Private Dancer (The Bancrofts: Book 3)

by Barrett, Brenda

  He started shedding his clothes viciously. "It's time you accept it." He looked at her dispassionately. "You had better thank me properly for that car, Cat, or I won't be happy."

  Natasha Rowe, Harry Campbell, Javaine Banks, and Jamal Cooper were sitting in a top-secret meeting with Assistant Commissioner Cummings of the Narcotics branch. It was a blackout meeting. They had entered the office compound in heavily tinted cars and weren't allowed to talk to anyone. The Narcotics division was considering this their biggest bust yet.

  "This big shipment," AC Cummings asked, "when are they planning to carry this out?"

  "In three weeks, sir," Javaine said. "We have infiltrated both of their camps."

  AC Cummings cleared his throat. "Remember we want them alive… both of them. Personally, we are very interested in Nanjo. He has access to some very interesting information on some politicians that we would like to take off his hands. The commissioner of police is adamant about this.

  As you know, Nanjo Jones and Juan Feliz are wanted by the Americans for one hundred and fifty counts of drug trafficking, human trafficking, and murder. The Feds would prefer them alive too. This shipment will seal the deal for us. We will finally have a smoking gun on these two. Please don't mess it up."

  "Based on surveillance tapes," Javaine said, "it seems as if Nanjo is planning to marry his mistress, maybe she is a person of interest too."

  Natasha shook her head, "I doubt that. He is not the marrying kind. Gangsters don't get married."

  Javaine shrugged. "I think she is a person of interest in this operation. He trusts her. We should look to bug the apartment she lives in. He spends most of his time there anyway. Maybe Natasha can befriend her."

  He turned to Natasha. "You have access to the girls in the club. Why not befriend this one?"

  "I am supposed to be an older lady, in my early fifties. What on earth am I supposed to have in common with a stripper?" Natasha asked wriggling her brows.

  Javaine laughed. "Come up with something and get into her apartment."

  "I could track her down, meet her in a store or something, as me, Natasha the young, not the old lady you guys have me trying to emulate at that club."

  AC Cummings cocked his head. "How soon can you befriend her?"

  "I don't know, Sir," Natasha said. "Friendships take time. Going to her apartment might take some time too."

  "Maybe a man would reach there sooner than a woman," Jamal said quickly. "I could befriend her."

  "And you would be dead," Javaine scoffed. "She is not your regular stripper. She belongs to Nanjo and he doesn't play. Getting involved with her romantically, or even trying to be, would signal problems for you, and then this case would be all about saving your neck and not getting these criminals."

  Jamal nodded. "You are right, I have heard the tapes. I also heard, when I was around the table pretending to be a Columbian, that there was a guy looking for her, and Nanjo did seem overly upset when a stranger came to his club, bold as you please, to ask for his woman."

  "What was the name of the guy?" Javaine asked intrigued.

  Jamal scratched his chin, "Bancroft. I think his father is the Dr. Bancroft who runs the university in the hills."

  Natasha inhaled sharply. "Was his name Adrian?"

  "Yup, that's it!" Jamal snapped his fingers.

  Natasha looked at Harry. "We have to warn him to stay away from Cat."

  Harry cocked his eyebrows. "Why? He can't want to be involved with a stripper that is sleeping with the nightclub owner. Surely those Bancrofts have more class than that."

  Natasha frowned. "I don't know the full history of the two of them but I think she was the reason he went abroad to study."

  The Assistant Commissioner looked worried. "I don't want to be concerned about Adrian in this case, Rowe. Get him out of the city if needs be, before this thing goes down, and find out as much as you can from the girlfriend as well."

  "So am I released from working at the nightclub?" Natasha asked eagerly.

  "No." The ACP thundered. "Suppose something goes wrong and we need to re-bug the place. You have to stay there until we know for sure where the location will be for the next exchange."

