“Marriage is not a business transaction.”
Chambers laughed like he was naive. “You keep believing that.” Then he rose from his seat, and ran his hands through his hair. “Now if you’ll excuse me. I see something I want to fuck.”
Grif flinched, and realized too late it was the reaction Chambers was hoping for. He turned away again, but Chambers’s laughter chased him.
“Remember your promise,” the man called out, and the reminder, along with the laughter, hung on the air like a threat.
After Kit noted the men systematically disappearing, after catching the ripe scent of a good ol’ boys club souring the air, she made quick work of getting rid of Grif. There was no sense in trying to gain access to that back room—some doors, she knew, would never be open to her, so instead of beating her head against this one, she turned the mystery over to the ever-capable Grif.
After letting him think it was his idea, of course.
It was the women that she was most interested in, anyway. Thus, Grif hadn’t been gone five minutes before Kit was breaking her promise to remain in clear sight, and heading up the big, winding staircase in search of Mrs. Chambers. With Grif no doubt occupying Chambers’s attention, this was her chance to talk to Anabelle about the list, the Wayfarer, and Nic’s death outside of her husband’s overpowering presence.
Besides, she was curious. What kind of woman willingly shared her man not just with other women, but other wives? As a reporter, Kit strove for understanding rather than judgment, but as a woman? She believed in the right to bear arms when it came to her man’s body and affection.
Emerging on a landing both quiet and cool, Kit found tasteful but unremarkable artwork adorning the walls, and expensive but unexceptional side tables lining the hall. Antique vases, fresh greenery. Everything stately, and right where it should be. Perfect.
“There’s always something else going on beneath a perfect facade,” Kit muttered, recalling Bridget Moore’s words. So she peered into the first dark doorway she came to, directly across from the landing. It was just a guestroom—also stately, also unremarkable—and Kit shut the door quietly behind her before continuing down the hallway.
And there was more than one hall. All were dotted with doorways, all dark. Where was the life? Kit wondered, looking about. The other alleged wives or women? Or even another child? Because there wasn’t one other sound to accompany her footsteps, and the heavy silence eventually smothered even the residual noise from downstairs.
Yet the final hallway felt different, like the center honeycomb in a hive. A sole door sat at the end, ajar and lit from within, and Kit knew before looking that this was where the queen bee resided. Under the dim light of a vaulted ceiling, she peeked inside to find a warm room done in gingham pastels. Anabelle Chambers was tucked into a corner settee, reading a book to Charlotte, snuggled tightly at her side.
Kit flashed on a memory of her mother doing the same, the warmth of her body, hands stroking her hair, but Charlotte must have sensed her there, because she jolted, causing the book to fall from her mother’s hands. “What are you doing here?”
It was the child, not the mother who asked, and Kit was so taken aback by the strength in the young voice that she almost retreated. “I could say I’m lost, but I’m not,” she said, stepping forward instead. Only then did Anabelle’s gaze finally focus on her. “I came to find you.”
“It’s bedtime,” Anabelle said, but she gazed directly through Kit’s body, and there was a slight slur to her words. “Time for us to sleep and to dream and all be together again . . .”
“Is she okay?” Kit took another step inside the room. Other than the gingham, the space was unadorned. There was a gilt mirror, but no jewelry or perfume or even flowers lay there. As someone who took great joy in feminine accoutrements, Kit couldn’t fathom that Anabelle Chambers, or even Charlotte, really lived here.
Charlotte was up, tossing the throw aside to reveal a Hannah Montana half-gown and legs that looked like a colt’s. “You can’t be here.”
Anabelle continued slurring. “You should come. I know this place and we can all reach it. She told me. She said everyone is better there, everyone is happy in the Everlast . . .”
“Hey, did you hear me?” Charlotte crossed to the door and held it wide for Kit. “You’re not allowed up here.”
Then who was? Kit wondered. Because it was an awfully big house for one woman and a little girl. “She just told me to come.”
