Good Girl(62)

Why are there so many goddamned Goodwill stores in Greater Las Vegas? I slide into my car and head to the one on Tropicana. It's the first one we went to together, two weeks ago, and it's between my place and hers. The parking lot is too crowded to do a quick search for her car so I run in. She's not there. Of course she's not there, because why should this be easy? I don't deserve for this to be easy. I call Canon and ask if he can hack into the city surveillance cameras to track her from the time she left the parking garage.

He laughs at me and hangs up.

I call him back and tell him to cover for me because I'm taking the day off. Because Lydia is right about everything. Because I haven’t been paying attention to my own life and now the best part of it is gone. I sling the phone into the passenger seat as I get back in my car and wrestle with whether she'd have gone to the location on Maryland, or the one on Sahara that I took her to last week. Or would she have headed to one of the half-dozen locations in Henderson, closer to her apartment? Jesus. I decide to give the one on Maryland a shot. It's closer to the hotel than the one on Tropicana, so maybe she went to that one first. Or maybe I'm going to spend the day chasing her from one donation center to the next.

I'll chase her as long as I need to. As long as she'll let me.

She's not at the Maryland location. She's not at her apartment. And she's not been back to the hotel.

It's time to pay Vince a visit.





Thirty-Two





RHYS



"Where is Lydia?"

I've located Vince in his office at Double Diamonds and I've skipped formalities. I'm so far past the mood for polite behavior with this asshole.

"I sent her to look at some property," Vince replies, unbothered by my arrival or attitude. He's not even looking at me, too busy on his laptop to bother. He's probably tallying the night’s receipts, or placing an order for pole sanitizer, fucking dirtbag. "Did you want her back?"

I tell myself that killing him will only delay getting to Lydia. “Yes, I want her back, asshole. What hold do you have over her, Vince? How much does she owe you? Name your price so we can be done with this charade."

"Another million would change things," he says slowly, leaning back in his chair as he examines me with interest.

"Fine. I'll wire it to you today and then you're done with her. Now tell me where I can find her."

"You're an idiot." He leans forward in his chair again and pins me with a stare. "And never speaking to Lydia again is going to be problematic for me."

"Why is that?"

"I'm married to her best friend, for starters."

I stare at him, waiting for the words to make sense. "You married Payton?" I feel like I'm missing something. I drop into the chair across from Vince and take the edge off my glare. Just a bit. I'm not ready to be wrong about Vince yet. Besides, he's still an asshole regardless.

"Yes. I married Payton, God help me. As far as Lydia is concerned, you are the only person who can't see straight through her if you haven't figured this out by now."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"She's transparent as fuck. You don't even know how lucky you are. I wish Payton was so transparent. I have no idea what the fuck she's thinking or where she even is most of the time."

"What are you saying exactly?"

"That auction was all for you. Prostitution isn't even legal in Clark County, Rhys. The entire thing was a setup. Do you think I'm running half a million through my books for the sale of a virgin? This is a gentleman's club, not a brothel, you dumb fuck."

"Yeah, like there's no prostitution happening in Las Vegas," I counter. "We both know that's not the case."

"Sure enough. But not through me. I'm running a legitimate business here."

Fuck my life. We stare at each other across his desk and I know he's telling me the truth, I'm almost certain of it. But, fuck. Have I really paid this little attention?

"What about that guy I was bidding against? Stan?"

"Stan is my maintenance man and that suit cost me a grand. I'm sending you the bill for that, by the way."

"There was an email," I counter. "A newsletter."

"A newsletter," he repeats back to me like I'm an idiot. "Sure, I sell sex through a newsletter, Rhys. I gain subscribers through newsletter swaps with all the other brothels in the state," he deadpans and yeah, I see it now. I'm an idiot. "We get together at Starbucks and brainstorm ways to cross-promote," he continues. "You've found us out. Good job."

"I get it. The newsletter was fake," I fill in but it's unnecessary because Vince isn't listening to me anyway.

"That was Canon's idea. I told him it was too stupid to be believable but he said—”

"Yeah, I'm an idiot. I got it," I interrupt, anxious to get to the part where I find Lydia and fix this. I wave my hand for him to continue.

"He said you were really distracted," Vince continues. “And that the visual would help get you here."

Canon has always loved a visual.

"Wait. How did Canon get involved in this? I still don't understand where this entire plot came from in the first place."