First Girl Gone(29)
The stapler thumped as Charlie affixed another flier to a utility pole. She only hoped this time would be different.
Chapter Sixteen
As the sun cast a reddish light on the western horizon, Charlie’s car juddered over the bridge to the mainland, tires thumping against the rough roadway as she left Salem Island behind. It’d been years since she’d rolled down this particular roadway. Even so, she recognized every barn, every truck stop, every bullet-pocked stop sign.
Once again, she found herself thrust into a slab of the rural Midwest. Woods occupied the roadsides most places, with the occasional corn or soybean field thrown in for good measure. Driving through it now was simultaneously novel and deeply familiar.
She made her way to a new place, however—the Red Velvet Lounge, the strip club of such seeming importance to the Kara Dawkins case.
The night settled over things, falling quickly. She flipped on the headlights. Pierced the darkness.
Finally, a neon glow in the distance announced that she’d found the place. The red sign shone bright, a brilliant, gleaming portrayal of a dancing cartoon woman with the club’s name in gaudy letters forming a shallow arch beneath the female form.
Charlie slowed the car, turned into the lot. A buzzing energy sizzled in her head now, churned in her gut. Nothing to worry about, she knew. Anticipation had a way of riling her nerves. Always did.
Potholes scarred the parking lot, most of the open punctures in the asphalt half full of water. She weaved around them until she found a spot and parked, killing the lights and engine right away.
The quiet seemed to make that gnawing sensation in her gut churn harder. She waited a moment before exiting the vehicle. Wanted to let her body settle, her nerves settle. Wanted to take in the scene before she walked into it.
The lot looked fairly packed, considering it was early in the evening. The three rows of parking spaces nearest the building were full, and a slow stream of traffic flowed in as she watched.
A bouncer sat on a stool near the front door, the muscular physique of his torso seeming almost comically bulky propped on the piece of stick-like furniture. In the cartoon version of this scene, the spindly legs of the stool would absolutely snap beneath him, the stool practically disappearing as he slammed straight down to sit on the sidewalk.
Finally, Charlie reached for the door handle, took one more breath, and opened the car door. As soon as she was outside, the overwhelming stench of fryer grease assaulted her nostrils. She remembered that a lot of strip clubs served chicken wings, and with the aid of this oily smell, she could already picture them congealing there under the sneeze guard, all slathered in that glowing orange paste of the buffalo sauce.
She strode between the parked cars, walking toward the big front doors framed so elegantly by the dead shrubbery. When she glanced up, she was surprised to see the bouncer staring at her. Was that wariness she read in the bunched skin along his forehead? She thought so, and that got her hackles up. Maybe something suspicious was happening here.
Most of these places would hump your leg to get you through the front doors and force you to buy your one-drink-per-hour minimum. She figured they’d be even more thrilled to have a real live woman coming in without getting paid for it. And yet, this particular club had a bouncer out here actually screening people, presumably turning some away? Yes. Something strange must be happening here.
She found herself moving the last few steps a touch slower, watching the muscle-bound bouncer, trying to read every quirk in his body language. She stopped shy of the velvet ropes. Locked eyes with the meathead defying gravity by balancing on this stool. The polo collar ringed around his beefy neck looked like it could burst open at any second.
There was a propane patio heater set up behind the guy, and she could feel the heat coming off it in waves. It ruffled the wisps of hair at the side of her face, made her blink rapidly against the dryness.
He squinted at Charlie, looking her up and down. Gestured at her with his clipboard before he spoke.
“You a cop?”
She put her hands up, trying a disarming gesture on him.
“Hell no.”
He smirked. Apparently he hadn’t been disarmed.
“Nah. Sorry lady. You look like a cop.”
Then his expression changed, going from suspicious to curious. He sniffed the air a few times.
“Yep. Smell like a cop, too.” He crinkled his nose. “I can smell ’em a mile away. Beat it.”
His hand flicked at the air as though he were brushing her away, eyes going back to his clipboard.
She just stood there, dumbfounded. During the ride over, it’d never occurred to her even once that she might get turned away at the door.
After a few seconds, he looked up, eyebrows raised. He locked eyes with her, and after a pause, he waved her away again, tilting his head in a mocking pose.
Chapter Seventeen
Confusion roiled in Charlie’s head as she retreated from the velvet rope and walked back to her car, feeling numb. What the hell had just happened?
She slid behind the wheel and plopped the key fob into the cup holder, but something stopped her finger just shy of the start button. Some instinct grabbed her by the shoulders, whispered in her head in Uncle Frank’s voice: Better to give all of this a moment to digest before moving on. Charlie worked herself through the steps again, hoping something would stand out this time.