  Chapter Five

  Adrian had an easy meeting with the Minister of Health and his team of advisors. The minister was an affable man who seemed as if he was really serious about his portfolio. He had grilled Adrian in the meeting even harder than he did in the first interview.

  Adrian was glad all of that was over. He was heading to the hotel now to catch up on some sleep. The aim of his research was to provide data that would help the government to decide whether or not to advance legislation that would legalize prostitution.

  He was not only targeting prostitutes, but also women who sold sex on the side: like massage parlor workers and strippers. Seventy five percent of them, according to a previous study, have sex as part of their jobs.

  His team had already been chosen by the Health Ministry. His only duty now was to train his main staff in how to administer the questionnaire he had prepared. That could be done in a day. The group of thirty young people comprised mainly final year sociology and anthropology majors. Data collection was scheduled to span three months, and at the end, he would thoroughly analyze the data and present his findings.

  He would base himself at Mount Faith University for the duration of the study and then lecture some summer courses as a means of getting back into the system. After that, he planned to work full time at the university until he could rouse himself to go and get his doctoral degree. At least that was the plan, up until Cathy dropped her bombshell on him last night.

  He had barely slept when his alarm rang at ten that morning; he had to scarf down two aspirins to get rid of the pain behind his eyes. Exhaustion was doing him in. Added to that, he could never really sleep well in hotels.

  He was happy that he had one more week in Kingston before heading home to Mount Faith. He had already paid the first month’s rent on a house in Mount Faith Drive. He did not intend to live with his parents again. Besides the unresolved issues with his father, he just did not have the most pleasant memories at that house.

  He had to get some sleep though, and then try to talk to Cathy. As abhorrent as it was for him to go back to that nightclub, he had to do it. He had to find out where she was living, and what she meant when she said she gave away his baby.

  He didn't want to go back to that club though. It repulsed him on so many levels it was not funny. Just the thought of Cathy dancing there and being with Nanjo was enough to have him wincing from another headache.

  He strode through the lobby area of the hotel, pondering whether he should have a meal in the restaurant or if he should just go straight to bed.

  He chose to have a meal and was on his way to the restaurant when an attractive woman in a gray business suit started matching steps with him. He glanced at her appreciatively, her hair was in a healthy bell around her face, and she looked slim and fit. She looked like somebody he could be attracted to if he didn't have Cathy on his mind all of the time.

  She looked over at him. "Hey."

  "Hey." He gave her a half smile.

  "Can I join you for lunch?"

  Adrian's smile grew wider, he rarely found black women to be this bold. They usually prefer when the men to do the chasing. "No. I am going to eat and run. I need sleep and I need to get in some shut-eye before I head out tonight."

  She looked at him curiously. "You are not going back to that club are you?"

  He paused swinging around and looking at her closely. She didn't look familiar but then again, why should she. "Do you work at that club?"

  She grinned. "In a sort of way."

  Adrian grimaced. "I am sorry, er...what's your name. I am not into strippers or prostitutes."

  She laughed a heavy laugh that shook her entire frame, and had passers by smiling at them.

  "Strippers in high-end clubs like to be called private dancers," she said, wiping the
corner of her eyes, "and Nanjo's is a high-end club."

  "Well," Adrian was slightly baffled by her, "I am not into private dancers."

  "Except for Cat." The lady said softly.

  She looked into his stunned eyes with a smirk. "Want to go have lunch with me now Adrian Bancroft?"

  "What's this?" Adrian asked suspiciously. "Did Cathy send you to torture me some more after last night?"

  "Nope." They reached the restaurant entrance. The place was relatively empty since the lunch crowd had already left. Only a few executives were still around tables.

  The maître d seated them at a private table that was partially hidden by ferns.

  "Who are you?" Adrian asked before they were even properly seated.

  "My name is Natasha Rowe."

  "Well, obviously you already know my name," Adrian said suspiciously. "How do you know my name by the way?"

