First Girl Gone(56)

“Dude’s too damn slick for his own good,” Allie said just above a whisper, as though Will might hear her.

“A lot of fancy talk, but I know why you really come here,” Charlie said once Will was looking her way again.

“What’s that?” he said.

“The wings.”





Chapter Forty-Two





Having spent some time in the club, Charlie could see that her original plan would never work. It was too busy. There was no way she could walk up to any of these girls and ask them about Kara and Amber. The bouncers had eyes on the girls above all—protecting the merchandise.

Plan B it was, then. She’d need to sneak into the back, and she’d need Will’s help to do it. At least she’d had the foresight to prep him for the possibility. He’d be going above and beyond to help her on this one.

Charlie downed the last of her drink and felt a rush as the alcohol entered her bloodstream. The top of her scalp tingled ever so slightly, and a numbness grabbed at her cheeks. A little liquid courage could help with this next step.

She met Will’s eyes. Leaned in close to him.

“You ready to do this?” she asked.

Nodding once, he turned to face the crowd. Scanning. Picking out his target. She liked that he was being this strategic.

Part of her had expected some nerves from him when the moment arrived. He was about to tangle with security at a strip club, probably get a whole slew of people paying attention to him in the process. A smidge of stage fright would be normal as far as she was concerned. Instead, he seemed cockier than ever.

He strutted across the room, taking a sip of his drink along the way. She could see him making a show of scanning the room, his expression conveying how utterly unimpressed he was by everything around him. It occurred to her that this kind of thing must be fun for him. Manipulating people. Playing a role. Maybe that made sense. He’d described the courtroom as a kind of theater himself. Maybe he honed his swagger there, refined it into something he could turn off and on with the flick of some mental switch.

Along the far wall, he conferred with one of the bouncers, gesturing wildly. The bouncer leaned his head back and roared out a laugh she could hear over the music.

“He’s way too good at this,” Allie said.

“Yeah, maybe.”

Now Will’s body language changed again. He tightened up. Hands coming up as though to defend himself.

The bouncer roared out another guffaw, again tipping his head all the way back as though to point the laughter at the ceiling. Charlie realized that Will was acting out some joke. The bouncer wiped tears from his eyes and waved over another bouncer who was standing guard at the back hallway.

That was Charlie’s cue. She rose from her seat, straightened the spangled skirt of her dress, and pressed forward into the crowded main floor. She crossed through the throngs of men crowding around the smaller stages where girls disrobed and gyrated.

At last she reached the clearing before the back hall. She tried her best to look nonchalant, to channel whatever cool indifference Will had going for him as he’d made his way up to the bouncer. And she resisted the urge to glance over her shoulder at him now, to check his progress with the second bouncer in particular. She thought maybe she could hear the three of them laughing, but it was hard to be sure over the blaring music.

She stepped into the hall, into the shadows. It was much darker here. Her eyes opened wide, trying to make out her surroundings.

She pushed through another set of doors, and there she saw it. The room she’d gotten to last time just before the bouncer grabbed her—the place where she’d heard girls’ voices just beyond the door.





Chapter Forty-Three





Charlie eased open the heavy steel door, trying to get a peek as the slab of metal glided away. At first, she could only see the bright light shining in the growing slit of the doorway.

Then she saw the girls—six of them huddled before a pair of vanities, barely dressed, caking on makeup in the mirrors. They seemed younger than the dancers she’d seen on the floor. Fresh-faced and innocent-looking.

They all glanced up at her, gone quiet for a second, but their previous conversation resumed after the hitch. They weren’t exactly surprised to see her, she thought.

“Anyway… What was I just saying?” a redhead with a long face and neck said, smearing more eyeliner around her fake lashes.

“You were talking about this stupid smoking law stuff,” another girl said. This one had dark hair in a frizzy mess of crinkles atop her head.

“Right. Yeah. See, everything they do to try to restrict it just makes smoking seem cooler. Rebellious, you know? Vaping, too. When you outlaw something and try to repress it, you only make it more appealing.”

“It’s the forbidden fruit,” Frizzy said.

“What?” Red said, turning her head. “Oh, right, yeah. That’s it exactly. ‘Tastes better ’cause it’s stolen’ is what I always say for that, but I can respect your, uh, biblical reference.”

Charlie approached slowly as the two kept talking, almost like she was creeping up on a pack of small woodland animals, worried she might spook them into bolting.

A mousy girl turned to Charlie as she got close and spoke to her in a low voice. “Are you the new girl?”