Kiss of Death

by Meryl Sawyer

  Ashley had a feeling it was more than that. Men. Weren’t they a trip?

  ADAM WAITED IN SAFFRON BLUE’S parking lot. The so-called gentlemen’s club opened at noon seven days a week and had for almost fifty years. Jared Cabral had made his money the old-fashioned way—he’d inherited it. His father, Simon Cabral, had started the strip club back in the fifties when bare breasts and naked women were taboo.

  The wily old guy had managed to keep his club going even though he’d been busted at least once a month during those first years. A workaholic who didn’t seem to have a life, Simon Cabral made money hand over fist and invested it in more clubs. No one knew he had a family until he dropped dead of a heart attack just after his fiftieth birthday.

  Enter Jared Cabral. He’d been eighteen when his father died. The kid had no experience with nightclubs, let alone strip clubs and their special problems. Never mind. The apple certainly didn’t fall too far from the tree. Jared stepped in and stepped up.

  The kid took a year or so to acquaint himself with his inheritance. The dark, dank clubs that reeked of stale cigarette smoke and featured strippers well past their prime required major changes. He got rid of the “topless” signs and flashing neon lights. He remodeled the clubs, giving them a hip look, which included wallpapering the restrooms with Trojan Magnum XL wrappers. He also brought in younger “exotic dancers” who exuded a carnal energy that mesmerized men. The clubs boomed and you could almost hear the old man applauding from the grave.

  The changes brought in a new, younger clientele who were willing to spend more money for call liquor and trendy drinks like Pimp Juice. They were also heavy tippers that kept the exotic dancers thrilled with their take home money. No doubt drugs thrived around Cabral’s clubs, but all the drug deals seemed to be conducted in the parking lot. The police had never been able to implicate Jared Cabral.

  Saffron Blue was known for its back room, where it was rumored a high-stakes poker game went on every night. Acting on tips, the police raided the room a few times and found the players were betting toothpicks. Adam didn’t think it was worth the effort. There was enough crime in San Diego without trying to trap men gambling illegally, especially with all the legal gambling going on in the Indian casinos in the area.

  From a homicide case he’d investigated years ago, Adam knew Jared Cabral arrived shortly after the club opened and stayed until it closed. According to his calculations, Cabral should be arriving shortly. Adam leaned back in the silver Lexus that had belonged to his uncle. He’d taken it from the garage even though it was part of the estate and still in probate.

  His mind strayed to last night. Whitney came damn near being killed because of her cousin. Adam suspected the answer could be found here. Miranda had to have run through the insurance money and needed the cash stripping generated. She’d met someone or had seen something and become a liability.

  Adam didn’t want Whitney to suffer for her cousin’s mistakes. She’d been through enough, he decided. A devastating divorce. Then the airhead second wife comes up with a crazy scheme to snatch the dog Whitney was crazy about.

  A twinge of guilt hit him. He really should have told Whitney who had been responsible for Lexi’s disappearance. Then he assured himself that Whitney had too much on her mind to bother her with one more thing. Anyway, it was in the past, and it was the least of her problems.

  He remembered the way Whitney had acted last night. She’d willingly come into his arms and allowed him to comfort her. His entire body had been tense with the urge to take her to his bed, but he knew better. She’d been too shell-shocked by the fire to know what she was doing.

  Did he know what he was doing?

  Adam had to be honest with himself. He wasn’t positive about anything the way he’d been before Iraq. He’d told himself to steer clear of Whitney until he was sure she was no longer entangled with her ex. Aw, hell. That was going to be damn near impossible with her living in the maid’s quarters.

  How did he plan to go to bed when she was sleeping so close? Last night, he’d lain awake, imagining her naked. Her warm body and soft breasts were in his favorite T-shirt.

  He sucked in air between clenched teeth. Admit it, buddy. You’re in real trouble here. How can you live in the same house and not touch her?

  He ached to turn back the clock to last night. He would have hotfooted it down to the maid’s room. Peeling his well-worn T-shirt off Whitney would have revealed creamy smooth skin and full breasts. Just the thought of her naked bod sent heat through his groin.

