Night of the Living Deb Read online

  strung corset.

  “Yep, he’s a jerk all right,” Allie repeated. “The poor girl’s going out of her mind, wondering what happened to him. He hasn’t even called, for crying out loud.”

  Thanks, Dr. Fraud, but I hadn’t gone out of my mind quite yet. Still, all this drama was doing a fine job of turning my guts into a twisted mess, like funnel cakes at the Texas State Fair. All that was missing was the powdered sugar.

  The brunette in the lace-up dominatrix boots glanced over at Cricket as if for reassurance. He shrugged, apparently finding the two of us plenty harmless, and Lu’s face puckered, making a decision.

  “Let’s see if Trayla’s in back,” she said. “She’s got half a set to make up tonight sometime, since she took off with your dude before she finished last night. She should be getting dressed”—wait, shouldn’t that be “undressed”? I wanted to say, but didn’t—“though I haven’t seen her yet.

  She’s kinda flaky, Trayla is, more into men with dough than the dancing. But if anyone can set you straight, it’s her. Follow me, all right?”

  So we did.

  I had Brian’s picture in my pocket, which I planned to slide under the nose of this stripper called Trayla—what the heck kind of name was that, anyway?—just as soon as we reached a place with better lighting than inside the club, where everything but the stage was dimly lit.

  Maybe the guy who took off with G-String Girl wasn’t Malone at all, and it was purely a case of mistaken identity.

  A lot of guys in Dallas wore button-down shirts and glasses. Preppy had never gone out of style, not here. Although, if Lu said, “Oh, sorry, I was wrong, that wasn’t him,” it would leave me with even more questions, wouldn’t it? Namely the unresolved biggie of where on God’s green earth was Malone?

  My mother’s announcement of her trip to Vegas with Stephen was unsettling enough. I definitely didn’t need this on top of everything. If I got any more unwelcome surprises, I’d have to hit the Pepto hard before I went to bed.

  I followed on Allie’s heels behind Lu, weaving around the stage, showered in vibrant red lights as a woman peeled off a crimson-feathered brassiere and tossed it to the floor, while she worked what her mama (and, obviously, the plastic surgeon) gave her.

  Lu approached what looked like a dim rectangle cut into the wall to the left of the stage, drew the portal open, and the three of us slipped inside.

  As the door settled shut with a firm click, I realized the music had faded to a more bearable decibel, though I could still feel the thump of the bass through the walls. It brought back memories of the tiny apartment I’d shared with my friend Molly O’Brien in Chicago during college, when I’d learned to appreciate ear plugs and the whir of a fan when I needed peace and quiet.

  Through a narrow hallway we went, doors on either side, some closed and a few cocked open wide enough that I could see girls in front of mirrors, getting dressed—or, rather, undressed—for the stage.

  But Lu didn’t stop until she’d reached a room at the farthest end, near a glowing exit sign with a fire door heading outside. I noticed a star, cut out of foil, taped to the painted metal with a giant black T in the center. It looked like a child had made it. Still, I was impressed the woman had her own dressing room.

  “Hey, Ms. Trayla Trash, it’s me. You in there?” Lu called, but didn’t wait for a reply. She put a hand on the knob and pushed.

  Trayla Trash? That was her name?

  Are you kidding me?

  Though, come to think of it, why not? I mean, what better to precede “trash” than “trayla,” and it had a nice redneck ring to it.

  I watched Lu go in and Allie after her, before I went inside, nearly bumping into them both as they stood still as statues.

  Though I wasn’t sure why.

  I’d expected a mess of feather boas and sequins, ittybitty outfits slung over a chair or an old-fashioned hinged screen, but not this kind of a mess.

  The only chair in the room lay on its side.

  A square mirror lit by round bulbs had smudges of makeup all over it. A photo with the edges curled clung to the edge of the frame. Tiny chunks of Scotch tape still glued to the glass told me there’d been more pictures once, though someone had obviously snatched them off.

