by Virna DePaul
The background was patterned with a distinctive motif of intersecting triangles. Could be just a coincidence, but the motif seemed suggestive of fangs.
A subliminal message to vampires everywhere? Could be.
Club Red. Even the name kinda fit that theory.
She checked the location info and the directions on the other side of the flyer. The club appeared to be somewhere near the hotel she and Nick had stayed at in New City. Barrett felt a tingle of excitement.
She could start there. She had to start somewhere
First she had to get in. She studied the flyer again.
We cater to discerning gentlemen of means and distinction. Ladies welcome. Ask about our private rooms.
It was true enough that women went to strip clubs intended for male customers. Some were gay. Some were curious. And there were straight women who didn’t mind their guys turning into sex monkeys if they got to come along and keep them from spending too much money.
It was a way in. But she wanted to talk to Justine first. This was her area of expertise.
Her colleague didn’t seem to mind working after hours. Justine was a night owl, never saying a word in morning meetings unless she’d downed several cups of strong black coffee.
Long dark hair tumbling over her shoulders, she made her entrance in an oversized slouch sweater and narrow jeans. Neither hid the spectacular figure of the exotic dancer she’d been before being recruited for Belladonna.
“Dinner’s almost ready,” Barrett said.
“Oh good. I’m starving.” Justine slid her black leather tote off her shoulder, and sauntered in.
The microwave beeped. Barrett went into the kitchen to take out the plate. She carried it to the table where Justine had zeroed in on the club flyers, an untouched glass of wine in front of her.
“Drink up,” Barrett said. “That chardonnay cost big bucks.”
“Nine? Ten?”
“Seven and change.” Barrett put the plate on a trivet as Justine took a sip of wine and tried not to make a face. The food seemed more to her liking.
“Ooh, fish sticks,” Justine cooed. “I always had a thing for that captain in the rain slicker. I like my men wet.”
Me, too, Barrett thought, thinking of Nick when they’d been in the pool, out of the pool, in the shower, and out of the shower. She felt a small quiver run through her body and shook it off. The man had so much power over her, whether he was close by or not. She wished he was close. That it was him drinking wine with her instead of Justine.
Which raised the question of where he was and what he was doing. Not a topic she was going to discuss with Justine. Barrett didn’t need to be teased.
They nibbled at the quick meal while Justine continued to look through the stuff on the table.
“Are you sure this girl’s abduction is connected to the sex-slave ring you were trying to break into?” Justine asked after a while.
“Not positive,” she said honestly. “But I have to find her. I knew her mother, among other reasons.” Barrett left the promise she’d failed to keep out of it.
“Got it.” Justine rifled through Malcolm’s pile of stuff one last time, studying the small photo of him on one of the articles. “Okay. Here’s my two cents on this guy.”
“Whoa. Don’t tell me you met him.”
Justine snorted. “I met a thousand guys just like him, put it that way. Middle-aged. Affluent. Looking for one last chance to run wild. The smarter ones keep their horndog bullshit out of their workplace because they’re afraid of sexual harassment suits. But they all think strippers are up for anything.” She cleared her throat. “Some girls are.”
Barrett was willing to let it go at that.
“Not me,” Justine said quickly. “I never fooled around with customers.”
“I’m not judging you. I just want to know if you think he might’ve had something to do with her disappearance.”
Justine didn’t answer right away. When she did her tone was thoughtful. “That’s hard to say. But right now, Malcolm Prescott is your only connection to Jane Small.”
“That’s true.” He was also the last person to have seen her alive, Barrett thought. Several days ago.
“Listen, Barrett, there has to be more going on. Once a closet freak gets started, he can’t stop. The way you describe him, he sounds like a boring guy who tries to be cool and craves excitement. He can afford it, obviously. What does his wife do?”
“Apparently nothing. I didn’t ask.”
Justine shook her head. “She probably knows about his extracurricular activities. Wives usually do. Maybe she just doesn’t have the bucks or the backbone to dump his sorry ass.”
“Jane saw through him.”
Justine shrugged. “He’s a whole lot older and more experienced at lying. She had him pegged for a jerk, but that doesn’t mean she could predict what he could do to her.”
“Maybe she wasn’t forced.” Barrett picked up the sleaziest flyer and waved it at Justine. “Do you think he talked her into something like this? I’m playing devil’s advocate here. Maybe she thought she could beat Prescott at his own game. Lie about her age, make a ton of money, and use it to run away. That was the tag on her SexFlash vid.”
“The money is real. It’s what you have to do to get it that does damage,” Justine said bluntly. “Young girls underestimate that part of the life. A lot of them get used up and burned out before they can blink. Or strung out on drugs. Or dead.”
Seemed like Justine had said all she wanted to on that subject. Despite her smart mouth, there was pain in her eyes. For friends and acquaintances, Barrett assumed, who hadn’t gotten out. Not everyone had Justine’s knack for self-preservation.
The two women fell silent. Barrett got up and used the remote to switch on the TV just for background noise, keeping the volume low. Justine stared at a reality show without really seeing it. Another set of housewives in heels, scratching and spitting.