  He could almost feel Whitney pressing against him. Her warm body molding itself to his. Almost. He stopped himself. He needed to be in detective mode right now. What was the first thing drilled into raw police recruits? Detach emotionally.

  Cabral whirled into the nearly empty lot in a lipstick-red Ferrari with vanity plates that read: CABRAL1. He parked in a reserved space near the entrance, then opened the door of the sports car and unwound himself from behind the wheel. Adam had to look twice to make sure the guy was Jared Cabral.

  Since Adam had last seen Cabral, the man had changed his hair. He was now wearing it in a spiked mullet that added four inches to his tall, lean frame. Gone were the jeans and polo shirt that Adam remembered, replaced by camouflage pants and jacket. The number wasn’t a damn thing like what they’d worn in Iraq. This outfit was some idiot designer’s idea of desert chic.

  Adam gave Cabral time to walk inside and across the lounge area to his office at the rear of the club. It was too early for the bouncer to be guarding the entrance. Adam entered and paused for a moment to allow his eyes time to adjust. It was dark inside Saffron Blue, but it wasn’t the kind of oppressive darkness Adam once associated with strip clubs. Saffron Blue was upscale all the way.

  The leather banquettes surrounding the U-shaped bar were a shade lighter than the indigo-blue walls. Off to the sides of the room were alcoves with sofas and comfy chairs. Down lighting and lamps no bigger than his thumb cast a mellow glow across the room and reflected off the chrome trimming the bar and chair legs.

  A waitress in a leopard-print thong and a matching something that might pass for a bra bounced up to him. Her boobs didn’t look like original equipment, but hey, who was he to criticize?

  “What can I get you, hon?”

  “Nothing. I’m here to see Jared.”

  A mouth coated with lipstick applied with a painter’s brush formed an O. “Who shall I—”

  “Don’t bother. I know my way to his office.” Adam took off across the club and noticed a surprising number of men were there despite the early hour. An exotic dancer was strutting up and down the top of the bar, jiggling her melon-sized boobs and smiling as if she’d just won the lottery.

  The door to Cabral’s office was open. Adam paused, seeing Cabral seated inside, and knocked on the door.

  “Wazzup?” Cabral asked. “Hunter. Adam Hunter, right?”

  Adam nodded as he walked in. Cabral didn’t look the least bit wary or even surprised. Give the guy credit, he thought. It had been over three years since he’d questioned Cabral about a man who’d visited his club and was later shot to death outside his home. Thousands of men had passed through Cabral’s clubs during that time.

  Adam stopped in front of Cabral’s desk. “Good memory, Cabral. How are things going?”

  “Can’t complain.” He gestured toward a tall bottle of liquor on his desk. “Trying to decide if my bars should stock 10 Cane Rum. It’s made from the first press of virgin sugarcane from Trinidad.”

  “I never got the virgin bit. Virgin olive oil. Extra virgin olive oil. Now virgin sugarcane.”

  Cabral’s laugh broke free as if it had been chained down for years. “That’s what I liked about you. A sense of humor. Last I heard you were in Iraq and nearly bit the big weenie.”

  Again, Adam was surprised, but he shouldn’t have been. With his wide blue eyes and ready smile, Jared Cabral seemed innocent. Far from it. He was a savvy businessman who played all the angl
es.

  “Sit, sit.” Cabral gestured to the chair in front of his desk. “I didn’t mean to make a joke out of it. One of my buddies from high school bought it when an I.E.D. blew up the truck he was in.”

  Adam sat in the chair. He didn’t want to discuss death, not after last night. “How’s business?”

  “Couldn’t be better. We have our own Web site. We’re CampTempTation on MySpace and other sites. Brings in more new customers than my father ever could have imagined. It’s the Internet age, but nothing can replace real tits and ass.”

  Adam let him rattle on about New Age beverages and promotional opportunities on the information superhighway. Cabral liked to talk but he never really told you squat about himself.

  “What brings you here?” Cabral asked when he’d finished with the lecture on how the Web had changed his clubs.

