by Karen Rock
“It’s a James Bond number,” Nash supplied. “And can you put the gun away? You’re scaring some of the boys.”
Katherine slid her Glock back in its holster, palms damp, trying, and failing, to keep her eyes off Nash’s magnificent chest and the sexy twist of his full lips.
“I’m Reese Landon, club owner.” The brunette hurried Katherine’s way with a grace suggestive of a dance background. “What can we do for you?”
Katherine tore her gaze from Nash and drew in a long breath. “Sorry about that. I heard the shots and…”
“It’s your training. No apology necessary.” A tall, dark-haired man strode forward, his authoritative bearing screaming law enforcement. She didn’t have to see the badge to know he carried one. “Blake Knight. I’m with Texas DPS Criminal Investigations.”
“And he’s with me.” Reese slid an arm around him, and the emptiness in Katherine’s heart deepened at the loving look they exchanged.
“I’m Special Agent—”
“Katherine Bowden,” Blake finished for her. “I saw your news conference. How can we help you?”
Over his shoulder, Nash shot Katherine a long, inscrutable look, then motioned to the DJ. A James Bond theme song thrummed in the club, edgy and tense. The dancers resumed their places beside empty chairs lining the stage.
“I’m investigating the disappearance of a woman who was last seen here on Saturday night. Name’s Brittany Reins. Blonde. Petite. Twenty-five years old. She was wearing a white tank dress, above the knees, white wedge sandals and a pink floral headband.” Katherine held out her cell phone, showing them a picture of Brittany.
Blake’s eyes narrowed on the image. “Are you connecting her disappearance to the Last Call Killer?”
Katherine nodded. “Her missing person report was filed this morning. A CSI team should be arriving soon.”
Reese’s face blanched. “You believe the serial killer kidnapped her from here?”
“Yes. In fact, I was with her and a group of her friends, but left before she did. Do you or any of your staff recall seeing her? Particularly when she left the premises.”
“I don’t. Reese?”
Reese frowned down at the picture. “Nothing’s coming to mind.”
“I’ll round up the service and maintenance staff.” Blake hopped on stage in a single, agile move and disappeared behind the velvet curtain.
“That poor girl,” murmured Reese, her teeth worrying her bottom lip. “I swear this place is cursed.”
In the background, she heard Nash instructing the dancers, “Move slowly, being sensual while taking off your shirt, now wrap it around your girl. You pump her on five, six, seven…”
A sense of light-headedness took hold, accompanied by a tingling warmth between her thighs. She pressed them together beneath her pencil skirt. “Why cursed?” she asked, forcing her mind back on the job.
“When my fiancé was undercover here with Narcotics, he busted a steroids ring.”
Katherine nodded, memory of one of Dallas’s biggest drug busts returning. “What was your fiancé undercover as?” She glanced around, and a grinding Nash magnetically drew her eye.
“I don’t want just in, in, and in,” he commanded the dancers. “I want up and in. Now from there. Straddle the chair and it’s boom, then roll, got it?”
Katherine’s breathing stopped as she watched Nash gyrate his narrow hips.
“A dancer. I taught Blake a few moves.” Reese colored a deep rose and Katherine wondered how many of those moves were off stage versus on it. She held her tongue and smiled encouragingly at the club owner. “I’m sure he was very—uh—grateful for your support.”
“Grateful?” A wicked light appeared in Reese’s eyes. She waved her left hand and a large diamond sparkled on her ring finger. “That’s one way of putting it.”
Nash’s voice cut through their laughter.
“Remember,” Nash exhorted the dancers, his gorgeous green eyes on Katherine. “This is a woman’s fantasy. Right now, it’s only you and your woman. Draw her in.”
Katherine willed the flush creeping up her neck to stay below her collar as she thought of her very real fantasy-come-to-life with Nash. She cleared her clogged throat. “Does anyone have a grudge against Dallas Heat or its patrons?”
“We recently fired an employee because of customer complaints. Jax Fuller. Some said he’d acted aggressively, grabbing women, demanding their numbers, getting angry with rejection. He threw a drink in a customer’s face—that was the last straw.”
Anger toward women, and he’d been at the scene of Brittany’s disappearance. Jax was looking like a potential suspect, and her first real lead. “When did you fire him?”
“A week ago, but we caught him on the premises Saturday night and threw him out,” Reese said slowly, eyes wide. “You don’t think—”
“How’d he get in?”
“We’re not sure. The bouncers said they didn’t see him come in through the front. Blake’s guess was Jax entered through the back. Sometimes dancers leave the door propped open when it’s hot. Jax could’ve slipped inside when others were on stage.”
“What was he doing here?”
“When we caught him sneaking around, he claimed he wanted to ask for his job back. I ordered him off the property, and he got angry. Said I’d regret firing him.”
Jax had been thrown out the night Brittany was abducted.
Were the two events connected?
“Could he have retaliated by kidnapping one of our patrons?”
“Revenge doesn’t motivate my suspect,” Katherine said. “He’s methodical and probably planned on targeting the club, regardless.”
“I never should have hired him considering his trouble keeping jobs, but I thought he deserved a second chance,” Reese said.
