Against the Night (16 page)

“We’ll keep looking,” he said softly, “if that’s what you want. But sooner or later, baby, you’ll have to come to grips with the fact your sister might have done something to piss off the wrong people. If she did…”

She turned in his arms and looked up at him. “If she did, she’s probably dead.”

Johnnie made no reply, which was a reply in itself.

Amy swallowed, blinked back the faint burn of tears. “To tell you the truth, deep down I’ve been afraid she might…afraid she might be dead from the start. We weren’t close anymore, and Rachael and my mother didn’t always get along, but she wouldn’t have wanted us to worry. She would have reached us by now if she could have.”

“I know it isn’t what you planned, but maybe you should go home.”

Amy slipped out of his arms. “I came to find out what happened to her. That hasn’t changed. I’m not leaving. Not until I know the truth.”

Johnnie said nothing.

“I don’t expect you to keep working for free. You’ve done more than enough already.”

Johnnie bent down and lightly brushed her lips. “I told you I’m running a tab. Last night was just a down payment.”

She fought a blush. Looping her arms around his neck, she went up on her toes and very softly kissed him. She knew he didn’t expect that kind of payment and never had.

“Thank you,” was all she said.

Johnnie was saved by the ringing of his cell. One little kiss and he was getting hard. He couldn’t remember a woman who aroused him the way Amy did. Still he had work to do.

Digging his phone out of the pocket of his jeans, he checked the caller ID. Trace Rawlins.

“Hey, Ghost, you got something for me?”

“Yes and no,” Trace said. “No sign of Rachael Brewer on any airplane passenger manifests. Doesn’t mean she didn’t make the trip.”

Johnnie frowned. “You’re thinking they could have flown private.”

“It’s possible.”

“Probably need a jet to travel that far.”

“So who was Rachael seeing with that kind of money?”

Johnnie thought of the news Rick Vega had brought. “Word is she might have been seeing Manny Ortega.”

“Carlos Ortega’s son?”

“That would be him.” On the other end of the line, Johnnie could hear the clatter of computer keys as Trace pounded the keyboard.

“Looks like good ol’ Carlos owns a Citation. A Sovereign. That’s the big one. Maybe Manny borrowed it to make the trip. Or maybe Daddy took them down.”

“Could be they left from right here in L.A.”

“Let me talk to Sol, see if he can get the call numbers. For international travel, the pilot would have to file a flight plan.”

“If it’s Ortega’s jet, it probably left from Ensenada. Maybe stopped here, maybe went direct.”

“Still goes. Carlos wouldn’t want to break any laws…at least not the minor ones. I’ll get back to you.”

“Thanks, and thank Sol for me. Tell Annie to send me a bill.” She was Trace’s office manager and she ran the place like a drill sergeant.

Trace just laughed and hung up the phone.

“I guess your friend didn’t find Rachael’s name on any of the passenger lists.”

Johnnie turned at the sound of Amy’s voice. “No.”

“But you think they could have traveled in a private plane.”

“Jet, most likely.”

“And Carlos Ortega owns one—that’s what you said.”

He nodded. “Trace is going to see if a flight plan was filed for a trip to Belize around the time Rachael disappeared.”

Amy wrapped her arms around herself as if she were cold. Johnnie knew she was thinking that if Rachael went to Belize with the son of a drug lord and didn’t come back, she was probably dead.

And she was exactly right.

“I…ummm…need to go home. Would you take me back, please?”

His gaze found hers and his jaw clenched. Taking Amy home meant taking her back to the Kitty Cat Club where tonight she would be dancing naked in front of a room full of sex-hungry men. Every one of them would be fantasizing about the things he wanted to do to her in bed.

His stomach burned. For the first time in years, Johnnie had a woman in his house he didn’t want to take home.

“You got your stuff?” he asked, reminding himself that taking her back was the only real option he had. Aside from the fantastic sex, getting involved with a woman wasn’t something he was willing to do.

Amy picked her purse up off the counter, grabbed the small red canvas pouch beside it, her toothbrush and makeup, he figured and almost smiled. Spending the night with a man she barely knew, Angel would have thrown caution to the wind, but Amy would want to be prepared. He wondered if she’d brought a handful of condoms, just in case.