  Natasha looked at him intensely. "It's so uncanny how you resemble Taj— the broad forehead, the velvet chocolate brown eyes, the same Roman shaped nose. Man, you are really handsome."

  Adrian cleared his throat. "Thank you, I guess. So, you know my brother, whom I am yet to meet. And obviously you know about my family because I resemble my Dad."

  "I know a little bit about your family," Natasha said.

  "So what do you know about Cathy and that club?" Adrian frowned.

  "I work there undercover. That information you should not repeat." Natasha bent closer to him. "I came to warn you not to go back there. Leave Cat...Cathy alone, she is the girlfriend of a very dangerous man, and it is not safe for you to go back there."

  Adrian swallowed and stared at Natasha intently. "I have to go back. I have to talk to her."

  Natasha sighed in frustration. She knew it wasn't going to be easy convincing Adrian to leave Cathy alone, but at least she had to try.

  She bit her lip while they made their lunch orders and then hissed at him when the waiter left. "You have to leave her alone. No arguments. Forget her. What do you want with her anyway?"

  Adrian tapped his hand on the table, wondering whether he should trust Natasha. He didn't know a thing about her. She was a total stranger, but so was Cathy now, and he needed to know who she gave his child to. He needed to know how he could get back his child.

  "Cathy is the mother of my child." Adrian looked at Natasha's expression warily; her eyebrows had shot up in visible shock. "She told me she had a girl and gave her away."

  Natasha settled back in her chair. For a full minute, the statement ricocheted through her mind. "I don't know what to say. Cathy doesn't look like a person who has had a child."

  Adrian shrugged. "I am still processing it myself. I mean five and a half years ago, my father paid her to have an abortion."

  Natasha shook her head. "That's like history repeating itself. Your father's parents had paid Anne Carter to have an abortion after he got her pregnant with Taj, but she didn't."

  Adrian nodded. "When I heard about Taj's existence, the whole sordid episode with Dad and Cathy came back fresh in my mind."

  "So what happened?" Natasha asked. "How did this come about? According to your brother Micah, you are the good son. He calls you a goody-two-shoes."

  Adrian laughed. "That sounds like Micah. So you do know my family."

  Natasha shrugged. "I was the one who arrested Micah a few weeks ago for rape."

  Adrian's eyes widened. "Hold on a second. Nobody told me about that."

  Natasha chuckled.

  "Is he in jail?"

  "No," Natasha said. "He didn't do it, but that's a long story. I want to hear yours, if you don't mind. I am intrigued. How did a goody-two-shoes Bancroft get a stripper pregnant?"

  "She wasn't a stripper when I knew her," Adrian frowned, "and she got pregnant the usual way." He raised his eyebrows and looked at her. "I guess my goody-two-shoes got scuffed the day I met Cathy. I didn't care much for anything else after that."

  He closed his eyes briefly and clenched his fists.

  "But you two are so different," Natasha said only straightening up when the waiter came with their food.

  Adrian tucked into his meal silently, his thoughts a mile away to the day when he and Cathy became friends. He had taken to walking from his school to wait for her at hers, and then they'd walk two miles to where she would get her taxi.

  Some days, Saunders, his father's driver, would find them walking on the way. He had loved those moments he spent alone with her in the Pink Hills; walking along the road and talking in the air fresh, untainted by vehicular traffic.

  Cathy had to walk from school. She did not have the luxury of taxi fares, and some days she didn't have the money to go to school. He could remember feeling clueless about that sort of poverty until he had met Cathy. She always looked so neat and clean. In his sheltered privileged existence, he had always associated poverty with dirty and ugly.

  One day, after a month of constantly running from his school to hers to make sure that he reached her school gate before she got out, she had looked at him with her clear brown eyes and asked, "Why do you even like me Adrian? The people in my community treat my family like we are lepers. My grandmother sleeps with various men for money."

  She had wanted to shock him and he had been shocked.

  "We live in a one room place," her golden eyes had turned hard, "sometimes I sleep outside on the tiny verandah when she's entertaining them."