Katherine let that sink in. “Could I look at his employee file as well as the club’s CCTV footage for Saturday?”
“Sure. Come back to my office after you’ve spoken to the staff. Our tech installer’s working on our smart system; I’ll have him upload the video for you.”
“That’d be great. Brittany arrived around ten-thirty and left alone at one a.m., and we were sitting there.” Katherine pointed at their booth in front of center stage. Goosebumps rose on her arm as she eyed the empty table, picturing a laughing Brittany, who never could have imagined the danger she was in.
“I’ll let him know.” Reese hurried away as Blake arrived with the staff. Nash and the dancers joined them, pushing tables together to accommodate the large group.
Compartmentalizing, Katherine asked questions and took notes rather than concentrating on Nash sitting nearby. The white tank he’d donned covered most of his chest. Still, her voice emerged high and breathy.
“She left the club around one,” a bouncer said toward the end of the interview, confirming the timeline. “She didn’t get in any of the cars out front. Last I saw, she was walking east.”
“Alone?” Could the bouncer remember one woman when there would have been hundreds there over the weekend? Was his account accurate?
“I think she might have spoken to the preacher guy, but I’m not sure. He stops everyone.”
“Did they leave together?”
The bouncer shook his head. “Lost track of her when more ladies arrived. When I looked back, she was gone.”
Was the bouncer mentioning the preacher to focus her attention away from him? Could she trust him, or could he be another suspect?
“How about the preacher? Did you see him again?”
“He wanders between the clubs. I’m not sure.”
Reese snapped her notepad shut. “Thanks, everyone. If you think of anything else, please contact me.” She passed out her card, and an electric jolt shot up her arm when her fingers grazed Nash’s.
“Agent Bowden, we have the C
CTV footage for you,” called Reese from the back corridor. The rest of the crew drifted away, including Blake, who explained that he was already late for a shift.
“Mind if I join you?” a deep voice asked in her ear, stopping her at the corridor’s entrance.
Goosebumps rose on her arm, a shivering, delicious awareness. “Did you know Layla had dyed her hair blond?”
Nash’s thick-lashed eyes searched hers. “Her mother didn’t mention it.”
“I examined her missing person report. A cell phone picture forwarded to the case detectives shows Layla with blond hair on the night of her disappearance.”
“You looked into her case?”
“I promised I would.”
The warm glow of approval in Nash’s eyes weakened her knees. “Thank you.”
“Nash.” She touched his arm and his bicep contracted beneath her fingers. “The date she went missing…it happened during the unsub’s cooling-off period. Layla could be one of his victims. You might be right.”
Nash’s handsome lips curved. “Say that again.”
“You mean where I said you had a big ego? Or maybe I was just thinking it?”
He chucked her gently under the chin, his fingers lingering on her sensitive flesh. “Don’t know about the ego, but I’ll take the part where you called me big.”
She rolled her eyes. “Men. You’re all alike.”
“Not all of us.” His amused face sobered. “Come back to my apartment, and I’ll show you what I have on Layla. I’ll even make you dinner.”
Her stomach grumbled. How long since she’d had a decent meal? “You cook?”
“I’ve got many talents.” His eyes simmered, raising her temperature.
Didn’t she know it…
She bit the inside of her cheek, considering the temptations awaiting her at Nash’s apartment. “Let me think about it.”
He shoved his hands in his pockets, and she nearly laughed at his aw-shucks, mock-innocent expression. “I’ll keep my hands to myself.”
“It’s not your hands I’m worried about,” she muttered under her breath as they resumed their trek to the back office.
“Heard that.” He slid her a knowing look. “And for the record, your hands are welcome to do whatever they please.”
Katherine laughed, the tension between her shoulders easing, momentarily, until she spied a familiar figure emerging from the restroom. As if sensing her, the man’s eyes swung her way and widened.
“Katherine?”
Robert Thompson closed the distance between them in two long strides. He was taller than when she’d last seen him at their boarding school’s graduation, but still as thin and awkward as she remembered. A strange sense of déjà vu took hold. How odd to run into him here, after all these years, after…
She cut off the thought and focused on his earnest, bespectacled face. Her gut twisted. She resisted the urge to back away, to run from the dark memories they shared.
“Hey, Robby. How are you?”
“You look great.” He slid his glasses up his long nose and twitched, as self-conscious and awkward as ever. “I mean, I’m great.” His blue eyes, the color of faded denim, peered at her from behind his lenses. “And you look great.”
He ducked his head, and his overgrown brown curls slid across his forehead. His palpable discomfort broke the tension roiling inside.
“So do you.” She nodded at his dress shirt, slacks, and tie. “Are you one of the dancers? Hot geek?”
He stiffened, and she gave herself a mental kick. They’d grown up in the same neighborhood, so close they’d practically been brother and sister. When they’d transferred to Wheaton Prep on scholarships, she’d become part of the in crowd and Robby a hanger-on, unable to make friends of his own without her.
Calling him a geek, even as a joke, was insensitive as hell.
