Folk Around and Find Out (Good Folk: Modern Folktales #2)(6)
Aunt Maddie exhaled a shuddering sigh. “I don’t know what to do.” Her voice small, she covered her face with her hands. “I don’t want you working at that place, Charlotte—even if it’s for a little while. It’s bad enough Heather—” Her voice caught and her shoulders shook with a sob.
I placed a comforting palm on my aunt’s back. “It’s fine. It’s going to be fine,” I soothed, forcing calm into my voice. “This is better, honestly. If Heather is working at The G-Spot, or if she ever worked there, I’ll be able to find out right away.”
“But Heather might be working at The Pink Pony,” my mother protested. “We don’t know which strip club she’s working at, and if you’re so darn determined, I don’t see why you can’t work at The Pink Pony first and—”
“Mother,” I cut in. “Hank—Mr. Weller said no. He is not interested in me working at his club.” I should have known better than to ask him for anything. For some reason, the man severely disliked me. Which was why I’d gone out of my way to avoid him at all costs since high school. Or he didn’t dislike me in particular but was simply a mean person in general. “And besides, from the description Heather’s friend gave Uncle Chuck, the club where she’s supposed to be stripping sounds more like The G-Spot than The Pink Pony.”
“That G-Spot club is dangerous,” my mother said weakly, real fear entering her voice. “We—we could find someone who will track her down at a discount price.”
“We’ve already been to seven different PI offices.” My temples throbbed. No one was going to look for my cousin pro bono.
When my aunt had come to us last month, begging for help finding my cousin, I’d asked her why she didn’t hire a private investigator. That was before I knew how much private investigators cost. That was also before my aunt and uncle confessed how my cousin had been slowly cleaning out their savings for the past two years to pay off drug debts and extensive legal fees.
None of us had twenty-thousand dollars lying around to put a private investigator on retainer. I’d debated whether or not to sell the beach cottage then, to pay for the PI, but I couldn’t. I needed it. That place was my nest egg. It was my emergency investment in case one day Kevin suddenly agreed with his parents and wanted to fight me for custody.
He hadn’t cared about custody when we divorced; it had been his family who’d made a fuss. Even so, I couldn’t assume his disinterest would last forever. I’d specifically asked for the small cottage in the divorce because he hated how little it was. Of all his holdings, it was the one he cared about the least. If we ended up in court again, I didn’t think he’d ever win, but even I realized how important it was to have money set aside just in case. As my momma had said, I knew I could be dense about certain things. But I wasn’t denser than dirt.
“I’ll be careful,” I promised. “I’ll get the dancers to trust me, and then they’ll talk.” The G-Spot was dangerous, but I felt certain I could handle it after I’d surreptitiously asked my friend Jackson James about the club last week.
As a sheriff’s deputy who’d made plenty of arrests at The G-Spot, Jackson had given me an idea of what to expect. He’d said, unlike the tight ship and no-tolerance policy Hank had at The Pink Pony, some of the dancers at The G-Spot were strung out and had been arrested on drug and/or prostitution charges. But there hadn’t been any arrests made in the last ten years that involved violence between a dancer and a customer.
“And I would only be there for two weeks at the most,” I reminded my momma and my aunt. “Only long enough to talk to the staff, ask around.”
My shoulders drooped, the earlier sting of embarrassment now mostly subsided, leaving me feeling spent. If I never saw Hank Weller again it would be too soon.
A long, long time ago, I had a giant crush on Hank. He was about three or four years older than me and had been in college at the time. Roscoe had been a good friend of mine in high school—I’d (platonically) loved how sweet, funny, and sincere he was—but I’d also shamelessly pushed to hang out at his house instead of mine in case Hank stopped by to see Roscoe’s brother Beau. In retrospect, I’d been na?ve, bordering on pathetic, in my pursuit of Hank Weller.
Fighting a yawn, I ran my hands up and down my arms, feeling a chill. I’d gone to bed too late last night and I’d woken up early this morning, wanting to finish my hair and makeup before the kids awoke. Then breakfast. Then dishes. Then a quick shopping trip with my aunt and Momma for some new clothes that made me look the part.
“No.” Aunt Maddie shook her head abruptly, her hands dropping away. “We’ll have to ask your friend again—what was her name? Hannah? Let’s ask Hannah one more time.”
I tried my best to disguise my frustration by pasting on another smile. “I already told you, Hannah is not going to talk to us. She won’t tell us anything.”
When we couldn’t find an affordable private investigator, I’d reached out to my friendly acquaintance Hannah Townsend—currently a stripper at The Pink Pony—and asked if she’d seen Heather or if she could help locate her. I’ve known Hannah my whole life. Unlike my male friendly acquaintances, I trusted her to hear me out and let me decide how to proceed.
In my experience, whenever I confided my troubles to a male friend or acquaintance, he always wanted to take over, dictate to and “fix things” for me, even if I’d been seeking nothing but advice. Which was why I didn’t want to ask one of them to patronize The Pink Pony or The G-Spot and keep an eye out for Heather. I didn’t trust them to follow my directions.