Let Me Go (32 page)

Leo glanced up at them blearily.

There were no empty chairs, but Henry whispered something to a zombie sitting nearby and he stood up quickly and left. Henry pulled the chair over and gestured for Claire to sit.

There was a time when Claire would have refused such an act of chivalry as sexist, but she now took the chair and sat down gratefully. Henry put his palms on the table and leaned over Leo. Claire had seen that move before. It was intended to intimidate. But Leo didn't look all that shaken. Leo lifted his glass, toasted each of them, and then drank.

“We just got done searching the island,” Henry shouted at him over the music.

Leo Reynolds was a handsome guy—there was no denying it. But Claire had never understood why Archie hadn't done more to warn Susan off him. The guy was waist-deep in his father's business.

“I got a few messages about that,” Leo shouted back. “I told Jack it wouldn't work. I knew Archie wouldn't bury that footage.”

Claire perked up, not sure she'd heard right. Bury the footage? But Henry gave her an I'll-explain-later look and she settled back in her chair. She knew she was probably supposed to be playing good cop or bad cop or something, but she could barely hear and she had to pee.

“Any evidence of Gretchen killing that young woman on your island was obliterated by your landscape crew this morning,” Henry shouted at Leo.

Claire crossed her legs tightly and tried to look tough.

“They clean the grounds after every event,” Leo shouted back. “Jack would do a lot of things, but he would never do anything to intentionally protect Gretchen Lowell.”

She really had to pee now. Claire clenched her knees together and jiggled her legs up and down.

Henry was asking Leo about the video footage, whether it had all been turned over, and Leo was saying he didn't know, and both of them were posturing. Men. At this rate, they'd be another half hour.

The naked witch writhed and gyrated onstage.

Claire stood up and Henry and Leo both looked at her with startled expressions.

Claire put her hand on Henry's shoulder. “I have to,” she yelled, “you know.”

Henry nodded, and Claire turned away from the table and started scanning for restroom signs. She came up with nothing. It was too crowded, and streamers hung everywhere, covering everything. The club had servers—she'd seen a few women in short shorts and Dancin' Bare tank tops, but she didn't see any of them now. So she decided to head for the bar to ask a bartender where the hell the toilets were. She walked sideways through the crowd, most of whom were watching a nun disrobe on the main stage. A man covered in blue body paint and naked except for what looked like a diaper stepped in front of her, blocking her path. He held out a clear plastic condiment to-go container filled with a neon-green gelatin.

“Jell-O shot?” he shouted.

Claire pointed down to her belly. “I'm pregnant, dickwad.”

“They're lime!” he shouted.

Claire didn't have time for this. People didn't understand what it was like, having to pee like that. She stepped on the guy's bare blue foot and squeezed past him as he doubled up in pain. She was elbowing around a couple of dirty-dancing cowboys when she finally saw a sign on the wall with an arrow pointing to restrooms. She was sweating a little now—she had to pee so bad. She made her way hurriedly out of the crowd and followed the arrow down a hallway lit entirely with red light like a darkroom until she came to a door with a female silhouette sign on it. Someone had drawn boobs and pubic hair on the silhouette with a black Sharpie.

Claire threw open the door, relieved to find the room unoccupied. The bathroom was dimly lit, which was probably a blessing. The walls were painted black. A sink in a vanity faced two stalls. Claire scrambled into one of the stalls, and then saw what was in the toilet and backed out and into the other stall. She didn't have to pee
that
badly.

Sorry,
Claire said silently to her belly, as she set her gun in its holster on the toilet paper dispenser, wiggled her pants down, and then balanced precariously over the toilet seat, determined not to allow her skin to make contact.

When she was done, she got her pants back up—maternity pants were really wonderful, that elastic waist—and pulled her sleeve down to cover her hand before she flushed. You couldn't be too careful.