“She wasn’t talking to you,” Charlotte snapped, grasping the door by its frame, her tiny brows draw down tight. “She’s been ill.”
“Yes,” Anabelle sighed, sliding down further in the settee. “So very ill . . .”
“Why are you alone?” Kit asked the girl.
Charlotte pointed out the door. “She needs her rest.”
“I thought it was your bedtime.” When Charlotte just looked at her, Kit pressed. “Charlotte, I know something is wrong. Let me help.”
Putting her hand on her hip in a move that looked both defiant and jittery, Charlotte said, “You’re a reporter, right?”
“Yes.”
Charlotte smirked then shook her head. “Then you can’t help at all.”
“Then how about as a friend?”
Charlotte looked back at Anabelle, who’d curled into herself and was mumbling, fingers worrying the blanket over her legs. “She said they’re waiting for me, just beyond those gates, and then we can all be together again . . .”
“She doesn’t have friends,” Charlotte said, pushing the door shut. “She only has me.”
Kit nodded slowly. “And the baby.”
Charlotte lowered her gaze, and said lowly, “There’s always another baby.”
Of course. The Mormon culture valued children like riches. So why was this woman, who’d claimed to be so “blessed” downstairs, curled into a corner, pale and drawn—and apparently drugged out of her mind—being watched over by a sole thirteen-year-old girl?
Glancing at Charlotte, Kit decided to take a chance. “I need some answers Charlotte. I’m looking for a man.”
The girl jerked her head, causing her long dark braid to swing over one shoulder. “Men aren’t allowed on these floors.”
“I think your father knows him. His name is Lance Schmidt. Ever hear of him?”
“No.” Charlotte lifted her chin. “And don’t bother asking Mother, either. She doesn’t do well under pressure.”
“Very protective of her, aren’t you?”
“That’s my job.”
Kit looked Charlotte dead in the eye. “Usually it’s the other way around.”
“Listen, if you don’t leave you’re going to get me in trouble.” The girl swallowed hard, her eyes now pleading. “And . . . you’ll be in trouble, too.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know.” Charlotte cast a quick glance over her shoulder, like she expected to be punished. Anabelle Chambers, though, had fallen asleep. “You have to go.”
Kit pulled out her business card, and wrote on the back. “That’s my number on the front, but this is a friend of mine. He’s a cop, and he’s always willing to help someone. You know, if you need it. Just keep it close, okay?”
Charlotte looked at the card, then took it uncertainly. Then she looked up at Kit. “You might want to keep it close, too.”
And before Kit could again ask what she meant, she shut the door, locking it with a firm snap. And as silence descended on the heels of the warning, Kit realized how very alone she was. She could hear nothing from downstairs, which meant no one could hear her, either, and Charlotte’s warning of trouble had her hurrying back through the halls. But then she took the final corner and spotted the light seeping from the room across the hall. She knew she’d turned it off before, and that she’d shut the door as well.
But it was on now, and the door ajar, and a feminine humming rose and fell in the air, drawing Kit close. Once again, she looked in, and this time there was a woma
n in the rocking chair. The humming immediately cut off, and she looked up.
“Curiosity killed the Kit.” The woman smiled.
Kit did not. “What did you say?”
“The cat,” the woman said, putting down the Bible she was reading, resting it on her lap. “I meant the cat.”
“Who are you?” Kit asked, because she was fairly sure this woman wasn’t another guest. She wasn’t dressed for a party, for one, covered instead in unrelieved black, including her skin, her close-cropped hair, and the smoky shades shielding her eyes.
Not a wife, either, Kit was willing to bet. People of color weren’t traditionally a part of the Mormon Church, and while there was still a lot Kit didn’t know about Chambers, she got the feeling that he was extremely traditional in this regard.
“Were you drawn in by my song?” the woman asked, ignoring Kit’s question. “ ‘Amazing Grace.’ You people are supposed to like that.”
So she wasn’t Mormon . . . but thought Kit was? “Are you supposed to be here?”
The woman laughed, so that her lips pulled tightly against her teeth. “Of course not. And neither are you.”
