Against the Night (11 page)

She laughed. “You were sweet last night. You came to my rescue. You took care of me when I was sick. If it hadn’t been for you, I would have been in serious trouble.”

“I’m not sweet. How do you know I didn’t ravish you when you were at my mercy?”

Her smile returned. “I don’t think that’s your style.”

Johnnie reached out and touched her cheek, just a featherlight brush of his fingers, yet goose bumps rose beneath her skin.

“You’re right,” he said. “I want you wide-awake when I take you. I want you to know exactly what I’m doing to you.”

Amy couldn’t breathe.

He reached up and playfully tugged on one of her curls. “In the meantime, no more detective work, okay?”

The curls bobbed as she firmly shook her head. “I’m not quitting. No way, no how.”

Hearing his own words played back to him, Johnnie smiled.

“In the past two days,” Amy continued, “I’ve found out more than I have in the past two weeks. I need to talk to Kenny Reason, and I need to find out who this Danny person is.”

“I’ll talk to Reason, see what he has to say.”

“I want to go with you. He might say something that clicks with me, or I might think of something to ask him you wouldn’t.”

When he started shaking his head, she caught his arm. “You said Rembrandt’s was a nightclub, an upscale place. If I’m with you, I won’t be in any danger.”

“I don’t like it, Am—Angel.”

“You said you’d help me.”

“I’m doing my damnedest, honey.”

“Please, Johnnie. I’ve got to do this. I owe it to Rachael.” She looked up at him, trying to work her womanly wiles the way the other girls did. “Please…”

He sat there for several long moments, then gave up a sigh of defeat. “All right, damn it, you can go. But we need to keep moving on this. Can you get off early tonight?”

One of the girls had called in sick, so she was working a split shift. “I’m off at ten.” She had to be back by midnight, but she didn’t want him to have an excuse not to take her.

“All right, I’ll pick you up and we’ll go to Rembrandt’s. Until then, try to stay out of trouble.”

The afternoon was slipping away. Johnnie had a half dozen calls to make on cases he’d been working and paperwork to do back at his home office. Instead he sat next to Amy at the Kitty Cat bar.

“Listen, I need to talk to Honeybee. You know where I can find her?” He told himself he was still working, even if he wasn’t getting paid for it.

The music shifted. The stage had been dark but now the lights came on for the next performance. The spotlight shined on a black-haired dancer named Ruby. Then a blonde the announcer introduced as Brittany, a new addition to the show, strutted onto the stage. The entertainment continued from opening to closing, but during the day, performances were farther apart.

“I’m not sure where Bee is,” Amy said.

Babs walked up next to them just then, a tray balanced on her shoulder. “Bee’s on a break. She’s in the employees’ lounge.” She tipped her head toward Amy. “You can take him back. It’s okay for a guy to go in there as long as he’s with one of the girls.”

Onstage, the music swelled and the show began. Johnnie barely noticed. He didn’t give a whit about the naked women gyrating beneath the spotlights. He didn’t get the clenching low in his groin that he felt when he watched Amy dancing as Angel.

That he felt just sitting beside her.

“Why do you need to see Bee?” Babs asked.

The question dragged his thoughts back to the moment. “She and Rachael had a fight. I want to know what about.”

Amy looked up at Babs. “Did you know about that?”

Babs nodded.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I like Bee. She and Rachael didn’t get along very well, but I don’t believe Bee had anything to do with her disappearance and I didn’t want to cause her any trouble.”

“So you aren’t the one who told the police about the fight,” Johnnie said.

“No. Maybe Tate mentioned it.”

“What was the fight about?” he asked.

Babs hesitated, then sighed. “Bee’s got a kid, all right? Rachael thought she should see her little boy more often, but Bee’s just not the kid type, you know? It’s not her fault. It’s just the way she is.”

Amy’s smile looked wistful. “My sister was always softhearted. When we were little, she brought home a constant stream of stray dogs, cats and injured birds. Kids and animals. Rachael loved them. We both did. I always thought she would make a great mother. We both wanted that someday.”

Johnnie glanced down at Amy. She was a teacher. Of course, she loved kids. She didn’t belong in a place like the Kitty Cat Club.

“Take me back to the lounge,” he said to her, torn between wishing he could find her sister and send her back home, and wishing he could just take her to bed.

