I had hardly put the phone down when Pooja stepped into the office, a sheaf of papers in her hand. She thrust them at me, and I raised questioning brows.
“The application for the director of security job,” she said, smiling slightly. “The board voted to move ahead quickly, and the first round of interviews is Saturday—they’re anxious to fill the position. I thought I’d give you a head start.”
“Thanks,” I said, eyeing the application with distaste. “I think.” She started for the door, but I stopped her. “Officer Dallabetta wanted to apply, too. Do you have another copy of the application?”
“It’ll be online in a minute,” Pooja said, “along with the job announcement. As soon as I get back to my office, I’m posting it to the Jobs section of the Fernglen website.”
Leaving Joel out front to man the phones and keep an eye on the cameras, I went back to the office and got started on the forms. Why in the world did they need my mother’s maiden name, I wondered, filling in “Atherton.” The phone rang at my elbow, the little brrr that let me know Joel had transferred a call to me. “Officer Ferris,” I said absently, trying to remember my address from six years ago to include on the application.
“If you want to talk to Eloísa, be at Phat Cat at ten o’clock tonight,” a voice whispered.
“But she’s underage.” I said the first thing that came to mind. Phat Cat was a twenty-one-and-over nightclub about halfway between here and Quantico.
A laugh ghosted over the line. “Phat Cat. Ten o’clock. One chance.”
“Wow,” Kyra said when I told her about the phone call. “Cryptic phone calls. Very Nancy Drew. Do you think it might be a trap?” She said the last words with mock breathlessness, leaning forward across the table in the food court. Her hair threatened to fall in the barbecue sauce she was using for her chicken strips. “Of course I’ll come.”
I pointed to her hair, and she flicked it over her shoulder. Taking a bite of my Szechuan green beans, I said, “Thanks.” It surprised me a little to realize I felt more trepidation about hanging out in a nightclub by myself, looking desperate and out of place, than I did about confronting a possibly armed, undoubtedly dangerous gangbanger or two. I had no proof it was Eloísa who had called, although I thought the voice was female.
“What’ll I wear?” Kyra asked, tapping a green-painted fingernail against her teeth. “More importantly”—she surveyed me critically—“what’ll you wear?”
“Jeans.”
“You can’t go nightclubbing in jeans!”
“We’re not going nightclubbing,” I said repressively. “We’re interviewing a witness.”
“In a nightclub; ergo, we’re going nightclubbing.”
I rolled my eyes.
“When’s the last time you went dancing?” she asked, piling the lunch debris on her tray.
“Senior prom?”
She shook a finger at me. “I’ll bet it was before you went to Afghanistan, right?”
“Well, duh. Dancing wasn’t high on our list of activities. It fell somewhere below ‘Protect the base,’ ‘Accomplish the mission,’ and ‘Stay alive.’”
“Yeah, yeah.” She brushed away my sarcasm. “What I mean is you haven’t been dancing since you got back. You used to love to dance.”
“That was long, long ago, in a place far, far away,” I said, trying to put a humorous spin on a conversation that was going somewhere I didn’t want it to go. “Don’t mention my knee or I’ll have to spill this on you.” I indicated my strawberry smoothie.
Kyra raised her brows. “I’ll mention what I want to mention, girlfriend. But, fine, have it your way. You’re letting a nameless body part keep you from doing things you would like to do if you weren’t so worried about how you’d look doing them now that the nameless body part doesn’t work as well as it once did.” Crossing her arms over her chest, she gave me a “top that” look.
Caught between irritation and amusement, I wondered why I’d never noticed how square and stubborn Kyra’s chin was. “You might—might!—have a teeny, weeny, minor point. Which doesn’t change the fact that I’m wearing jeans. To the nightclub. At which I’m not dancing.”
“Who’s going nightclubbing?”
Kyra and I looked up to see Jay Callahan standing over the table, eyebrow quirked, warm smile making him look very appealing in a boy-next-door kind of way. That is, if the boy next door carried a gun and led a double life of some sort.
An evil glint came into Kyra’s eyes. “We are,” she said. “Tonight. And you’re invited.”