“I’m sorry,” she rushed to say, but he waved his hands, his face pulled into an apology. “No. I am a geek,” he said with a self-deprecating laugh. “Officially.” He led them into an office where Reese awaited them and pointed to a computer screen holding multiple shots of the club. A white sticker, with a logo of a painted eye next to the word “Biz” adorned its side. “I left Apple five years ago and began my own start-up, iBiz.”
Understanding dawned. Robby was Reese’s tech installer. “What’s your company do?”
“Integrated computer networking, so owners can control all aspects of their businesses remotely.”
“It’s going to be a lifesaver,” Reese said.
Katherine nodded, impressed. Robby had always been brilliant. Her old group tolerated him, since he’d earned them As by completing their assignments, in addition to running their errands. If she hadn’t been so insecure back then, she would have told them all to go to hell.
He ducked his head. “But you don’t want to hear about that.”
She opened her mouth to protest, half-heartedly, the itch to leave stinging like fire ants. “I would, but I’m actually here on business. Reese said you have footage for the night Brittany Reins disappeared?”
Robby’s brown curls bounced in a vigorous nod. “My digital bookmarks made it easy to skip to the time she left the club. You said one a.m.?”
“Right.”
Robby hit a button and the sound of helicopters filled the building, buzzing in her ears, the memory stinging her like vengeful wasps. She grabbed the edge of the desk as the room whirled at a dizzying speed.
In a flash, she was eighteen years old again, stumbling through fields along with hundreds of volunteers searching for Summer. Her head ached from the residual effects of her concussion, and her vision was blurred. She’d cried so much it was like peering through salt water, the world blurry and wet.
“Summer!” she’d screamed, her voice hoarse after hours of it. “Summer!”
“Summer! Robby had yelled beside her, one arm around Katherine’s waist, supporting her, refusing to leave her side.
“Katherine?” Nash asked insistently, pulling her back to the present. “Your hands are freezing.” His fingers closed around hers.
She glanced up, found his intense gaze, and her body clenched the way it had when he’d first touched her. He’s only a one-night stand, she chided herself. You’ve gotten him out of your system.
And I am such a liar…
She let out a breath. “I’m fine,” she murmured once she trusted her voice, tugging her hands free. How had Nash sensed her distress? She hated when others saw her weaknesses. Luckily Reese and Robby were engrossed in switching off the club’s sound effects and missed her reaction.
Reese peered over Robby’s shoulder as he frantically tapped on his keyboard. “Can’t you turn it off?”
“Programming glitch. I just need to reset.”
At last, the hateful sound of beating rotors subsided and Katherine dragged in a lungful of air.
“What would I do if that happened and you weren’t around?” Reese pulled up a seat beside Robby.
“When I’m finished, the system won’t have any bugs,” Robby assured her, his large eyes magnified behind his glasses. “Plus, you’ll have your password once I’ve set up the system. You can always reset from there. Just make sure it’s something you won’t forget. A name and a number that’s very important to you. Something only you would know.”
Reese nodded. “Got it.”
Robby hit the screen’s “Play” button.
The familiar, chilling sensation of watching a victim in the last moments of their life swept over Katherine. The group seemed to hold its collective breath as they observed an oblivious Brittany clink glasses with friends and hoot along with the group after Katherine had left to meet Nash.
Ten minutes before one, Brittany pulled out her cell phone and appeared to read an incoming text. Her previously carefree face now creased into a f
rown.
“Can we zoom in on that?”
“We’re at max now,” Robby answered Katherine.
On the screen, Brittany’s thumbs flew over the tiny keyboard. Once she finished, she slipped her phone into her purse and leaned across the table to speak to Megan and the other Brittanys. By their sympathetic expressions, Katherine guessed she had conveyed her sickness excuse for leaving early. Up until she’d read the text, however, she hadn’t looked ill. Who sent her the message, and what did it say?
A moment later, Brittany hugged her friends, dropped some cash on the table, laughingly refused to take it back when Megan thrust it at her, and headed for the door. She paused to let a group enter, then slipped into the night.
Nash stood close behind Katherine, the heat of his hard body radiating into her back. “Do we have outside footage?”
Robby frowned. “It wasn’t hooked up at the time.”
An exclamation escaped Katherine, and Robby shot her an apologetic look—as if he should have known a killer was prowling outside Dallas Heat’s doors.
“Reese,” one of the dancers appeared in the door. “We have a costume issue. The new cowboy outfits for tonight came in.”
“And?”
“My nephew’s too big for them, and he’s two.”
Reese blew out a breath and turned to Katherine. “Never a dull moment. Is there anything else I can do for you?”
Katherine handed her a card. “Not for now, though I might have more questions in the future. When the CSI techs arrive, would you give them this footage?”
“Of course. Nash, you’d better come with me.”
Nash shot Katherine a quick look over his shoulder before leaving her alone with Robby.
“I saw you on TV.” Robby shoved his hands in his pockets. “A serial killer. Didn’t think we had those in Texas…”
She blinked fast, thinking about Summer.
“God, that was stupid of me to say. Sorry, Katherine.” Robby reached out a hand, then pulled it back, as if thinking better of it. “I mean. We both know bad things happen. And any time you want to talk about…you know…Summer, I’m here. We never discussed it—”