Slipping down from the bar stool, she left her half-finished Diet Coke and led him toward the back of the club. He followed her into the employee lounge, which had a kitchenette along one wall, a coffeemaker on the counter and a couple of Formica-topped tables. Plastic chairs clustered around each one, and a dark blue, vinyl sofa with light gray throw pillows, the color scheme of the club, rested against the wall.

Honeybee sat at one of the tables, sipping thick black coffee out of a Styrofoam cup, the only person in the lounge.

He walked in her direction, paused a few feet away. “I’m John Riggs,” he said. “We met last week. You helped me locate a guy named Ray Carroll.”

The redhead gave him a slow, sexy smile, her green eyes lingering a little too long on the bulge beneath the zipper of his jeans.

“I remember you, honey. What can I do for you this time?”

Clearly she was offering more than information and Amy’s pretty lips thinned, a good sign, he thought.

“What were you and Rachael Brewer fighting about?”

Bee didn’t bother to deny it, just shrugged her shoulders. Dressed in the two-piece, blue satin costume the girls wore to serve drinks, she was at least five foot ten, with a mane of fiery-red hair that tumbled in wild disarray around her shoulders. She was a pretty woman, though the years she had spent in the business were beginning to show.

“Silk didn’t approve of the way I was raising my kid,” Bee said.

“That right?”

“Yeah, that’s right. I don’t have an old man, so Jimmy don’t have a father. Silk thought I ought to do both jobs.”

“How old is he?”

“Jimmy’s almost four.”

“So you fought with her over the boy? Did it come to physical blows?”

Bee just laughed. “Are you kidding? Silk tried to convince me I should see the kid more often. I told her if she thought he was so neglected, she could take my place and visit him herself.”

“Which I’m betting she did,” Amy added. “If Rachael thought someone needed mothering, she wouldn’t have been able to resist.”

“Yeah, she went to see him,” Bee said. “Jimmy was crazy about her. He hasn’t been the same since she left.”

“Is that what you think happened?” Johnnie asked. “Rachael packed up and left?”

Bee fiddled with her cup, pressed a long red nail into the soft foam rim. “I don’t think Silk would have left Jimmy without saying goodbye. She had all the motherly instincts I never had. I think something happened to her. Silk and me, we were never friends. We were just too different. But she was good to Jimmy and I wouldn’t have wished anything bad on her.”

The Styrofoam squeaked as Bee set the cup down on the table and stood up. “Look, I’ve got to go. I need to change and be onstage in fifteen minutes.”

“Thanks, Bee,” Johnnie said.

“Anytime, hon.” Bee flicked Amy a dismissive glance, then strode out of the lounge.

Johnnie set a hand at Amy’s waist, urging her to follow.

“She and I aren’t best of friends, either,” Amy said as they stood outside the door, “but I believe her. I don’t think Bee had any part in my sister’s disappearance.”

“Rachael was concerned about Bee’s son,” Johnnie said. “Whatever she says, she’s still a mother. I think she was grateful for Rachael’s help. She had no reason to hurt her.”

Amy’s gaze went toward the stairs. “My shift starts in twenty minutes. I’ve got to wash my hair and get ready.” Even in the low light backstage, he could see those big blue eyes looking up at him, and heat settled low in his groin.

Johnnie thought of her gorgeous little body in that tiny red G-string, dancing in front of a bar full of leering men, and his stomach knotted. He wanted to haul her out of there, demand she quit, tell her she didn’t belong in a place like this. But he had no say over her.

Hell, he hadn’t even taken her to bed. Instead, he was living in a constant state of arousal. It had to end and soon. Christ, he needed a woman. Unfortunately, now that he’d met Amy, no other woman would do.

He cleared his throat but his words still came out husky. “I’ll see you at ten.” Turning, he forced himself to walk away, trying not to wonder when he finally made love to her, how much of Amy would turn out to be Angel Fontaine.

Ten

Going to Rembrandt’s was bound to be interesting. Amy was glad she had purchased the sexy black dress from Mitzy’s. The material was a soft knit with a lace midriff and a short, gently gathered skirt that clung to her curves. The lace top was cut low enough to show a little cleavage.

It was odd. She’d been dancing practically naked, but she felt sexier tonight in her short black dress and black spike heels.

Amy left the apartment and headed downstairs. Waiting at the bottom, Johnnie followed her descent, his intense brown eyes raking her from head to foot. “Nice dress.”