  “A woman who used to…dance here is missing.”

  “What’s it to you? Last I heard, you’d left the force.”

  “That’s true. I’m in private security now. This is a personal matter.”

  Cabral steepled his fingers and gazed at Adam. “I don’t get involved with the dancers. They’re not employees. They just try out for spots in the Saturday-night show.”

  Adam nodded. Cabral was clever and managed to evade taxes as well as employment issues by letting women “try out” for places in his Saturday-night revue. The tips they could earn brought out more women than Cabral could use. Certain dancers kept “trying out” night after night.

  “I don’t even know most of their names. They use stage names like Candy Rapper and Sin Cerely.”

  “Do you remember Miranda Marshall?”

  Cabral’s face was totally expressionless. If he’d been playing poker, Cabral could have been holding a winning or losing hand and no one could have guessed which. He finally said, “Describe her.”

  Whitney had told him that Miranda looked a lot like her, so Adam rattled off a quick description.

  “Could be half the cuties out there on any given evening.”

  Cabral sounded convincing, but Adam wasn’t sure he believed him. “Last night someone tried to kill Miranda. They firebombed her place.”

  Cabral frowned. “No shit.”

  “Look, I didn’t tell the investigating officer that Miranda worked here.” Adam made it sound as if he actually knew the woman. “Level with me. Tell me what you know about her. I’ll chase down the leads myself without involving the police.”

  Cabral stared at him a minute as if making up his mind, then said, “She called herself Kat Nippe. Her shtick—they all have a shtick—was the little-girl bit. She would prance out dressed like a kid going to school in a convent. That gave her a lot of clothes to take off.”

  “Do you have any idea if she ran into someone around here who would want to kill her?”

  The telephone on Cabral’s desk rang and he picked it up. “Cabral.”

  Adam waited while the club owner listened.

  “Fuck no!” Cabral stared at the picture on the wall next to his desk. It was a black-and-white photograph of his father outside the original Saffron Blue. “What don’t you understand? The fuck or the no?” He slammed down the telephone and smiled at Adam.

  Adam tried to return his smile but he was pretty sure he just twisted his lips. The outburst had reminded Adam of what he’d learned three years ago. Jared Cabral was a man no one in their right mind would want to cross.

  “If Miranda has an enemy,” Cabral said, as if the argument on the telephone had never occurred, “I sure as hell don’t know about it. She was a pro all the way when she worked here.”

  “Has she been hanging out with anyone lately?”

  Cabral’s eyes narrowed as he stared at Adam. “Just how well do you know Miranda Marshall?”

  Something in Cabral’s tone told Adam to level with him or Cabral would stop talking. “I’ve never met the woman. My girlfriend is her cousin. Whitney was living in Miranda’s place. She almost died last night when someone tried to kill Miranda with a firebomb loaded with shrapnel.”

  Cabral shook his head. “Wish I could help, but I don’t know a damn thing. Miranda hasn’t worked at Saffron Blue in a year and a half.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  WHITNEY HELD JASPER as she watched Kris Simpson bring out the teaser bitch. Jasper squirmed in her arms, anxious to be put down. Whitney didn’t have much experience breeding dogs. When she’d been in high school, she’d worked part-time at a kennel. She’d seen two breeding sessions between the owner’s Wheaten terrier bitch and a male who’d been brought in by his owner. No teaser bitch had been required.

  “Ever seen an A.I.?” asked Kris.

  Whitney shook her head. She supposed that if she’d thought about it, she would have realized champion dogs, like many champion racehorses, wouldn’t be allowed to breed on their own. The risk of injury was too great. The sperm was collected, then the bitch was artificially inseminated.

  “Mandy is in heat and so is my crested, Princess Arianna. She was best in her class at Westminster last year.” Kris held up a small device that looked like a large syringe with a balloon-like sack on one end. “The teaser bitch gets the male excited, then I collect the sperm.”

  “You’ll inseminate Princess Arianna yourself?”

  “Yes. I’ll freeze the leftover sperm for use on my other bitches when they come into season. That’s why I paid so much money.” She patted Jasper on the head. “I’ll get three, maybe four litters out of this guy.”