He corrected himself. Before last night, Amy would have figured one would be enough.

As he walked her to the door, Johnnie grinned.

Fourteen

The remote clicked and the garage door began to swing open. They had almost reached the car when Amy heard someone behind them.

“Johnnie! Oh, Johnnie!”

She turned to see an older woman, wavy silver hair, trim figure, jogging toward them.

A bemused expression settled on Johnnie’s face. “Morning, Ellie.”

“I didn’t mean to bother you. I just happened to see you walk out of the house and thought I’d say hello.”

“Yeah, well, hello.”

Dressed in a navy blue jogging suit with a white stripe down the leg, breathing a little faster from her exertion, Ellie gave Amy a very thorough inspection. When Johnnie didn’t introduce her, the woman smiled and stuck out her hand.

“Hi, I’m Eleanor Stiles. I live in the big house. And you must be…?”

Uncertain whether to say she was Amy or Angel, she looked up at Johnnie for guidance and he blew out a long, slow breath.

“Ellie, this is Amy Brewer. I’m helping her find her sister.”

“Oh, yes, I believe you mentioned you were working on a missing persons case.” Ellie turned to Amy. “I’m sorry to hear about your sister, but you’ve got a good man working for you. He’ll do everything he can to find her.”

Amy glanced over at Johnnie. “He isn’t really working for me. He’s helping me. I really appreciate it.”

Ellie gave her an even more thorough perusal. “I see.”

“Listen, we’ve got to go,” Johnnie said. Setting a hand at Amy’s waist, he steered her toward the car.

“It was nice meeting you, Mrs. Stiles,” Amy called over her shoulder.

“It’s just Ellie,” she called back, “and it was nice meeting you, too, dear.”

Johnnie said nothing as he backed out of the garage and the car rolled down the driveway.

“She’s your landlady, right?”

“That’s right. My very nosy landlady.”

“She seemed nice.”

He smiled. “Ellie’s great. Just kind of a busybody. She’s been a very good friend.”

Amy wondered if he had been living in Ellie’s guesthouse when his sister had been killed. “How long have you known her?”

He caught her eye in the mirror. Though he had only just shaved, a faint shadow had begun to darken his jaw.

“After I left the army, I traveled around for a while. I did some private security work out of the country. I moved in a couple of years after I got back to the States.”

And they had been friends ever since, the kind of friend who would have helped him through the pain of losing his sister.

As the Mustang continued down the hill, Amy thought of her own sister. Detective Vega believed Rachael had been involved with the son of a notorious drug lord. But there wasn’t any proof, and rumor and conjecture didn’t make it true.

Both Babs and Mary Lou had told her very firmly that Rachael did not take drugs. She was only working at the club because the pay was better, room rent was cheap and she could save more money. She was determined to become an actress. Drinking, partying and getting involved with drugs would keep her from achieving her dream.

“Maybe the rumors aren’t true,” Amy said aloud to Johnnie as he turned onto Sunset, heading for the club. “Babs and Mary Lou said Rachael wasn’t into drinking and partying. She wanted to be an actress more than anything. She wouldn’t throw her dream away on a guy who was mixed up in something like that.”

Johnnie flicked her a sideways glance. “Manny’s a good-looking guy. He’s only a few years older than your sister and he’s charming. His father’s the gangster, not Manny. It’s Carlos who’s the problem.”

“You’re thinking maybe Carlos didn’t want his son getting involved with a stripper.”

“Yeah, something like that. At least not seriously involved.”

“We need to talk to Manny.”

“I plan to.”

“I’m going with you.”

He turned the car into the parking lot next to the club and pulled up near the back door. “Not a chance.”

Her chin went up. “You said the father was the criminal, not the son. As long as I’m with you—”

“No.” He turned off the engine, cracked the door open, rounded the car and helped her climb out.

“I want to go,” she said.

“You’re Angel Fontaine, remember? You don’t have any reason to be talking to Manny Ortega.”

He was right, damn it. She couldn’t have it both ways. If she wanted to continue working undercover at the club, she had to be Angel. And a private investigator wouldn’t take an exotic dancer with him to talk to a drug lord’s son.