She was still reattaching the holster to the elastic waist of her pants when she came out of the stall. There was a naked woman waiting there. Claire averted her eyes reflexively. In the bathroom, the music muffled by the walls, it felt like different rules. Claire secured the holster. The woman hadn't moved. She was still there, her ass perched on the edge of the counter in front of the sink where Claire needed to wash her hands. Claire lifted her eyes. The woman wasn't naked. She was wearing glitter, red devil horns, a red G-string, and sky-high pumps. Her body was lithe and toned. A small tattoo of a star peeked out above the matchbook-sized front panel of her G-string. She was either a stripper or someone very committed to pulling off a realistic stripper costume. Claire tugged at the waist of her maternity pants, feeling like a whale.

“All free,” Claire said. She hoped she hadn't gotten too much pee on the seat.

The stripper still didn't move. They were the only two people in the bathroom. The other stall was still empty. The stripper hadn't been waiting to use a toilet, Claire realized. She'd been waiting for her, for Claire. Claire stepped to the sink and reached around the stripper's hip for the faucet. The stripper shifted slightly to make room for her. She was tall even before the heels. It was like meeting a slutty, naked Amazon. Claire held her hands under the faucet.

“You're here with him,” the stripper said cautiously. “The cop.”

“I'm a cop, too,” Claire said, a little defensively. People were always surprised by that—like she didn't look cop-ish enough or something. It made Claire crazy.

The stripper didn't look surprised. She looked thoughtful.

Claire glanced around for the soap.

“There,” the stripper said, pointing to a small soap dispenser.

Claire squirted the orange gel into her wet hands.

“The bald guy knows Archie,” the stripper said. “Do you?”

Ha! The bald guy. Henry would love that.

“Yeah, I know Archie. He's my boss.” Claire rinsed her hands in the sink. “Technically,” she said. “I mean, more of a team leader.” She looked up in the mirror at her own reflection and sighed. She didn't wear makeup when she was working, and she kept her hair short. It had been a strategy early on, to be one of the boys, to not be a distraction. But sometimes she longed for a nice red lipstick. The stripper met Claire's gaze in the mirror. Her lips were painted crimson and her eyes were expertly outlined with thick kohl eyeliner and affixed with heavy false eyelashes. The lashes looked uncomfortable. Claire reached for a paper towel, trying to figure out how the hell this woman knew Archie Sheridan. “So, how do you know Archie?” Claire asked, unable to help it.

“I heard about that girl they found near the island,” the stripper said.

Claire tried to react casually. She dried her hands and tossed the wet towel into an overflowing trash can. Then she extended a hand. Claire's nails were unpolished and clipped short; the stripper's nails were long and the same fire-engine-red as her G-string. “Hi, I'm Claire,” Claire said. “What's your name?”

The stripper held her hand out and Claire shook it. “Star,” she said. “I'm Star.”

“Okay, Star,” Claire said. Even with her butt leaned against the counter, the stripper towered above her. “Is there anything you want to tell me about the girl we found dead at the lake?”

“The news says you think Gretchen Lowell killed her,” Star said.

Claire was careful how she phrased it. “There's evidence that Gretchen Lowell was on the island last night,” she said.

Star crossed her arms under her breasts. The glitter on her collarbone looked like gold dust. “I don't think she did it,” she said.

“Why do you say that?” Claire asked.

Star hesitated. Then she leaned toward Claire slightly. Her lashes fluttered. She was probably having a hard time holding them up, Claire guessed.

“She wasn't the only dangerous person out there that night,” Star said.

Something was dawning on Claire. “Were you at that party, Star?”

Star's lashes fluttered some more and she shrugged and looked at the floor. “I'm just saying, if someone else, someone at that house, if one of them did it, got rough, I just wouldn't be surprised.”

“We searched it today,” Claire said. “The crime scene had been cleaned up by the grounds crew.”

Star looked back at Claire, the intensity of her gaze palpable. “Did you search all of it?” she asked.

“All of the island?” Claire asked, puzzled. “Yes.” She was missing something, and she didn't like it when she missed things.

Star's eyes were still on Claire. “Do you know how it got its name?” she asked.

