Table Of Content“What else do you want, Kendricks?” Allie was quickly on me. “An affidavit? A
videotape? A signed confession?”
I glared at her.
Lu murmured, “Sorry, girls, but I’m as confused as y’all,” before tacking on,
“Stay put, okay? Let me check with the office and see what they know.”
She took off, leaving me with black-hearted Allie, who probably wouldn’t know
what sympathy was if it ran over her in a bulldozer.
She had a sour look on her face that I didn’t like. Her slender nose wrinkled, her
eyes squinted meanly.
“Spit it out, for Pete’s sake, and quit looking at me like that,” I demanded none
too nicely; because I knew exactly what she was thinking, and I didn’t want to
hear it. “Don’t you dare tell me you honestly believe Brian ran off with this . . .
trailer trash person, or I’ll have to kill you with my bare hands.”
“All right, I won’t say it.” But she continued to stare squarely at me, forehead
pleated. “No, dammit, I will. I’ll say exactly what I’m thinking, because it’s
sounding more and more like the truth every minute.”
“Stop—” I tried, but she didn’t listen.
“They hooked up, Kendricks. Malone got a buzz in his britches for a hootchie
mama, and he went home with her, now he’s too embarrassed to show his face.
What other explanation is there?”
“Stop it.” Despite myself, I started trembling. This was wrong. Completely
wrong and upside down. Not really happening. “I won’t assume the worst before
I have the chance to talk to Brian.”
My daddy had always taught me to never judge too swiftly, for fear of getting
things totally ass backward.
I knew Brian. Maybe not backward and forward, perhaps not all the littlest
details or even some middling ones, but well enough to be sure he wouldn’t pull
a stunt like this. It didn’t sound like him at all, and I was not going to buy it until
he looked me in the eye and said, “Andy, I’ve left you for another woman.”
Only then would it be true.
“Don’t be a fool.” Allie made a noise of disgust and toed a sequined boa lying
near her sharp-toed pump. “The stripper in question has obviously flown the
coop, and there’s no sign of Malone, not at home, not at work, not with any of
his friends. I’m piss-poor at math, but I can put two and two together.”
“It’s not what it seems,” I resisted. “You’re wrong, Allie.
It doesn’t add up.”
“You’re in denial, girl.”
I fought the urge to attack.
If I hadn’t hated Allie Price before, I hated her now, with a passion.
But pulling her hair out by the roots wasn’t going to help.
As Allie righted the room’s only chair and planted herself in it, I stepped over to
the mirror and plucked the photo from the frame.
It showed a petite woman with enormous blond hair—flipped up like Farrah
Fawcett, just as Matty had
described—wearing the tiniest of panties and a spangled bra, posing in this very
room, only there was a small framed painting hanging on the wall behind her. I
could just barely make out a horse’s hind end.
Must have been the “pretty picture” Lu had mentioned.
I put the photo back just as Lu reappeared. Her expression didn’t reassure me
any, not with her eyes all teary.
“Nobody’s heard from Trayla since last night,” she said
and blinked back tears with tarantula lashes. “I can’t believe she’d bail without
telling me. Not that we were that tight, but she used to stay and have a drink with
me after hours sometimes, before we closed. She had dreams, Trayla did. She
wanted to be somebody. Said she had big plans for herself.” Lu sniffled. “Could
wanted to be somebody. Said she had big plans for herself.” Lu sniffled. “Could
be her plans included your guy.”
My guy?
Straight-Shooting, Straight-Laced, Full of Midwestern Sensibility Brian
Malone?
Impossible.
There was a greater chance of The Men’s Club turning into a nunnery.
“No,” I said, because Lu was dead wrong. Any plans her stripper pal had with a
man definitely didn’t include Malone.
Allie laughed, and I felt relieved at first, assuming I wasn’t the only one who
found Lu’s assertion absurd. Until she opened her pie hole and cackled, “This is
priceless.
Really. Brian’s probably never screwed up in his life, and all of a sudden he’s
walking on the wild side with a woman who straddles a pole for a living.”
“I’m gonna miss her,” Lu babbled, off somewhere in her own little miserable
world. “Betsy was a real firecracker.”