“All right, you win.”
For now,
she added, her mind spinning ahead to what she might accomplish while he was talking to Ortega. “Tonight we’re doing a private function, a bachelor party for one of the guys who works at Brand Realty. Peter Brand is the owner. He’s the man you mentioned, the one in the police report.”

He nodded. “I’ve seen his name on for-sale signs on property all over town. He’s got a dozen branch offices, makes a boatload of money. The cops say his alibi checks out. He hadn’t seen your sister for a couple of weeks before she disappeared and he was working the night she didn’t come home.”

“Still, if he’s here tonight, I’m going to talk to him, see if he might know something useful.”

Johnnie’s jaw hardened. “We’ve already been over this. I don’t want you playing detective.”

Amy jerked to a halt next to the door. “That’s why I’m here, Johnnie, working at the club. I appreciate what you’re doing—I can’t begin to tell you how much. But I intend to do my part. I’m going to do everything I can to find out what happened to my sister.”

“Damn it, Amy.”

“It’s Angel, and I have to go in.”

Johnnie took a breath and released it slowly, clearly resigned that she was going to do exactly as she pleased.

“You’ve got my number in your phone. Call me if you run into a problem.” His dark gaze narrowed on her face. “And don’t even think about leaving with that guy.”

Amy flashed him a smile. “I won’t leave with him, I promise. I won’t leave with anyone but you.”

A hot gleam appeared in his eyes. Apparently mollified, he nodded. “Fine.” Turning, he strode back to his car.

Amy watched him drive away and felt a sudden pang. Not only was she wildly attracted to him, but she liked him.

Well, except when he was acting like a domineering, overprotective male.

Liking him should have been good, but wasn’t. A man like John Riggs wasn’t someone she could afford to get involved with. He was the kind of guy you had fantasy, one-night sex with and never saw again. He wasn’t the kind of man a schoolteacher from Michigan took home to meet her mother.

He was the wild, dangerous, reckless kind of guy who ended up breaking your heart.

Detective Rick Vega returned to his desk in the homicide bureau at the Hollywood Community Police Station. Turning on his computer, he sat back to wait while the machine booted up.

All the way back from Johnnie’s place, Rick had thought about Rachael Brewer and her sister, Amy, the schoolteacher who had come to California from Michigan to find her.

Clearly, Johnnie was taken with the little blonde. Rick and Johnnie had been friends since the day Rick had become Kate Riggs’s partner. He had dropped in at Johnnie’s for a morning visit any number of times and never found a woman in his house. That Amy was still there
the morning after
said a lot.

Johnnie was helping her, which was great, since he was exceptionally good at his job and the police so far had come up with squat. That Amy was working as a dancer in a strip club to dig up information was over-the-top insane. The lady wasn’t a cop. She had no experience dealing with the kind of guys who frequented a place like the Kitty Cat Club.

Still, he couldn’t help admiring her moxie and her determination. It was obvious she loved her sister. It made him wonder what there was about Rachael Brewer that deserved that kind of loyalty.

As soon as the computer was ready, he clicked on Google and typed in Rachael’s name. Half a dozen
Rachael Brewers
popped up. He checked each listing but none of them was the woman he was looking for. No Facebook…no Twitter…no LinkedIn. Nothing on any of the usual social networks.

No web page.

This last seemed a little odd to him. Rachael wanted to be an actress. Most would-be actresses had an internet presence of some sort. He knew working as a dancer didn’t pay all that much, but she must have had friends who could have helped her.

He typed in Silky Summers, did the same check on the people who popped up, and still came up with nothing.

He leaned back in his chair, steepled his fingers and studied the screen. Maybe instead of using her real name or her stripper name, she was using something else. On a hunch, he typed in Rachael Summers, a combination of the two, and the usual list of names popped up. She wasn’t on any of the social networks, but he struck gold with the website www.rachaelsummers.com.

He recognized her instantly from the photo he had seen in her missing persons file. On the website, she had an entire photo portfolio. It was nicely done, the pictures all professional and tasteful. He jotted down the name of the photographer who had done the work, and there was a biography, as well.

Born in Grand Rapids. Daughter of an auto mechanic dad and a homemaker mom. Graduated high school and city college with a 4.0 grade average, but didn’t continue her education and instead moved to Hollywood to pursue an acting career.