First Girl Gone(57)
Charlie hesitated a second before she answered, instantly falling into the suggested role. “Yeah. Sorry, I’m nervous. Not sure how all of this works. I mean, I guess I’ve never done anything like this. You know?”
The other girls all turned now, cooing and offering support. Comforting phrases peppered at her from all angles, the voices tangling over each other.
“Don’t worry. You’ll do great.”
“Aw, you’ll get the hang of it.”
“Just stay strong.”
“Thanks,” Charlie said, wiping a fake tear from the corner of her eye. She took one of the seats near the left vanity, which one of the girls gave up for her.
“Jesus. Dial it back a little,” Allie whispered. “You maybe don’t remember what it’s like to be young anymore, but these troubled youths have finely tuned bullshit detectors. They’ll sniff out your waif act from a mile away if you lay it on too thick.”
Charlie noticed that instead of standard stripper garb—like the schoolgirl outfit and leopard-print ensemble she’d spotted onstage—the girls back here all wore more traditional lingerie. Corsets and garters and other items that took more effort to remove.
“So could I maybe ask you some questions about what to expect?” Charlie said, turning to face the group. “It might help me calm down, I think.”
They all nodded and vocalized various terms of agreement.
“What kind of stuff do you usually do?” Charlie asked.
Now they all fell quiet.
Red shrugged.
“You know,” the long-faced girl said, turning back to the mirror. “Depends on what the guy wants, I guess.”
Charlie licked her lips. She’d suspected something more than stripping since she walked through those doors. Now she was on the verge of confirming it.
“Like lap dances? That kind of thing?” Charlie said, keeping her voice small and tight.
Red chuckled at that.
“Well, no. Not like that. Maybe the occasional hand job if you’re lucky. But typically… it’s the other… the usual thing men pay girls like us for.”
Charlie looked around the room as Red talked. It occurred to her that this was nowhere near the backstage area—that’d be on the other side of the building. This was like a separate operation from the strip club, essentially—prostitution being run out of the back of the building. Probably exactly why they kept such a discerning bouncer out front.
“I have another question, actually,” Charlie said, pulling out the pictures of Kara and Amber. “Have any of you seen either of these girls before?”
The pictures changed hands, all of the faces in the room going somber. It was so quiet, Charlie could hear the light bulbs buzzing along the tops of the mirrors.
The other girls exchanged glances that Charlie read as frightened, but the mousy girl’s eyes went wide, locked on the face in one of the photos.
“Her. It’s been a few weeks now, but I seen her around a few times a while back.”
Her index finger extended, its tip landing on Kara’s chin in the photo. Just as the skin made contact with the glossy photo paper, the door behind them burst open, the steel slamming against the doorstop and reverberating like a tuning fork.
All heads turned to watch the bouncer enter the room. He did a double-take when he saw Charlie, stopped in his tracks. His eyes narrowed, beady black marbles that made her intensely uncomfortable.
She tucked the photos away and grabbed a makeup poof from the table, dabbing powder at her nose, trying to play it cool. She could feel her pulse quicken in her neck, heart knocking in her chest.
The bouncer chuckled behind her. Came up beside her. Rolled his eyes once she made eye contact.
“Nice try, cop.”
Then he grabbed her.
Chapter Forty-Four
The bouncer lugged Charlie down the dark hallway to the door on the opposite side. She squirmed, struggled against his grip, but he had pinned her arms down, making her effort useless. It felt like trying to fight a sequoia.
She screamed for help, but the bass from the main stage area was so loud, she doubted anyone could hear her outside of this corridor.
Balancing her over his shoulder, he pulled at a retractable key ring attached to his belt loop and unlocked the deadbolt. The big steel door glided out of the way.
Inside they went. Charlie craned her neck to get a look at the room. Shadows everywhere. Too dark to make out much, save for some shelves along the back wall and some kind of large bulky thing just in front of them—probably a desk.
He flipped the light switches just inside the door, and after a moment of hesitation, the overhead bulbs flickered on.
It was an office of some sort, the middle of the room occupied by an old metal desk with drawers on either side. Bookcases along the wall were piled with three-ring binders and cardboard file boxes.
The bouncer plopped her down in one of the chairs facing the big desk, then went back to lock the door behind him. She noted that it was the kind of lock that required a key on either side.
She’d just dug her phone out of her purse when he ripped both out of her fingers, phone then purse.
“I don’t think so,” he said, holding her things out of reach.
He moved to the other side of the desk. Dug around in the drawers. Eventually he pulled free a set of keys.