“Betsy?” Allie piped up. “So her real name wasn’t Trayla?”
“All the girls make up names for the stage,” Lu replied.
“You know Betsy’s last name?” Allie went for broke.
“No,” Lu said. “Sorry. I never asked. She wasn’t much for hanging out with the
girls. She always had some kind of rich boyfriend who was takin’ her out.”
Well, that counted out Malone then, as he still had student loans to pay off, and
the last time we’d gone to the movies, I’d had to pay for the tickets and the
Junior Mints.
But it didn’t explain why Brian had chased Trayla backstage and why he’d left
with her, if that’s what really happened.
It could’ve been a weird coincidence, I told myself.
It could’ve been a weird coincidence, I told myself.
One of those rare cosmic occurrences that only happened when there was a
Harvest Moon.
Or not.
My teeth began to chatter.
“So no one knows where Trayla went off to?” Allie asked,
because I stood there like an idiot, staring at the make-up smeared mirror and the
way it distorted my reflection.
“Nancy in the office said Trayla’s home phone was disconnected and that one of
the girls had heard her mention something about getting a ticket out,” Lu related.
A ticket out, huh?
Hopefully, that was a solo flight and not a trip for two
with my missing boyfriend.
A wave of nausea hit me, just contemplating it.
No, no, no.
This wasn’t happening, not to me.
Brian would never ever cheat.
Would he?
I shook my head, saying, “No,” repeatedly, even as a wave of dizziness swept
through me, so fierce that I had to lean on Allie to stay upright.
“Kendricks, you okay?”
Her voice was garbled, thick as peanut butter.
“You’re not gonna faint, are you?”
Faint? Me?
Hell, no.
I’m a Blevins Kendricks. We don’t swoon.
Nope. What we have are weak stomachs.
With a gutwrenching heave, I leaned over and puked on the vinyl flooring.
Adios, banana pancakes.
Or what was left of them anyway.
“Jesus, Kendricks! You nearly tossed your cookies on my Jimmy Choos!” Allie
screeched.
I balanced hands on thighs, my legs vaguely shaking, lifting my head to mutter,
“Sorry,” but I didn’t mean it.
I’d missed her Choos?
Damn.
This was clearly not my lucky day.
Chapter 9
Allie took the wheel on the way home. Said she didn’t trust me in control of
anything as deadly
as an automobile when I was nearly catatonic.
She was afraid I’d drive us both into a tree, and all because I couldn’t summon
the energy to do more than stare blankly at her rapid-fire questions: “Are you
gonna puke again? You need to lie down? Want me to call your mother? How
about your therapist?”
I didn’t have a therapist—surprising, huh?—nor did I have the oomph to utter
anything but monosyllables; though she needn’t have worried for her life.
Odd as it sounded, it wasn’t her I wanted to kill, not this time.
It was Malone.
If he had truly done the terrible deeds that everyone was trying so hard to
convince me he had, I figured a raking over hot coals while tarred and feathered
was too good for him.
But I had to find him first.
I had to hear the words “We are through . . . over . . . done . . . kaput” from his
lips before I’d wave my white flag and surrender to heartbreak.
Oh, and I would.
Find him, that is.
That Nazi Hunter dude had nothing on me. I was pushy, nosy, and I had plenty
of resources, not to mention infinite vacation days.
Being that I worked for myself—thanks to the trust fund Daddy had bestowed on
me from the time I was eighteen, meaning my mostly pro bono Web design
work didn’t have to pay all my bills (and seldom did)—I could take off as long
as I needed to track down my errant boyfriend.
I’d left business cards with Lu the Busty Barmaid and the soprano-voiced
bartender, along with the offer of money for information—ditto the overly made-
up hostess and bouncer in the foyer—all on the off-chance Malone turned up at
The Men’s Club again or someone would remember something they’d forgotten
to mention. (It’s amazing how often cash can jog one’s memory.)
Although I seriously hoped the next phone call I got was from Brian, explaining
this whole mess away.
Just in case he had and I’d missed him, I checked my voice mail—cell and home
—only to come up empty yet again.