“Great,” Jay said without hesitation.
“Wait—” I started.
“You’ll have to dance with me, though,” Kyra continued, “since EJ doesn’t dance anymore.”
“I don’t think that’ll be a hardship,” Jay said, smiling down at her. His mischievous gaze shifted to me. “Although maybe we can change her mind.”
My abs clenched against the warm feeling his look stirred up. I rose, holding my tray in front of me like a shield. “Don’t you have some garage-lurking to do?” I asked.
He pretended to consult an invisible calendar. “Nope, no garage-lurking on the schedule. I’m all yours for the night.”
I frowned to stave off the images that leaped to mind. “Fine. Come if you want. But I’m still wearing jeans.”
Fifteen
In any event, getting dressed at nine o’clock, I couldn’t make myself wear jeans. Phat Cat wasn’t a trendy D.C. nightclub, but it was a pretty happening place for the ’burbs, or so I’d heard. I tried to tell myself that that was why I didn’t want to wear jeans, but I knew it had more to do with Jay Callahan. Sliding hangers aside to reveal some of the clothes I’d worn in my L.A. life, before the military, I pulled a short peach-colored dress from the back of the closet and held it wistfully in front of me. It would probably still fit, I thought, remembering long nights of dancing with the floaty skirt twirling around me. But I didn’t wear above-the-knee dresses anymore. I returned the dress to the closet and pulled out a pair of slim, metallic slacks with enough stretch to make them fit close. And I could wear my silver ballet flats with them; my knee definitely didn’t do high heels anymore. An ice blue halter top that bared my swimming-toned arms would complete the outfit. A few moments later, a glance in the mirror told me I looked… well, hot.
Fubar agreed, twining around my ankles and depositing rusty red hairs on my silver pants. He followed me into the bathroom and leaped onto the toilet tank, nosing at my cosmetics bag and sneezing before leaping down again. Twisting my chestnut hair into a messy topknot and skewering it with a couple of enameled chopsticks, I applied some eye makeup and deep red lipstick, and found myself looking at someone unfamiliar in the mirror. Not totally unknown—more like someone you meet at your tenth high school reunion and know you should recognize.
This slim woman with the smoky eyes and the chestnut tendrils drifting against her cheeks was a ghost from my past. Certainly from before my knee got torn up. Looking at the reflection, I realized I’d spent a big chunk of my adult life in uniforms of one kind or another: military, mall cop. On the one hand those uniforms said I was part of a team, and I liked that. On the other… did they steal a bit of my individuality? Impatient with my thoughts, I turned away from the mirror, tucked a credit card and ID into the tiny silver bag I looped over my shoulder, and hesitated. Should I take my gun? No, I decided. They might well have a metal detector at the club, and I wasn’t going to put myself in a position where I’d need it. I was meeting a fifteen-year-old, for heaven’s sake. Besides which, I didn’t have a concealed carry permit. I snorted for even thinking about it. Telling Fubar not to wait up, I locked the door and waited on the front stoop for Kyra.
The parking lot at Phat Cat was half-full when we arrived. We were way too early for the serious partiers, Kyra informed me; they wouldn’t arrive until after midnight. “Don’t these people have jobs to go to in the morning?” I grumbled as I got out of the car. “Classes?”
/> Kyra started toward the club door, which was practically pulsating with the techno track beating against it. In a tight red dress that displayed a mile of shapely leg and high heels that took her to over six feet tall, Kyra looked magnificent. I smiled ruefully. I might as well have worn my jeans since no one was going to look at me with Kyra standing nearby. At the door, we discovered it was ladies’ night and we didn’t have to pay a cover to enter. Kyra flashed a thumbs-up at the news and led the way into the glittery, strobey, loud interior.