Claire didn't even know it had a name besides Jack Reynolds's island, though now that she thought of it, it probably did.

“I've gotta go,” Star said. “I'm on in a minute and I still have to ice my nipples.”

Star didn't have a watch—Claire wasn't sure how she knew she was on in a minute—but she seemed certain. Star checked her makeup in the mirror and then stepped back from the sink and drew herself to her full height so that Claire was staring at her nipples, which were the size of raspberries, and looked like they didn't need any icing at all.

“Tell Archie Sheridan we're even,” Star said, adjusting her devil horns. Then she unlocked the bathroom door and sashayed out, a red line indented on her ass from where she had perched it against the counter.

Claire was already digging her phone out of her pocket. She needed to find out what Jack Reynolds's island was called, and she knew just the person who'd have that sort of useless trivia floating around in her brain. The fact that it was the middle of the night made Claire only hesitate for a second before dialing. Susan wouldn't mind. Susan loved to be part of the action.

*   *   *

Henry had taken
Claire's chair and now sat watching Leo across the table, trying to block out the electronic disco crap that was pounding through all the speakers. The bottle in front of Leo was almost empty. Henry watched as Leo poured the remainder into his glass and drank. Whatever sorrows he had, he was trying hard to drown them. Henry knew that Leo had to act the part, but this was getting dangerous. He leaned forward and put his hand on Leo's arm. “I think you've had enough,” he said. Leo gave him a glassy-eyed smile and Henry shouted it again, to be sure Leo had heard him over the music.

Leo pulled his arm away, lifted his glass to his mouth, and drank.

Henry sat back and crossed his arms. He didn't know what he'd been thinking, coming here. Leo was no help at all. Henry looked around for Claire. Why did women take so long in the bathroom? What did they do in there, exactly?

Henry reached across the table, took the glass out of Leo's hand, and slugged back the contents. He was doing him a favor, really. Leo was staring forlornly at his now-empty hand and Henry returned the glass to Leo's palm. The music made the table vibrate. “There's nothing you can tell me about Lisa Watson or Gretchen Lowell?” Henry asked, shouting. “No information?”

Leo studied his empty glass for a moment. Then he lifted a finger and one of the servers who'd ignored Henry's every effort to order a glass of water immediately materialized with another bottle of whiskey. Leo poured some whiskey into his glass, sloshing some onto the table, which seemed a real shame to Henry—it was good whiskey.

“You're drunk,” Henry said. Leo didn't respond. His attention was on the stage, where a change in music indicated that a new show had started. Henry turned his head to look, and recognized the stripper with devil horns from the other night. A cheer went up when she walked on, a popular act, apparently. She put a hand around the pole and took flight around it, her brown hair lifting behind her as a version of “Frankie and Johnny” started up. It was Johnny Cash, off of
The Fabulous Johnny Cash
. Henry had it on vinyl.

Frankie and Johnny were sweethearts

Lordy how they did love

They swore to be true to each other

As true as the stars above

He was her man

He wouldn't do her wrong

The stripper lifted one long leg and stretched it up along the pole until she was in a standing split. Then she leaned back into a backbend. Her breasts stayed perfectly upright, her nipples pointing skyward. You had to admire the athleticism. Johnny Cash! Wait until he told Archie about this. The stripper opened her knees and bent over. Henry felt a warm buzzing in his nuts. He shifted his position a little, and glanced around for Claire. The buzzing continued.
His phone.
Of course. He pulled the phone out of his front pocket and glanced at it wearily. The caller ID said it was coming from the morgue. Henry pushed his chair back from the table and stood up, lifting the phone to his ear. “Yeah?” he shouted, one eye still on the stage.

I ain't gonna tell you no story

I ain't gonna tell you no lie

Johnny left here 'bout an hour ago

With a gal named Nellie Bly

A voice mumbled something on the other end of the phone. Henry put his finger in his other ear. “What?” he said loudly.

“It's Robbins,” Robbins yelled. “Where are you?”

The stripper winked at Henry.

She said, “He's my man. But he's doin' me wrong”