“Well, I—”
“Time to go home.” She rose, thin and taller than Kit initially thought, and crossed to stand before her with an airy grace. Looking down her nose at Kit, she sniffed. “Time for us both to go home.”
For some reason, that made Kit’s heart skip a beat. Then it sped up again and stayed revved. She didn’t like the way this woman was looking at her. Or the way she’d ignored Kit’s question. Or her cryptic words. Yet instead of challenging all of that, as she normally would, Kit just wanted to back away.
“Do you read the Bible?” the woman asked Kit suddenly.
“Um, I have before.”
“Then you might be familiar with the apostle Paul. He argues in Romans, chapters six through eight, that humans have two competing natures. The flesh and the spirit. The pure spirit follows God. But when people allow their fleshly nature to take over, they follow their lower desires. And that is sin.” Her lips thinned in disgust.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I hate sin.” The woman looked down at her body, her flesh, like she hated it, before her attention returned to Kit without altering. “Plus, I don’t want you to be surprised when you see me again . . . though the competition will be over by then.”
“The comp—?” Kit drew back. “You mean, between the flesh and the spirit?”
“Don’t look so alarmed,” the woman said, careful not to touch Kit as she handed her the Bible. “Even when you lose, you’ll still win.”
Kit frowned, dropped the Bible onto the bed, and rushed to follow her from the room. “Hey—”
But the woman was already gone, leaving only an empty hallway again, the notes of “Amazing Grace” still trembling on the air.
Chapter Seventeen
A promise?” Kit repeated, disbelieving as she and Grif left the Chambers estate’s serpentine two-lane road behind, and the neon outskirts began building up around them. “He made you promise not to tell me about the sexual bacchanal going on in the back of his Mormon palace?”
She shook her head, less bothered by the fact that such events existed than she was by not knowing about them sooner.
Grif stared straight ahead as they entered the city, neon swallowing them up as they headed toward its belly. “Not just you. He’s hiding it from the world at large, and it doesn’t take much to keep the other men silent. There were cameras all over the place. As soon as you walk into that back room you’re part of the club.”
“Which is why he let you in,” Kit guessed. “And I bet some not-so-subtly-applied peer pressure in the personage of one Officer Schmidt ensures everyone stays that way.”
Grif huffed, a sound Kit was starting to anticipate. “I didn’t see Schmidt, but most of the men didn’t look like they needed much convincing.”
“I’ll bet.” They were silent for a bit, the road sluicing easily beneath the trim car’s tires, a sound Kit normally found soothing. Biting her lip, she looked over at Grif. “So what about Nic? What about the Wayfarer?”
He kept his gaze trained forward, but jerked his head. “There’s still no proof that Chambers was involved, Kit. And my gut tells me that’s precisely why he allowed me back there. Not just to find out what I know . . . but to show me we really know nothing.”
“Arrogant jerk.” Squinting out at the road ribboning before her, Kit shook her head. “No, there’s definitely more going on in that house than musical sex-partners. Why else would Anabelle Chambers have to drug herself into a coma?”
“What?”
Kit tightened her fingers around the wheel as they slid onto Industrial Avenue. “Oh, yeah. I forgot to tell you . . .”
Biting her lip, Kit shot Grif an apologetic look in advance, then told him about her foray upstairs. It was only when she mentioned the strange woman with the Bible, however, that he lost it.
“What the hell is wrong with you? You can’t take a simple order, can you?”
She opened her mouth to say orders weren’t hers to take, but he didn’t let her speak.
“If I tell you something, it’s to keep you safe! What’s so hard to understand about that?” He sat forward, back, then forward again. If they hadn’t been driving, she would have sworn he’d have walked away. “I guess it’s just your nature to disobey and do what you want anyway.”
“My nature?” The mysterious woman’s words revisited her in a whisper. “You mean my fleshly nature?”
Grif frowned, thinking about it. Then he nodded. “Yes. Yes, that’s exactly it.”