Phat Cat had an industrial feel to it with exposed metal pipes big enough for a prison escapee to crawl through, lots of concrete, and glass and chrome fixtures. I got an impression of a long shiny bar, not enough high-topped tables or uncomfortable-looking stools, snaky glass light fixtures, and a surging crowd of mostly twenty-somethings. The club didn’t seem to be a gang hangout, I noted with relief, since people of a dozen ethnicities danced, talked, and drank without the kind of “this is our turf” glares I associated with gang members. The dance floor, at the far end of the room from where we’d entered, surged with bodies moving to the hypnotically repetitive beat of some song I’d never heard before. How in the world was I going to find Eloísa, let alone carry on a conversation with her?
Kyra and I maneuvered our way to the bar and ordered, a cosmopolitan for her and a club soda for me. Kyra stared at me in disbelief. “If I’d known you weren’t drinking, you could have driven,” she said.
“Maybe I’ll have a drink after I meet up with Eloísa,” I said, my eyes studying the people who passed by. I didn’t see anyone who looked underage, or Jay. A tall man in black with garish red shoes asked Kyra to dance, and she cocked a brow at me. I shooed her toward the dance floor with a smile, and she trailed after the man, hips swaying.
Perching on a stool vacated by another woman who’d headed toward the dance floor, I sipped my club soda and tried not to think what the decibels in the club were doing to my hearing. I laughed at myself. I must really be getting old. Such a thought would never have crossed my mind in my hard-partying days.
“Something funny?” Jay Callahan’s voice, right next to my ear, made me jump. He’d wedged himself between my bar stool and the one next to me, which was occupied by a man the general shape and size of a sumo wrestler. When I turned, my face was only inches from his. His hazel eyes smiled into mine.
“Dance?”
“I’m waiting—” I cut myself off. I wanted to dance with Jay Callahan. Eloísa could find me on the dance floor. My knee… “Okay.”
He took my hand in a firm clasp and led me toward the floor. Merging into the mass of writhing dancers, I tried to feel the rhythm and sway with it. My knee twinged but I ignored it, grinning at Jay. This was fun. The floor was so packed that no one could possibly make out the motions of an individual dancer, so I lost my feeling of self-consciousness and began to move with the beat, being careful not to twist my knee. I saw Kyra several dancers away, arms waving in the air, hair flying as she moved. I pointed her out to Jay and he grinned. He danced with the shuffle step so many guys employ, but he seemed to have a decent sense of rhythm and was enjoying it. He leaned closer, and I thought for a moment that he was going to kiss me.
“So, want to tell me what we’re really doing here?”
Surprised, I leaned back so I could see his face. I was debating whether to tell him about Eloísa or pretend I hadn’t heard him when I caught sight of a woman over his shoulder whose gaze was fixed on my face. She looked vaguely familiar… Gilda! With expertly applied makeup, her hair up in a topknot like mine, and a form-fitting dress that revealed a busty figure, the girl looked twenty-four. She gave a tiny jerk of her head that seemed to indicate I should move toward the far side of the dance floor.
“Excuse me,” I told Jay, edging toward Gilda.
By the time I had extricated myself from the dancers, I’d lost sight of her. However, a narrow hallway with a “Restrooms” sign and a pointing-finger graphic lay in front of me, so I turned down it. A man with heavily gelled hair erupted from the men’s room, bumped into me, and put a hand on the wall for balance. “Sorry,” he said before heading back to the bar. I pushed open the door to the ladies’ room, expecting to see Gilda.
No Gilda. The relative silence was soothing, and I felt tense muscles relax fractionally. The industrial theme carried over in here with white subway tiles, concrete stalls, and lots of mirrors. A short blonde was applying mascara to lashes already gunky enough to suggest she’d been swimming in the Gulf of Mexico during the oil spill. She eyed me disinterestedly before returning to her task. A toilet flushed and a moment later Gilda emerged from one of the three stalls, shot me a sidelong look, and went to the sink to wash her hands. She waited until Mascara Girl exited and then said softly, “She’s outside.”
“Is this cloak-and-dagger routine really necessary? Wouldn’t it be easier for us to chat at a coffee shop?” I couldn’t believe Grandpa Atherton had put up with this sort of thing for decades and still did it for fun.
Gilda caught her breath and looked under the stall doors. Apparently satisfied that we were alone, she said, “You don’t know Enrique. This is a good spot because it’s not a place we’re likely to run into the Niños. My sister works here,” she added.