Her cheeks warmed. It was amazing how he could do that. She looked down, smoothed the skirt a little. “Thanks.”

He was wearing his usual black jeans, but he had thrown a cream-colored sport coat over his black T-shirt and exchanged his high-top boots for a pair of black loafers, John Riggs’s idea of dressing up. He looked good. Really good.

He led her out of the club and over to his Mustang, helped her inside and closed the door. Sliding into the driver’s seat, he fastened his seat belt, waited until she fastened hers, then cranked the powerful engine and eased the car out of the lot onto the street.

Sunset Boulevard was lined with cars. There was never a time it wasn’t. Johnnie expertly wove the Mustang in and out of traffic, driving west down the Strip and beyond, through an area of elegant mansions that lined both sides of the road. It didn’t take long to reach Rembrandt’s, which was upstairs over a restaurant on Canton in Beverly Hills.

Johnnie pulled the car up to the valet parking attendant, handed the keys to a young man in a short white jacket, and a few minutes later, they were climbing the stairs to the club. They paused on the landing outside the door where a lean, good-looking African-American man collected the ten-dollar-per-person cover charge.

“Hey, man, good to see you,” the bouncer said to Johnnie, reaching out to shake his hand.

“Good seeing you, too. What’s up, T.J.?”

“Not much, man. Business is a little slow.”

“Probably just the economy,” Johnnie said. T.J. looked at Amy, then back at Johnnie, waiting for an introduction but it never came.

“I guess things are slow everywhere,” T.J. said, accepting a twenty from a couple who walked up behind them, the man in a pair of skinny designer jeans, the girl in tight black pants and a leopard print top. They disappeared inside the club and T.J. returned his attention to Johnnie, who held up the photo of Rachael that Amy had given him.

“You ever see this girl?”

She was grinning, striking a cocky pose for the camera. Just seeing it made Amy’s heart pinch.

T.J. nodded. “I seen her. She used to come in once in a while with a hot-looking brunette.”

“Babs would have mentioned it,” Amy said. “So it was probably Mary Lou Kammer. She’s an actress friend of Rachael’s.”

Johnnie cast her a glance. “That the address you gave the police?”

“Yes, how did you know?”

He rolled his eyes, but didn’t bother to answer. He was a private investigator, for heaven’s sake. And he was no fool.

“The girl in the photo is Rachael Brewer,” Johnnie said to T.J. “She went missing a few weeks back. She dated Kenny Reason for a while. What can you tell me about him?”

“Ken’s all right. Not a big brain, but a straight shooter. I heard he was gay, but I don’t really think so. I didn’t know about him and the girl.”

Johnnie pressed a folded up twenty into T.J.’s palm and handed him another for their admission. “Thanks, man.”

Amy took Johnnie’s arm as they walked into the club. “I’ll pay you back,” she said. “You’re already working for free. I don’t expect you to pay for information.”

He flicked her a glance so sensual her toes curled inside her spike heels. “I’m running a tab, baby. I plan to take it out in other ways.”

Her breath caught. Amazing how that kind of payback could actually sound so good. And the more she was coming to know him, the more she understood that money had nothing to do with him helping her—or how much he wanted her.

The club throbbed with a deep, rhythmic beat. The interior was done in shades of burnt-orange and midnight-blue and the bar was long and curved and ultramodern.

Johnnie led her over to a quieter place in the shadows at the edge of the crowd where they could survey the room and get a good view of the glassed-in area where the DJ sat. Wearing headphones with a mic, he worked behind a bank of dials and levers, controlling the tunes he played and the volume, adjusting the blaze of lights that roamed over the dance floor.

“That’s him,” Johnnie said, tipping his head toward the man behind the glass. “That’s Reason. He’s got a website with his picture.”

“He dresses nicely.” Dark suit and burgundy shirt open at the throat. “But he isn’t very good-looking. Then again, I guess you can’t tell much about a person by the way he looks.”

Johnnie’s dark eyes took in the short skirt that showed off her legs and came to rest on the shadow between her breasts. “Not much. Take you, for example. You don’t look much like a schoolteacher in that dress.”

She toyed with the hem of her skirt, pleating the fabric between her fingers. “I won’t be taking it with me when I go home, that’s for sure. But here, things are different.”