First Girl Gone(26)
“No, let’s stay. Maybe you can help me with that University of Michigan law degree brain of yours.”
Will sighed.
“You know, it’s hard when women are only interested in you for your brilliant mind.”
They sat at the bar, and since Will was drinking Scotch, Charlie ordered another Negroni.
“Well?” he said. “My brain is ripe for the picking.”
“Does ‘white rabbit’ mean anything to you?”
He squinted, looking confused.
“When I was a kid, I had a pet rabbit that was white. Why?”
“I got this cryptic email today telling me to ‘Follow the white rabbit,’ and then ‘Find her.’”
“‘Find her?’” Will repeated. “Does this have something to do with Kara Dawkins?”
“That was my thought, but at this point, who knows? It could have been spam. Maybe white rabbit is the name of a boner pill.”
Will smiled, sipping his drink.
“You don’t actually think that, though. Or else you wouldn’t be asking me if I know what it means.”
“Truthfully, I thought I’d be done with this case by now. I figured it’d be like everyone said: I’d find Kara camped out on a friend’s couch somewhere.”
“I take it things aren’t going well, then?”
“Just a lot of unanswered questions. I’m pretty sure she was sneaking out at night, probably had a fake ID, and one of her friends said something about her working at a club. This is the only club on Salem Island I could think of, but it didn’t pan out. It’s just dead end after dead end.”
“What about the Red Velvet Lounge?”
“The what?”
“It’s a strip club. Just outside of Port Blanc.”
Charlie set her glass down.
“Well, shit. I hadn’t considered that ‘club’ might mean a strip club,” she said, suddenly wondering again about Kara’s fake ID.
“It’s the only one I know of that has a local connection.”
“What kind of local connection?”
“The owner, Silas Demetrio, he’s from here. He was, oh, probably five or six years ahead of us in school?” Will shrugged. “Anyway, there’s also Little Angels in New Baltimore and Night Moves in Mt. Clemens. But they don’t get quite the same local traffic.”
“You seem to have an encyclopedic knowledge of the local strip clubs. That brilliant mind’s been hard at work, I guess.”
Will grinned and swirled his Scotch.
“Let’s just say that legal issues arise wherever booze and nudity intertwine. For a small-town lawyer, it pays to know these things.”
When they’d finished their drinks, they headed for the door, coats in hand. Will made a show of playing the gallant gentleman by helping her slip into hers.
In the parking lot, their footsteps crunched over a light layer of snow that had fallen over the course of the evening. It was a clear night, the stars shining bright against the ink-blue sky.
Cars whizzed past as they strolled along Main Street toward Charlie’s place. Their tires made slushy sounds on the road, hissing and spitting.
“This is probably the Scotch talking, but I have an overwhelming urge to confess something to you right now.”
“What’s that?”
“I had a bit of a crush on you in high school.”
Charlie choked out a disbelieving laugh.
“You did not.”
“It’s true. In fact, I know of several guys who had a thing for you.”
“Uh… I think you’re confusing me with Allie.”
“Not at all,” Will said, shaking his head adamantly. “Allie was an open book. But you… you were more mysterious. I spent half my senior year trying to work up the nerve to ask you out.”
A giggle escaped Charlie’s mouth, some combination of booze and Will’s confession working together to make her giddy.
“You’re full of it.”
“Why?”
“Because you never said a word.”
“Well, you were scary.”
That got another laugh out of her.
“Scary? How am I scary?”
He shrugged. “You were… intense.”
The laughter ceased, but a smile still played on Charlie’s lips.
“That’s just a nice way of saying I’m a bitch,” she said.
“Maybe ‘intense’ isn’t quite right.” He thought on it for a moment. “Unapproachable. Maybe that’s a better word.”
She smirked and raised an eyebrow.
“So… a stuck-up bitch?”
Will pointed at her.
“You’re twisting my words around on purpose.”
He sighed, his breath coming out in a whirling cloud of mist.
“Do you remember our advanced biology class?” he asked.
“With Mr. Bates? Yeah.”
“You’d sit in the back of the room, quiet as a cat, barely uttering a word. But you always had this look in your eye… like you were cataloging every little thing that happened.”
“Like the time you raised your hand in the middle of a lecture about human gestation and asked if breast milk was two percent or skim?”