Was it possible to feel so mixed up that you imploded?
If so, it surely would’ve happened to me right on the passenger seat of my years’
old Jeep.
For cryin’ out loud.
I leaned my forehead against the window, the glass cold against my skin, and I
was glad for it, as hot and bothered as I was (and not in a good way). The
nighttime scenery whooshed past in a blur of neon and traffic lights, and I paid
attention to none of it.
My mind was back in Stripperville, as was the bulk of my brunch.
How could he? the uncertain part of me screamed, while the reasonable half
calmly answered, He didn’t.
I squeezed my eyes shut and recalled all the things Malone had said to me in
recent days, how he was tired, couldn’t wait to be done with this latest case so he
could spend more time with me and catch up on his sleep (I wasn’t sure which
came first in his list of priorities, but I was hoping it was me). He’d mentioned
taking me to Mother’s for my birthday dinner on Wednesday, plus something
about a “surprise” for the coming weekend. I usually didn’t like surprises, but
I’d been anxious to see
what he’d cooked up.
So long as it wasn’t his running off with a wench called Trayla Trash. If so, that
could well be the shittiest birthday present I’d ever received from anyone,
could well be the shittiest birthday present I’d ever received from anyone,
including the time in first grade when Mike Weber had given me a booger
sandwich.
Yuck.
Imagining Brian canoodling with a stripper gave me a double dose of the heebie-
jeebies.
It went way beyond “ick.”
I shuddered, figuring that was one picture worth a thousand words . . . all of
them curses. The only worse thing than imagining Brian with another woman
was thinking of attending my mother’s dinner without him.
Oh, Lord, why had I gone there?
My brain did a momentary freeze.
Dinner at Mother’s.
Gulp.
What if I hadn’t gotten this insanity straightened out by then? What if Malone
didn’t come back by Wednesday?
How would I explain showing up at Cissy’s house sans boyfriend? Particularly if
the explanation was X-rated?
I’d never hear the end of it.
“I told you so,” would undoubtedly be Mother’s warm-up act. I didn’t even want
to ponder Act Two.
I groaned loudly and dropped my head to my hands, which must’ve freaked out
Allie, as she jumped all over me again: “Do I need to pull over? Are you gonna
puke?
Roll down the window and hang your head out, why don’t you?”
Hang my head out the window? Did she think I was Lassie?
“I’m fine,” I told her, sounding anything but.
“Listen, Kendricks,” she started in, as if I needed another of her lectures, “I’m
nearly as mad at the son of a bitch as you, so there’s no need to mope alone.
We’ve got loads to do on the Oleksiy case and Brian knows it, so if he really
skipped out, I’ll murder him for you. And I’ll know by tomorrow morning,
bright and early. If he’s left town, he’d better have called in to work with a
dandy excuse,
or he’ll find his ass on the street. I’ll buzz you as soon as I hear something.”
Great.
A morning wake-up call from the Blond Menace.
Yet another thrilling moment to look forward to.
Why didn’t God just strike me down and be done with it? Why was I being
tortured? Was this payback for missing so many Sundays of church? For
deciding organized religion just wasn’t my thing? For bailing out on my debut?
If God worked in mysterious ways, would His plan for teaching me a lesson be
so elaborate as this? So gutwrenching?
Although I had learned one thing that surprised me.
Allie Price wasn’t as completely unbearable as I’d pegged her initially. In fact,
she was being awfully close to nice, when she could’ve easily shoved the knife
in good and given it a turn or two. She might’ve reminded me again how Malone
and I hadn’t even lasted as a couple as long as they had. She had ample
opportunity to expound for the hundredth time on how even Boy Scouts can be
pigs.
Instead, she did an amazing thing, offering to drive me home in the Jeep and
take a cab from there, though I told her no, I could handle the return trip all by
myself. She did a quick “how many fingers am I holding up” test, as if to check
my level of alertness—if not my sobriety, though I hadn’t drunk a thing—and
seemed satisfied when I passed.
When she pulled the Wrangler into a parking space at the Taco Diner, she
shifted the Jeep into Park, turned to me, and asked if I wanted to head in for a