“There’s more than one way to sell yourself,” Justine said after a while. “Meow, meow,” she said, referring to the catfight on the screen.” She shut off the TV. “Anything else you wanted to ask me?”
“Yes. But I’m sorry if I pushed it.”
“Someone has to. Time is obviously a factor.”
Barrett still hesitated but only for a few seconds.
“So. Theoretically speaking, if I had to, ah, infiltrate a place like that, how would I do it?”
Justine finished her wine. “In disguise. Loud getups, tinted contacts, minky-winky false eyelashes, wigs—maybe red hair for a swinger wife looking for cheap thrills with her husband, platinum for the pole dancer—”
Barrett gulped. “I’m not ready to go that far.”
“Whatever you decide, go all out with it. You gotta be convincing. Any crooked club owner has a sixth sense for undercovers. But keep in mind that the girls don’t get paid to chitchat at the tables. You’re going to need a man to come along unless you want to stand out as single or play gay.”
“You have a point. No to both.” Barrett automatically thought of Nick.
Now that would be weird. But he might do it.
He was willing to do a lot of things.
For her. To her.
And once again it freaked her out how much she thought of him. How much she wanted him. One night with him had only made her long for more when all of her focus should be on finding Jane.
That was Nick’s power over her and always had been. The power to make her forget everything but him.
And no one could have that kind of power over her. No one.
No matter how much she wished otherwise.
Chapter 10
The next morning, Nick, Kev, and Aura went hunting. Unfortunately, they found no hint of Murphy.
On their way back to the bunker, however, Aura froze and indicated. After visually sweeping the area and finding nothing, Nick knelt down beside her.
He spotted something on the ground beside her and bent down to pi
ck it up.
“What’s that?” Kevin asked. “Hope it’s not my watch. Couldn’t find it when I woke up.”
“A lump of something that is definitely not a watch.”
“Add it to your rock collection,” Kevin said without interest.
“I don’t have one.” Nick held up the lump. Its pebbled surface gleamed dully as he brushed off the dirt.
Nick took out a pocketknife. He pressed it hard into the lump, making a bright slash. Brighter than the sunlight. “Whaddya know. Gold. Solid. And close to pure, if it’s soft enough to cut.” Nick held it out for Kevin to look at.
Blond eyebrows went up. “You think Murphy had it? Intended to melt it down and make some jewelry?”
“Don’t know,” Nick murmured.
“Well you can keep it. I don’t want anything that touched his ugly skin.”
“Okay.” Nick folded the knife and tried to slip it and the lump of gold into a pocket. He picked the wrong one. He took out a thin wallet that was in the way and held it in his hand, half open.
Kev spotted the photo of Barrett before Nick could close the wallet and shove it back into his pocket with the other things.
“Cute. Who is she?”
“You ask too many goddamn questions.”
The other man shot him an amused look. “That the friend who visited you yesterday?”
Nick tried to sidestep that line of inquiry. Let Kev fill in a few blanks if he wanted to. “Yeah, she’s a friend. We were both stationed in Europe, operated out of the same base,” was all he said.
He glanced at the photo. He’d taken it, had it printed, kept it ever since.
Barrett was laughing, her blond hair tucked under a camo cap and her gorgeous body still revealed to advantage in fatigues. They had made love less than an hour before, then shared a field shower when no one was looking and scrambled back into their clothes.
Her blue eyes sparkled and there was high color in her cheeks. Nick had enjoyed making that happen. They hadn’t had many chances to be together. Then somehow they’d used up every last one and it was over.
But maybe not. They’d gone at it in the hotel as if they had never said good-bye. He’d made sure to throw in every hot move they’d ever dreamed up together. Done it her way, all the way. One night. He wanted a thousand more. With her.
Kev chuckled.
“What’s so funny?”
“A gearhead like you carrying around an honest-to-God actual picture of some gal in your pocket. I don’t get it.”
“Smartphones get stolen. Laptops get hacked.” Nick glanced at Kev. “Gotta have a girl in your pocket, right? For good luck.”
“True love is what I was thinking.”
Nick put away the wallet. “Nothing like that.”
But the words felt forced. He’d never actually thought he’d been in love with Barrett. Attracted as all get out. Protective certainly. Cared about her without a doubt. But love? To Nick, love had always been a flowery cover-up for chemistry. But when he looked back now, when he thought about how hard it had been to let Barrett walk away from him and how right it had felt when they’d made love in New City—well, fuck, if love was a flowery cover-up, then he was buried in the stuff.
Of course he’d loved her. And he still did. Kev was right. Why else would he have carried her picture around with him? Why else was he chomping at the bit to get off this mountain and get back to her?
Make sure that whoever had sent Murphy after him or even her hadn’t gotten to—
Nick frowned, realizing that his subconscious had been working overtime to process all the possibilities. It obviously thought Murphy hadn’t been acting on his own, and while there was no real evidence of that, his intuition told him he was on to something. That meant Murphy wasn’t the only potential threat to Barrett.
He needed to finish up here, talk to his contacts at the NSA, then get to Barrett.
“Want some lunch?” Nick asked, mainly because he wasn’t about to tell Kev he was going to call Barrett.
“Sure.”