Kit jerked her steering wheel so hard that Grif crashed into the door and cursed. She was glad they were at their destination, Masquerade, because she wasn’t feeling so calm, either. “Griffin Shaw, you’re starting to piss me off!”
“Yeah, well you’re not exactly a peach to be around!” And he started ticking off annoyances on his fingers. “You’re flighty, girly, impossibly cheerful, and you never stop moving or talking!”
“Those are not bad things!”
“And you’re stubborn!” he said, trying to name something that was.
“So are you!”
“Don’t insult me,” he said, climbing from the car.
“It was a compliment,” she said, slamming her own door shut. “And what’s your problem? I’m doing my best here!”
“The problem,” he said, edging around the car, “is that I don’t like your cavalier attitude! Not about danger or sex or—”
Kit straightened. “I am not cavalier about sex! I take my sex very seriously, thank you . . . not that you’ll ever find out—”
“Good.”
“Because you’re too busy polishing your halo!”
“Hey!”
She took a step forward and got in his face. “Furthermore, I am a survivor. I don’t need you to protect me. I’ve gone almost thirty years surviving the death of my parents, the decline of my newspaper, and now there’s a murderer on my trail. But I’ll survive this, too.”
He looked for a moment like he was going to disagree, then tilted his head. “Is that all?”
“No.”
That drew a low growl from him. Good. She didn’t want him calm when she wasn’t. She actually, suddenly, wanted to annoy the shit out of him. So she took another step forward and poked him in the chest. “You. Are not. An. Angel.”
“Fine, honey. I’m not.”
“Those are not wing . . . lumps on your back.”
“Wing lumps?” he asked, with one raised brow.
“They’re cysts!” She poked him again, but there was less heat now. She was calming down.
“Just like the bumps on your head.”
“No,” she said, turning away. “Those are extra brains.”
“Of course they are.” And at his exasperated sigh, she felt instantly better.
Looking up at the Masquerade sign, with enough flashing
bulbs and faux gold scrollwork to melt even Trump’s iron heart, she calmed her breathing. “Glad we got that settled. Now can we go inside, please? Because a man and a woman arguing outside a strip club in Vegas is such a cliché I want to slap myself in the face.”
“Uh-uh.” Grif grabbed her arm as she reached for the door. “You’re not going in there.”
“Why not?”
“Because you dress like a princess, act like a lady, and are just nosy enough to get us both in trouble.”
“Oh, Grif. You say the sweetest things when you’re being a total sexist pig.” She fluttered her lashes and made a long face. “But I’m scared to death to wait all alone in my conspicuous car in a dark lot of a sketchy part of town with a murderer hot on my trail.”
Grif’s eyes narrowed. “That’s a low blow, even for you.”
“So are you going to walk in with me, or do you want me to grab some tassels and sneak in the back?”
Grif answered by crowding in so close his body heat warmed her through his clothing. “I still don’t like your cavalier attitude.”
But Kit smiled to herself as he held open the door to the club. The argument had invigorated her, and seemed to set them back on solid ground. Besides, she’d seen the look in his eye when she’d stomped her foot and held her ground. He didn’t like her cavalier attitude.
He loved it.
The DiMartino strip joint was old, practically an institution in the Las Vegas nightclub scene, one Kit claimed got by mostly on its reputation for a management that turned a blind eye to its employees’ “extracurricular” activities. It couldn’t have been anything else, Grif thought, wincing at the music that assaulted them as soon as they walked through the door. It didn’t look like the carpeting had been replaced since he’d been offed, and the only thing recommending the furniture was that it was too dark to show stains. Even the bar was dodgy, a mere frame for the flat-top video poker that stole quarters instead of bills, though he supposed all that mattered was the one thing that had been kept up to date. The girls.
It felt wrong to bring Kit here, and he regretted being browbeaten into it as soon as they entered. Yet when he turned to tell her so, he found her bent over, head tilted to the side, staring at the center stage. “Oh, wow. She can do the Helicopter. Do you know what kind of muscle control that takes?”
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