff not here.”
“I’ll walk you out.”
She put a hand out. “I’ll be fine.”
She walked a few steps before turning back to his table. “I don’t know Andrea well. She doesn’t let anybody know her well because she’s afraid they’ll hurt her. But I’ve seen the way she looks at you. She respects you, has opened herself to you.”
Brandon couldn’t deny that. Andrea had opened herself to him, in more ways than one.
“Knowing you were here had to make this even harder for her. That you might judge her. Hurt her like other people had. And then you did.”
Brandon couldn’t deny it. Keira was right.
She continued. “Andrea will eventually come to terms with the fact that she was a stripper. In the greater scheme of things, who the hell cares? It’s in her past and it got her through. Someday she’ll look back on her past and realize she has nothing to be ashamed of. I doubt when you look back at how you’ve treated her that you’ll be able to realize the same.”
* * *
HAVING THE FACT that you were a hypocritical jackass pointed out with such crystal clarity was pretty painful.
The image of Andrea, smiling and flirting with other men in a skimpy outfit, seeming to enjoy it? It burned into his mind.
Another image tried to fight its way in, one of Andrea in the rain, cold, needing him. But he pushed it out.
He could admit to himself it was easier to deal with anger and disgust over stripper Andrea than with the feelings that swamped him over kind, talented, reserved Andrea.
Those feelings scared the hell out of him.
And it wasn’t as if he’d said anything to Andrea about how seeing her at the club had made him feel. He wasn’t that much of a jackass.
She was in the shower now. It was nearly 3:00 a.m. He was listening to a message left for him by Gerardo Jennison at the Phoenix police department with a report of what they’d found in the woods around Club Paradise today. It hadn’t been much.
He sat down on the couch, realizing he’d been pacing. He pushed all thoughts of Andrea away and concentrated instead on the man she’d seen in the storm.
There’d been no sign of him tonight, and neither Brandon nor Andrea had found any persons of interest in the club. If the storm guy was the same one who had killed the other women then his MO seemed to be changing. He wasn’t waiting until DJ Shocker’s visits to pick his victims; he was hunting before.
Of course, he’d also killed Ashley Judson, victim number two. She hadn’t been a stripper at all, just a waitress
, although she’d had a reputation for serving up herself for truckers who stopped at her restaurant and were willing to pay the right price. That could certainly seem just as “impure” as the other women, who took their clothes off to make money.
But coming after Andrea didn’t really make sense, since it was her first night and she hadn’t really done anything “impure,” unless the actual women he killed didn’t matter, just someone who worked at a strip club.
Brandon sat back and let his mind work, doing what he did best, thinking of all the possibilities. Maybe the storm guy wasn’t the serial killer at all. Maybe it was Damian Freihof. Brandon took out his phone and speed-dialed Steve.
“Damn it, Han, do you know it’s three o’clock in the morning?” Steve asked by way of greeting.
“Sorry, boss. We’ve had a slight update.” He explained the situation and what had happened to Andrea.
“Do you think the killer has turned his sights on her?” All traces of sleep were now gone from his boss’s voice.
“Not unless he’s changed his MO. I was wondering what the latest update on Damian Freihof was.”
“It’s still an active manhunt, but he was last seen near Midland, Texas.”
“That’s not out of the realm of possibility for arrival in Arizona.”
“True. But it’s also a direct route to Mexico, which is a logical place for him to be headed if he wants to get to South America. Plus, we still don’t have any reason to think he’ll actually come after Andrea. He hasn’t had any contact with her since she’s been at Omega.”
“All right. Sorry to wake you. Keep me posted if anything changes.”
“You’ll be my first call. How has the undercover work been going?”
“Fine. Andrea jumped back into it like she’d never left. Seems like wearing next to nothing and flirting with total strangers is second nature to her.”
There was a long silence on the other end.
“What?” Brandon finally asked.
“You’re telling me that Andrea looked like she was having a good time while working at the club?”
“Yeah. She was fine. Happy, even. Why?”