Nick went back in and slapped cold cuts and bread together on paper plates, grabbing a squeeze bottle of mayonnaise on his way out.
“Here ya go.” He handed Kevin the plates. “I’m going to take a piss. Be right back.”
He stepped outside, saw the missed calls from Barrett on his cell, and cursed. Not a surprise, living up here on the mountain, that he sometimes lost cell reception. He’d just never cared all that much before. Anyone on his team could reach him on the radio. He had to walk awhile before he picked up enough bars to call Barrett. He got her voice mail, closing his eyes at how damn good it felt to hear her voice, then left a terse message asking her to call him back.
After lunch, Nick fed the scraps to Aura when she woke up and came over.
Kevin looked out over the shadowed valley below. “Do you know why Murphy was after you?”
The more he’d thought about it, Nick wasn’t all that sure that he’d been the actual target, but he still didn’t want to explain Barrett. The fewer people who knew that she’d visited him here, the better.
“They have to have obtained a copy of The List. He was on it.”
“Who are ‘they’?”
Nick shrugged and crunched up the paper plates. “The turned vampires. Maybe they’ve organized. Would make sense. They put two and two together, come up with the fact that the FBI is now targeting their asses, and decided to stick together. Formulate a plan. Go on the offensive. Murphy wasn’t with anyone else?”
“Nope. Nothing like that. Aura woulda let me know. She only seemed to see the one fella.”
Nick’s spine prickled. He shifted position and saw that Aura had circled around behind him. Her rough coat felt like hay even after she’d been groomed.
“So what’s next for you?”
“Ranking on The List is based on level of expected mental and physical deterioration,” Nick said. “Murphy was number two and by far in the worst shape of any of the turneds I’ve seen so far. It’s been harder and harder finding the turneds that are farther down on The List. I’m betting that’s because they still have mental acuity. I’m waiting for intel on their whereabouts, though. Until that comes, I’m pretty much a free agent.” Except for what he was helping Barrett with, of course. Damn it, where the hell was she and why hadn’t she called him back?
“Okay. Guess Aura and I will head back over to the ridge,” Kev said.
“Who’s in charge at the kennels?”
“Local kid. Eighteen, thinking about enlisting, wants experience with military dogs. He doesn’t know anything about the vamp op.”
“Keep it that way. Anyone from the team still around down your way?”
“Nope.”
That would leave only him on top of the mountain. Whether to stay or go was his call, though. Nick knew that being alone made him an easy target. Kev had responsibilities of his own. The kennels and the breeding program were a top priority. Nick was basically a hired gun.
It was a good thing Barrett hadn’t fought him about getting her pretty butt back to D.C. She’d be safer there. He just wanted her to call and confirm it was true.
If she didn’t get back to him soon, Nick thought he might fly out later, stash the heli, and catch a plane from somewhere closer than New City. He wanted to check out where she lived and make sure her security setup was adequate. She hadn’t known what Murphy was and he hoped she never had to find out.
The FBI wasn’t going to tell her, that much was for certain. He hadn’t heard about Belladonna and she hadn’t heard about The List or the threat posed by some of the turneds. Nothing too suspicious in that. Teams operated independently on different missions all the time, and they often did so without knowledge that the other existed. However, one thing that kept bugging Nick was the fact that Barrett worked with turned vampires, yet no one had bothered to tell her that some turneds went bad and it couldn’t be guaranteed that her coworkers wouldn’t inevitably do the same. Was it just a
matter of the FBI wanting to get as much out of those like Peter Lancaster as possible? Maybe, but Nick didn’t like the potential danger keeping such secrets posed to Barrett.
She was brave and she was tough and she was smart, but she was still a woman. His woman. He’d always thought of her like that. He wanted her safe.
Last year he’d let her walk away from him, secretly betraying her in order to keep her safe. Maybe with this second shot, he had to switch things up. Maybe instead of hiding anything further from her, he’d be brutally honest instead. Not just about his feelings for her, but about what he’d done in the past, and what could happen in the future if the turneds she worked with caught neuron-rage.
It would be a lot for her to take in and he had no doubt her first instinct would be to punch him in the nuts and tell him to go to hell.
Which meant he needed to think things through very carefully.
Nick turned to Kev. “Think you could get some of those guys who helped you back for a day or two?”
“Probably,” Kevin said. “Why? You going someplace?”
“Yeah. Do I have to tell you where?”
“No.” His partner eyed him warily. “But I’m heading out, too, if no one’ll come. I don’t particularly feel like being alone up on the ridge with just Aura and the other dogs.”
Nick gave a curt nod. “Then take them with you.”
“I intend to.”
Chapter 11
Barrett listened to Nick’s message on her smartphone. It was good to hear his voice. Good to know he was safe. And even as she prepared to call him back, her screen lit up and Nick’s number appeared.
“Hey,” she said, trying to sound businesslike. “What’s up?”
“Are you going to be happy to see me? Because I’m sure as hell not waiting any longer to see you.”
Barrett’s eyes widened. “Are you in D.C.?”
“Around the corner.”
“You could have given me a little warning.”
His deep voice was teasing. “Consider yourself warned.”