  Whitney had no idea what this woman had spent for Jasper’s services. Considering Jasper was an international champion, his offspring would be worth a lot. “Will we get the pick of the litter?”

  Kris glared at Whitney. “Didn’t you read the contract? I’ll keep all of the puppies.”

  “I didn’t see the contract,” Whitney muttered. “I just help Mr. Hunter with Jasper.”

  Things must work differently when breeding champions, she decided. The owner of the male usually had pick of the litter.

  “Put Jasper down and let him get a good sniff before I bag him.”

  She set Jasper on the concrete floor. He looked up at her and whimpered. “Go on now,” she said encouragingly. Jasper pawed her shins, begging to be picked up again. Physically, he showed no sign of being interested in the teaser bitch.

  Kris tapped her on the shoulder. “Let’s leave them alone. We can watch it on the television in my office. I can get back out here before he ejaculates.”

  Whitney used her leg to scoot Jasper aside. She hurried out of the enclosure. Jasper scratched at the gate and yipped as if his paw had been caught in a trap.

  Kris led Whitney down a short corridor to an office. The walls were lined with framed pictures of Chinese crested dogs and the ribbons they’d won. The photographs and ribbons were encased in Lucite boxes. A black satin ribbon was draped over one box and Whitney assumed that dog had died.

  Kris sat behind a glass-top desk and carefully put down the collection device. Whitney took the chair opposite her. The breeder picked up the remote control and flicked on the wall-mounted flat-screen television. Jasper’s plaintive yips filled the room. The TV showed the little dog still pawing the gate while the teaser bitch kept circling behind him.

  Kris frowned. “That’s what comes from holding a dog too much. I told Cal not to coddle his crested, but he wouldn’t listen. He took him everywhere with him.”

  Whitney didn’t interrupt to tell her that Miranda had cared for Jasper some of the time. She must have been partly responsible for spoiling him.

  “Now look, the dog can’t concentrate on his business.”

  The cell phone clipped to Whitney’s shorts vibrated. Caller ID told her it was Adam. “I have a call I need to take.”

  “Go ahead. I’ll monitor the dogs.”

  Whitney could hear Jasper’s yelps still coming from the television as she walked outside into a blast of radiant sunshine. “What’s happening?”

  “I’m ju
st leaving Saffron Blue. Jared Cabral says Miranda hasn’t worked there in about eighteen months.”

  “What?” Whitney stared out at the white picket fence that encircled the sprawling ranch house where the breeder lived with what appeared to be at least two dozen Chinese crested dogs.

  She gazed up and down the road, mindful of Adam’s warning to keep her eye out for anyone suspicious. Nothing unusual was in sight.

  “I was surprised, too. I assumed she’d been working there recently, but she hasn’t. Cabral didn’t seem to know much. I told him about the firebombing. He couldn’t think of anyone or anything your cousin had been involved in that would make someone want to kill her.”

  “Saffron Blue’s a dead end.”

  “Looks that way,” he agreed. “We could try going through the stuff she stored in the garage.”

  This morning they’d inspected the charred remains of her Jeep. The garage attached to the carport had been partially burned. The contents of the garage had appeared to be a soggy mess.

  “I guess we could, but I doubt she left anything important behind.”

  There was a burst of static and Whitney thought Adam had driven into a dead zone, but then she heard him say, “It’s our only option. The police will go through her phone records and credit card charges. They may come up with something.”

  “I hope so.” She was still jittery after last night. Not knowing what was going on or why her cousin hadn’t warned her was making Whitney even more nervous.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “I’ve been careful. I’m not being followed. No one suspicious is around.”

  “How’s Jasper doing?”

  “He doesn’t seem to be all that interested in mating.”

  “He could be a gaynine.”

  “What?” Whitney wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly.

  “You know, a gay dog. Maybe he prefers boy dogs.”

  “Be serious.”

  “I am. Who’s to say homosexuality is strictly a human phenomenon?” He chuckled and she thought about the things he’d told her last night. He was opening up, revealing a sense of humor.