  Below the mirror, an enormous makeup case spilled its contents across the vanity. Tubes of lipstick, powder compacts, and tubs of eye shadow littered the ledge of Formica. Some kind of lotion with glitter gleamed in a shiny puddle.

  Yuck.

  On the floor beneath were several tissues smeared red with rouge. At least, it looked like rouge.

  I wasn’t touching those babies with a ten-foot pole, even if they were crumpled maps drawn in Revlon guiding me directly to my missing boyfriend.

  “She wasn’t exactly a neatnik, was she?” I remarked, for want of anything better to say. She walks in filth, came to mind.

  Lu let out a humorless laugh. “Girl, it’s looked a whole lot worse than this. Only something’s different. Let me think.”

  She put a finger to painted lips and made a few slow turns in the tiny space, and I tried to imagine how things could look any worse.

  “Ah.” Lu stopped and stared at a bare nail on the wall.

  “What happened to her pretty picture? A rich dude she was dating gave it to her, and she was so proud of it.

  Showed it off to anyone who’d look. She wouldn’t take it unless—” The barmaid in the bustier froze for a second, the skin beneath her overdone makeup suddenly several shades paler. “—unless she wasn’t coming back,” she finished in a much quieter tone.

  “You think she took off and didn’t plan on returning?”

  Allie asked, voicing my thoughts exactly.

  Lu pressed glossy red fingertips to her forehead. “But when I saw her leaving last night, she only had her robe on. Why would she split without getting dressed? And without finishing her set?”

  “Could she have been fired? Told to leave without packing?”

  Allie offered, and Lu shook her head, clearly upset.

  “If she was, nobody said a word, and she was making a bundle in tips, so I know she wouldn’t have quit unless something came up all sudden-like.” Lu looked at me accusingly.

  “I’ll bet it has something to do with your man.

  Maybe she ran off with him.”

  Oh, puh-leeze.

  This had gone far enough.

  If I had to listen to one more misstatement about my boyfriend and this “hootchie mama,” as Allie had called her, I would explode like a carton of toxic yogurt.

  I whipped the photo of Malone out of my back pocket and held it right in front of Lu’s kohl-lined eyes.

  “Is this the guy you saw going out the back door with your friend? Because, if it’s not, don’t be afraid to admit your error. He was wearing a pink button-down shirt and blue jeans. I can understand your making a mistake, since it was late and kinda dark and really loud.”

  If my heart wasn’t banging in my ears before, it was now.

  She chewed on her glossy lips for a minute, studying the shot I’d taken of Malone while we’d moseyed around the Botanical Gardens last weekend. It had been a gorgeous fall day, more like spring, and we’d enjoyed every minute.

  Lu exhaled hard, like she was blowing out smoke, and pushed the photo back in my hands. “Yeah, that’s him. I’d recognize him anywhere.”

  My heart did a nosedive. “You’re positive?”

  “Yeah, I said so, didn’t I?”

  “But—”

  “But nothing.” She narrowed her eyes on me, and I saw pity in them. “Hon, it was him. Same preppy glasses.

  Same button-down collar. He looked so straight, but I guess he’s a bad boy at heart, huh? So many of ’em are like that.”

  No, I wanted to shout. He wasn’t.

  Or was he?

  “Was he someone important?” she asked. “Like a politician?”

  “No,”
I said softly. “No one important.” Except to me.

  I held the photo before my own eyes with a shaky hand, staring at the face I thought I knew so well, the gentle smile, the blue eyes warmly crinkled behind the thin wirerims.

  It was all I could do to keep breathing.

  “What else do you want, Kendricks?” Allie was quickly on me. “An affidavit? A videotape? A signed confession?”

  I glared at her.

  Lu murmured, “Sorry, girls, but I’m as confused as y’all,” before tacking on, “Stay put, okay? Let me check with the office and see what they know.”

  She took off, leaving me with black-hearted Allie, who probably wouldn’t know what sympathy was if it ran over her in a bulldozer.

  She had a sour look on her face that I didn’t like. Her slender nose wrinkled, her eyes squinted meanly.