I felt churlish. Yes, the setup felt like teenage drama to me, but I didn’t know the gang culture and maybe Eloísa really was putting herself on the line to talk to me. “Thanks,” I said.
A couple of women came in, giggling and chatting, and Gilda just nodded at me. I left the restroom and turned to the left where an illuminated “Exit” sign glowed. A placard warned that alarms would sound if I went out the emergency exit, but the door was open a crack, so I pushed through it and found myself in a noisome alley behind the club facing three overflowing Dumpsters. A line of scraggly trees separated the Phat Cat property from what appeared to be a meadow or pasture less than fifty feet away. It was lonely out here, isolated. Stars twinkled overhead in the clear night sky, and I took a deep breath, regretting it immediately as the odors of stale liquor and rotting food attacked me.
“Eloísa?” I called softly.
A figure detached itself from the shadows on my right. I turned as the girl walked toward me, almost invisible in dark jeans and boots and a black sweatshirt with the hood pulled up. Something glinted dully on her chest, and I realized, as she came closer, that it was a crucifix. “Gilda told me I should talk to you,” she said in a low voice. Her accent gave the words a melodic rhythm. “About Celio.”
“I saw you and Celio and another friend at the mall,” I said, “the day Celio got shot. Can you tell me what you guys were doing, where you went?”
Her dark eyes flitted from my face to the Dumpsters, to the trees at the property line. “We went to the mall to hang out, that’s all. No special reason. We… we just walked around, went into stores, shit like that. Nothing special.” Her left hand went to the crucifix, and she rubbed it between thumb and fingers. “We got cookies in the food court.”
She had her head bowed, staring at her feet, and I could barely make out her words. I stepped closer and she jumped back, knocking against the club’s wall.
“Sorry,” I said, holding up my hands. “I couldn’t hear you.”
She nodded, but kept a wary eye on me.
“Who was the other guy with you?”
“Enrique,” she said after a moment.
The biggest and baddest of the Niños. “Was that unusual?”
She gave me an uncomprehending look.
“For Enrique to hang at the mall with you and Celio?”
“Enrique does what he wants to do.”
I was getting nowhere with this line of questioning. I switched tacks. “How did Celio seem? Happy? Nervous? Angry?”
Something sparked in her eyes, and I knew I’d touched on something. “He seemed really hyped up,” she said.
Drugs? I wondered.
“Like… like something was going to go down. The only other time I
’ve seen him like that was when—just before—he robbed the Gas-n-Go.”
Even in the dim light she must have caught my reaction because she said fiercely, “Celio wasn’t bad. He wasn’t! When we were younger, he used to feed all the stray cats on the street. They recognized his step and would come running whenever he walked down the sidewalk. My mom used to call it ‘Celio and the Cat Parade.’ And he walked to school with me every day, even though he was older and the other boys teased him about it. And he could make you cry when he played the guitar.”
“It sounds like he was special,” I said gently, saddened by her recital.
Bitterness infused her voice and she sounded suddenly older than her fifteen or sixteen years. “It was those Niños. They changed him.”
Niños Malos. Bad boys. I didn’t point out that Celio had chosen to join the gang. What did I know about the boy and his options?
“I think it was guns,” Eloísa said from out of the blue. “I heard Enrique say something about cuetes, and then he dragged me off with him, saying Celio had something to take care of.”
“When was this?”
The girl shrugged one shoulder. “Late in the afternoon? Three?”
“And did you see him again?”
“Sure. Maybe twenty minutes later he caught up with us by the fountain. We were watching the children visit the Easter Bunny.”
She sounded wistful, like she wished she weren’t too old for sitting on the Easter Bunny’s lap. “We left right after that.”
“Celio was with you?”
She nodded. “Sí.”
I wrinkled my brow. “So he must have come back to the mall later, or whoever killed him chose the mall—why the mall?—as a spot to dump his body.” I was mostly speaking to myself, but Eloísa answered.
“He was supposed to eat dinner with us—my family—but he and Enrique just dropped me and left. That was the last time I saw him.”
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