First Girl Gone(44)
When the box stopped turning in her hands, she saw it—the seams slicing a rectangular slit into the wood on one side.
She dug a fingernail into the gap and slid the drawer open. Inside she found a single cigarette, the tangy tobacco smell rising up to meet her nostrils. Beside the white tube sat a black matchbook.
She picked up the matchbook, thinking it might contain the detective novel cliché of a phone number written inside, but plain white cardboard stared back at her when she flipped it open. Then she turned it over and read the business logo printed on the other side.
She gasped so hard she almost choked.
White text and red graphics gleamed against the glossy black. Stark and bright. A cartoon of a dancing girl twirled about the curved lettering of the logo:
The Red Velvet Lounge.
Chapter Thirty-Two
It took Charlie a second to get her breath back. She stared down at the logo quivering along with the matchbook in her hand.
The Red Velvet Lounge—the filthy strip club that reeked of fryer grease—could now potentially be tied to both girls. This was huge.
Part of Charlie wanted to rush straight to the club now. Kick down the door. Tear the place apart searching for anything. But she knew that wouldn’t do. The bouncers knew to look for her.
She needed to be strategic. Patient. Needed a plan.
In the meantime, there was still work to be done here at the Ritter house. Frank’s gut said the family knew something, and Charlie planned to find that out here and now.
She tucked the matchbook into her jacket pocket and stood on tippy toes to slide the music box back on its shelf in the closet. For now, she’d keep this little tidbit from the family. Just in case.
She thought back to her visit with Uncle Frank, his words echoing in her head: If her family carries on like that in public, then what goes on behind closed doors? The secrets. The secrets often lead you where you need to go.
Charlie snaked a hand into her bag, pulled out a small, white cube. A nanny cam. She’d hide it here in Amber’s room, see if maybe someone came in after she left.
She tucked the camera in a scarf on the dresser, propped it up behind the jewelry box. Then she moved to the hall.
Peeking out of Amber’s doorway, she held her breath and listened. Faintly she heard what sounded like a fork tinkling against a plate. They were still eating. Good.
Working quickly, she checked the other rooms in the hall, identified two bedrooms. She entered the master bedroom first, scanned it in the half-light streaming in from the hall. Her heartbeat thrummed in her ears, the notion that she might get caught sending a thrill through her.
She nestled the second camera among the Spanish moss in the pot of a fake ficus in the corner. She didn’t love the angle—about half the room would likely be cut off—but as hiding spots went, faux plants were among the best. They didn’t have to be watered.
“You’re really doing this, huh?” Allie said.
“What?”
“Spying on these people.”
“I’d be willing to do a whole lot more than this to find those girls.” A memory of the day the police came to tell her parents what they’d found on the beach flashed in Charlie’s mind. She could still hear the low moan of anguish her mother made when the deputy told her they were reclassifying Allie’s case as a homicide. “All that matters is finding the truth.”
Next she went across the hall to the other bedroom, presumably that of Amber’s brother—the dirty clothes on the floor and multiple bottles of Axe body spray on the nightstand seemed to verify that.
Allie read off the varieties of Axe, amused.
“Ice Chill, Apollo, Anarchy for Him. Oh my God. Smell the Anarchy one. Please.”
“No time,” Charlie said.
Charlie chose a bookcase to house the camera. The lens would peek out from one side of a Bluetooth speaker, nicely concealed from most angles. It was perfect.
With the camera in place, she hurried back into the hall, slowly shutting the door behind her. Again, she listened. This time no fork sounds tipped anything off. She wanted to place one more camera, but it would be a risk.
“Where’s that last camera going?” Allie said.
“Basement.”
“Yeah?”
“Just a gut feeling. There’s probably a rec room or something down there. Maybe a home theater. We’ve got the bedrooms covered. That’d be another place someone might expect privacy.”
She dug another camera from her bag and placed it in her jacket pocket. Better to have it close.
She took a deep breath and started her descent. If the family were still eating, her path should be clear—that window of opportunity had to be waning by now, though.
At the bottom of the staircase, she went left, working her way around the dining room to the kitchen, figuring that to be the most likely place for a basement entrance.
She passed through a living room with a blocky-looking wood coffee table and tufted leather furniture in the exact shade of a Tim Hortons coffee with two creams. The floors were some kind of polished stone, and Charlie had to be extra careful because her feet made a tap-dancing sound with every step if she moved too fast.
The Christmas tree stood in here, festooned with silver and red. She’d never seen such an anally decorated tree outside of a magazine. The trees they’d had growing up had always been a mishmash of ornaments, many of them made by her and Allie in school: a googly-eyed felt Santa, a pine-cone reindeer with lopsided antlers, a snowman made from pompoms and pipe cleaners.