  He could still remember the fresh pain of her words. It had been as if somebody had knocked him in his chest.

  "When it rains," she had said, the words rolling off her innocent soft looking pink lips, "I sleep under a tarpaulin to not get wet."

  She had turned her head away and swallowed. "I am not a good friend to have Adrian. I know the Bancroft's mean something big in these hills. I saw your father in the news last night on my neighbor's television. He was shaking hands with some politician. He's in the big league. Me and Miss Icy are too common to be associated with your family." She had turned away.

  "I am two and a half years older than you." Adrian had declared, still reeling from all that she had told him. "I think I would know when a person is out of my league better than you."

  She had looked at him with wisdom far beyond her thirteen years. "You are crazy, but I like you."

  *****

  Natasha cleared her throat several times before Adrian actually realized that she was there.

  "This could be ego-breaking," Natasha said to him wryly. "You really have mastered the art of silence."

  Adrian crooked his lips. It was a gesture that reminded her of Taj, and Natasha suddenly missed him. This was going to be her last assignment. She was determined to quit the police force. She needed to give her relationship with Taj a chance. It was not normal for her to miss a guy so much, which was probably helped by the fact that she was sitting across from a guy he resembles, except for his hair, and the fact that he was ignoring her. She wished she could call Taj now, but the unsatisfying conversation they were having over the phone was not doing it for her anymore. She wanted to see him.

  "You could call Cathy," the thought occurred to Natasha, "instead of going down to the club. Call her and arrange for a meeting. That's simpler and safer for you."

  Adrian stopped eating. "I don't have her number."

  "I do." Natasha wiped her hands on a napkin and scrolled through her phone. She handed it to him and waited as he punched it in his phone.

  "When are you getting out of town?"

  "Next week Monday," Adrian said handing her back the phone. "Thanks for the help. I am really grateful that I don't have to go back there and see her like that, or that thug she's with."

  Natasha looked at him knowingly. "You still have feelings for her, don't you?"

  Adrian was transfixed he looked at Natasha with a stunned look in his eye. His feelings for Cathy were always with him, like a limp appendage, present but not quite functioning. He did not want to answer that question and bare his soul to a stranger. The p
art of him, where his feelings for Cathy were found, was a murky-brown dregs-like place. It couldn't be cutely wrapped up in a yes nor could a name be put to the turmoil raging in him.

  Jealousy, strong and dangerous, was at the tip of his feelings, along with anger, confusion, and disappointment. He still had feelings for her, all right, more so now than ever.

  He shook his head at Natasha. "I still have feelings for her, yes. What they are and how strong they are is something that will take me days to sort out."

  Natasha nodded and gestured to the waiter for her check. "It was nice having lunch with you, Adrian."

  Adrian smiled. "Same here. I am sorry I was not much of a conversationalist."

  "Completely understandable. I wish you all the best in sorting out that missing child issue."

  Adrian winced. "Thank you."

  She handed him her card. "Call me if you need any help. And remember to be careful of Nanjo. Please get out of town as you said, by Monday."

  Chapter Six

  Cathy had decided not to go into work as Nanjo had suggested and had slept through the day after he left. He looked appeased after the sexual gymnastics she performed for him, a fact that made her cringe inwardly. She did not enjoy being with Nanjo intimately; she never had. The thought that she was little more than a prostitute was always present whenever she was with him.

  Through the years, she had pretended to like him to the point that she had almost lost herself. It took a lot of disassociating for a woman to live like she did. She had to dwell in a make-believe world more often than not, and in that regard, she had regressed to her childhood where she would play pretend.

  As early as age five, after her father killed her mother and then killed himself, she pretended that she belonged to a different family.

  When she went to live with Miss Icy and slept outside on the veranda, she pretended that she had gone camping with her imaginary family. When that thought had grown stale, she pretended that she was in bed in a vast room that had skylights for a ceiling.