  “Spit it out, for Pete’s sake, and quit looking at me like that,” I demanded none too nicely; because I knew exactly what she was thinking, and I didn’t want to hear it. “Don’t you dare tell me you honestly believe Brian ran off with this . . . trailer trash person, or I’ll have to kill you with my bare hands.”

  “All right, I won’t say it.” But she continued to stare squarely at me, forehead pleated. “No, dammit, I will. I’ll say exactly what I’m thinking, because it’s sounding more and more like the truth every minute.”

  “Stop—” I tried, but she didn’t listen.

  “They hooked up, Kendricks. Malone got a buzz in his britches for a hootchie mama, and he went home with her, now he’s too embarrassed to show his face. What other explanation is there?”

  “Stop it.” Despite myself, I started trembling. This was wrong. Completely wrong and upside down. Not really happening. “I won’t assume the worst before I have the chance to talk to Brian.”

  My daddy had always taught me to never judge too swiftly, for fear of getting things totally ass backward.

  I knew Brian. Maybe not backward and forward, perhaps not all the littlest details or even some middling ones, but well enough to be sure he wouldn’t pull a stunt like this. It didn’t sound like him at all, and I was not going to buy it until he looked me in the eye and said, “Andy, I’ve left you for another woman.”

  Only then would it be true.

  “Don’t be a fool.” Allie made a noise of disgust and toed a sequined boa lying near her sharp-toed pump. “The stripper in question has obviously flown the coop, and there’s no sign of Malone, not at home, not at work, not with any of his friends. I’m piss-poor at math, but I can put two and two together.”

  “It’s not what it seems,” I resisted. “You’re wrong, Allie.

  It doesn’t add up.”

  “You’re in denial, girl.”

  I fought the urge to attack.

  If I hadn’t hated Allie Price before, I hated her now, with a passion.

  But pulling her hair out by the roots wasn’t going to help.

  As Allie righted the room’s only chair and planted herself in it, I stepped over to the mirror and plucked the photo from the frame.

  It showed a petite woman with enormous blond hair—flipped up like Farrah Fawcett, just as Matty had

  described—wearing the tiniest of panties and a spangled bra, posing in this very room, only there was a small framed painting hanging on the wall behind her. I could just barely make out a horse’s hind end.

  Must have been the “pretty picture” Lu had mentioned.

  I put the photo back just as Lu reappeared. Her expression didn’t reassure me any, not with her eyes all teary.

  “Nobody’s heard from Trayla since last night,” she said

  and blinked back tears with tarantula lashes. “I can’t believe she’d bail without telling me. Not that we were that tight, but she used to stay and have a drink with me after hours sometimes, before we closed. She had dreams, Trayla did. She wanted to be somebody. Said she had big plans for herself.” Lu sniffled. “Could be her plans included your guy.”

  My guy?

  Straight-Shooting, Straight-Laced, Full of Midwestern Sensibility Brian Malone?

  Impossible.

  There was a greater chance of The Men’s Club turning into a nunnery.

  “No,” I said, because Lu was dead wrong. Any plans her stripper pal had with a man definitely didn’t include Malone.

  Allie laughed, and I felt relieved at first, assuming I wasn’t the only one who found Lu’s assertion absurd. Until she opened her pie hole and cackled, “This is priceless.

  Really. Brian’s probably never screwed up in his life, and all of a sudden he’s walking on the wild side with a woman who straddles a pole for a living.”

  “I’m gonna miss her,” Lu babbled, off somewhere in her own little miserable world. “Betsy was a real firecracker.”

  “Betsy?” Allie piped up. “So her real name wasn’t Trayla?”

  “All the girls make up names for the stage,” Lu replied.

  “You know Betsy’s last name?” Allie went for broke.

  “No,” Lu said. “Sorry. I never asked. She wasn’t much for hanging out with the girls. She always had some kind of rich boyfriend who was takin’ her out.”

  Well, that counted out Malone then, as he still had student loans to pay off, and the last time we’d gone to the movies, I’d had to pay for the tickets and the Junior Mints.

