Against the Night. Kat Martin
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every shift. She hadn’t expected any of them to be involved in Rachael’s disappearance and that was the conclusion she had come to in the end.
If something terrible had happened, Amy sensed it had to have involved one of the club’s customers, or someone Rachael was seeing.
From the start, Babs and Amy had connected. Both of them cared about Rachael and both were beginning to suspect the worst—Rachael had either been kidnapped or killed. As the weeks slipped past with no word from her, the devastating scenario seemed more and more likely.
Amy’s chest tightened. Though she and Rachael hadn’t been close for years, they were still sisters, best friends once. Amy had decided to come to L.A. to find out what had happened. Since there was no way she could just walk up to a customer, tell them she was Amy Brewer and ask them if they had murdered her sister, she and Babs had come up with a plan. Amy would go undercover, take the job Rachael’s disappearance had left vacant, and start digging. Amy would find out what happened to Rachael—no matter what it took.
Amy raced up the stairs to the apartment to get ready for her waitressing shift, hoping that maybe tonight she would turn up something useful. Her costume, a two-piece dark blue satin number just like Babs’s, lay on the bed, ready for her to put on.
Before Amy got to L.A., Babs had spoken to the club owner, Tate Watters, and told him she had a friend who was looking for a job. Watters had hired her sight-unseen, even though she had “limited experience.” Fortunately, Amy and her sister had both been blessed with good figures, and faces that weren’t too bad, either, so he didn’t seem to regret giving her the job.
Babs had promised to show her the ropes, and after her first self-conscious, clumsy efforts, she had been able to get through an entire performance onstage. A couple of summers ago, she had learned a self-hypnosis technique at a teaching seminar in Detroit. The trick was good for controlling anxiety and aiding in memory work. Amy had used the technique to help her get over her stage fright and embarrassment.
She had always been a pretty good dancer, not the exotic sort, of course, and she had been on the cheering squad in high school. Her movements were fluid, and if she could forget she was almost naked and gave into the suggestions she put into her head, if she could manage to let herself go, she wasn’t half bad.
Which surprised the heck out of her. She guessed a person never really knew themselves completely.
A last glance in the makeup mirror above the dresser, a few quick strokes of the brush through her long blond hair, a dab of blush and a fresh application of lipstick and she was ready to go.
Her stomach tightened. By some ironic twist, being onstage as Angel Fontaine was the easy part. Mingling with customers, putting up with the risqué remarks while quietly digging for information that might lead to finding her sister—that was the tough part.
And no amount of self-hypnosis had helped. She was nervous and edgy the entire time she worked the floor, always trying to stay just out of a customer’s reach, trying to keep a smile on her face as the men flirted and propositioned her.
Not that they were usually that bad. Tate wouldn’t put up with harassment. And there was a house rule that the girls couldn’t date the customers, which all of the regulars knew. And after a warning or two, if any of the men got too far out of line, big Bo Jing, the bald-headed, oversize Asian bouncer who stood at the door with his legs splayed and his arms folded over his massive chest, looking like a half-ton Mr. Clean, made sure they left the club and never came back.
The club allowed lap dancing, both in the bar and in private VIP rooms, which was a good way to make a little extra money, but so far she had never done one, and it wasn’t something any of the girls had to do if they didn’t want to. Tate was clear on that.
Making her way over to the bar, Amy picked up a tray and headed for the table of new arrivals in her assigned section. One of the other dancers, a redhead who called herself Honeybee, kept their attention fixed on the stage until Amy could get their drink orders.
She plastered on a smile. “Hello, gentlemen, what can I get for you?”
An overweight businessman in a wrinkled three-piece suit was the first to reply. “A big taste of you, sweetheart, would suit me just fine.”
The other men laughed.
Amy ignored a wave of nerves and turned her attention to the customer beside him, gray-haired and a little too bright-eyed. “For you, sir?”
“Bombay martini,” he said, his gaze still fixed on the stage. “Very dry, and I want it up.”
“Hell, Sam, a martini won’t help you get it up!”
The men roared with laughter. Amy pretended not to have heard the remark, smiled and took the rest of their orders, grateful she had already learned the majority of the drinks people wanted and relieved there were no more comments. At the bar, Dante filled the orders and she returned to the table to deliver the drinks, setting the right order in front of the right customer, which wasn’t as easy as she would have guessed.
Waitresses earned their money, she had learned in a very short time, more so when they were only half dressed.
Babs walked past just then, wearing a pale blue wig tonight. “Far left corner. Kyle Bennett just walked in.”
Amy’s gaze swung in that direction. She was getting used to the dimness, getting to know her way around the tables and chairs, better able to work in the low light than she had been when she had first started.
She spotted Kyle Bennett, a regular customer and one of the men her sister had been dating in the weeks before her disappearance. He was sandy-haired, lean and elegant, almost effeminate. She might have thought he was gay except for the lascivious look in his eyes when he watched the girls onstage.
“Thanks,” she said to Babs. Babs had tried talking to Bennett after Rachael first disappeared, but as soon as he found out she was Rachael’s roommate he’d clammed up tight. Amy knew she couldn’t tell him her real name, or her connection to Rachael.
She took a breath to steady herself and started in Kyle Bennett’s direction. There was no one else at the table, which would make things a little easier.
“Hello, Mr. Bennett, what can I get you this evening?”
He looked up at her and smiled. “Tanqueray and tonic, doll, and a little conversation.” He wasn’t handsome but he was attractive, and so far whenever she’d talked to him, he’d been polite.
Entertaining the customers was part of the job, and it gave her the chance she needed to dig for information. “Let me get that for you and I’ll be right back.”
She hurried to the bar, waited for Dante to fill the order, then walked back to the table. “Here you go.”
Kyle stirred the drink with the plastic swizzle stick, tipped his head back to look up at her. “You know, Angel, with a face and figure like yours, you could be a whole lot more than just a dancer.”
She managed to look surprised. “You really think so?”
“Sure I do. Hollywood is always looking for the next big name. Angel Fontaine could be it.”
Amy figured that was probably the line he had used on Rachael, who had come to Hollywood with dreams of becoming a star. He was rumored to be a movie producer but no one really knew if it was true.
Fortunately, she and Rachael looked nothing alike, Rachael being several inches taller, with softly curling dark brown hair and green eyes. Amy took after her mother’s side of the family, Norwegians who had immigrated to Michigan during the past century to work in the logging industry.
She gave him a bright, interested smile. “I’ve always dreamed of being famous. Do you really think I might have a chance?”
“You’d have to do a screen test first, but I could arrange that for you. In fact I’m working on a film right now that might have just the right part for you. What do you say?”