  But it didn’t explain why Brian had chased Trayla backstage and why he’d left with her, if that’s what really happened.

  It could’ve been a weird coincidence, I told myself.

  One of those rare cosmic occurrences that only happened when there was a Harvest Moon.

  Or not.

  My teeth began to chatter.

  “So no one knows where Trayla went off to?” Allie asked,

  because I stood there like an idiot, staring at the make-up smeared mirror and the way it distorted my reflection.

  “Nancy in the office said Trayla’s home phone was disconnected and that one of the girls had heard her mention something about getting a ticket out,” Lu related.

  A ticket out, huh?

  Hopefully, that was a solo flight and not a trip for two

  with my missing boyfriend.

  A wave of nausea hit me, just contemplating it.

  No, no, no.

  This wasn’t happening, not to me.

  Brian would never ever cheat.

  Would he?

  I shook my head, saying, “No,” repeatedly, even as a wave of dizziness swept through me, so fierce that I had to lean on Allie to stay upright.

  “Kendricks, you okay?”

  Her voice was garbled, thick as peanut butter.

  “You’re not gonna faint, are you?”

  Faint? Me?

  Hell, no.

  I’m a Blevins Kendricks. We don’t swoon.

  Nope. What we have are weak stomachs.

  With a gut-wrenching heave, I leaned over and puked on the vinyl flooring.

  Adios, banana pancakes.

  Or what was left of them anyway.

  “Jesus, Kendricks! You nearly tossed your cookies on my Jimmy Choos!” Allie screeched.

  I balanced hands on thighs, my legs vaguely shaking, lifting my head to mutter, “Sorry,” but I didn’t mean it.

  I’d missed her Choos?

  Damn.

  This was clearly not my lucky day.

  Chapter 9

  Allie took the wheel on the way home. Said she didn’t trust me in control of anything as deadly

  as an automobile when I was nearly catatonic.

  She was afraid I’d drive us both into a tree, and all because I couldn’t summon the energy to do more than stare blankly at her rapid-fire questions: “Are you gonna puke again? You need to lie down? Want me to call your mother? How about your therapist?”

  I didn’t have a therapist—surprising, huh?—nor did I have the oomph to utter anything but monosyllables; though she needn�
�t have worried for her life.

  Odd as it sounded, it wasn’t her I wanted to kill, not this time.

  It was Malone.

  If he had truly done the terrible deeds that everyone was trying so hard to convince me he had, I figured a raking over hot coals while tarred and feathered was too good for him.

  But I had to find him first.

  I had to hear the words “We are through . . . over . . . done . . . kaput” from his lips before I’d wave my white flag and surrender to heartbreak.

  Oh, and I would.

  Find him, that is.

  That Nazi Hunter dude had nothing on me. I was pushy, nosy, and I had plenty of resources, not to mention infinite vacation days.

  Being that I worked for myself—thanks to the trust fund Daddy had bestowed on me from the time I was eighteen, meaning my mostly pro bono Web design work didn’t have to pay all my bills (and seldom did)—I could take off as long as I needed to track down my errant boyfriend.

  I’d left business cards with Lu the Busty Barmaid and the soprano-voiced bartender, along with the offer of money for information—ditto the overly made-up hostess and bouncer in the foyer—all on the off-chance Malone turned up at The Men’s Club again or someone would remember something they’d forgotten to mention. (It’s amazing how often cash can jog one’s memory.)

  Although I seriously hoped the next phone call I got was from Brian, explaining this whole mess away.

  Just in case he had and I’d missed him, I checked my voice mail—cell and home—only to come up empty yet again.

  Was it possible to feel so mixed up that you imploded?

  If so, it surely would’ve happened to me right on the passenger seat of my years’ old Jeep.

  For cryin’ out loud.

  I leaned my forehead against the window, the glass cold against my skin, and I was glad for it, as hot and bothered as I was (and not in a good way). The night-time scenery whooshed past in a blur of neon and traffic lights, and I paid attention to none of it.

  My mind was back in Stripperville, as was the bulk of my brunch.