“Sara—”
She issued him the hand. “Don’t bother. I left my purse in your car last night, and I needed it to buy the coffees, which I walked to get. But whatever. It’s done, but so were we before this conversation even started, so none of it matters.”
The laneway to her parents’ house had never been such a welcome sight. She stared straight ahead as the Mustang’s tires crunched over the long stretch of gravel.
Curtis pulled up to the garage. Smart man that he was, he kept the engine running.
Meeting his agitated gaze sucked in the worst way, but she did it, paying him back with a glare of her own. “Thanks for everything, lawman. Saving my ass yesterday, fucking it last night, kicking it just now. Oh wait, that part was more of a kick in the teeth, but whatever.” She pushed the car door open and stepped out, onto the driveway. The urge to slam the door roared inside her. She resisted. The Mustang wasn’t to blame for its owner’s assholish opinions. Instead she closed the door carefully and walked away.
The engine thundered behind her, followed by more of the tires-on-gravel sound. No goodbye kiss. Just an abrupt ending, the perfect balance to their rocky beginning less than forty-eight hours ago. It was better this way. Her head knew that, even if her heart didn’t want to believe it.
Sara
Another round of job searching down, once again with zero to show for it. Sara stroked a black line through the last classified ad in the Saturday-morning paper.
After months of pounding the pavement, filling out applications and attending job interviews, all of which died a swift death when she had to answer the “have you ever been convicted of a criminal offense” question, she’d gone an easier route. Now she called first. No point in wasting time and resources if the employer wouldn’t consider hiring somebody with a little misdemeanor to their credit.
The whole thing was ridiculous. It was a public mischief conviction, not fraud or theft. She’d used her employee access code to gain afterhours entry into a furniture store where she’d once worked. And yes, she and her boy-toy of the night had broken a few small items in their slightly intoxicated sexual romp through the showroom—all of which had been caught on security video. Honestly, though, it was the store manager’s fault. Halfway, at least. Anybody with a brain would change the access code after terminating an employee.
Unfortunately, it hadn’t played out that way. The store manager could have settled for a reparation payment, but the uptight bitch had insisted on pressing charges. With a two-thousand-dollar fine and a conviction behind her, Sara couldn’t even land a job running the fryer at a fast-food joint.
She folded the newspaper, tossed it in the recycling box and sighed. Time to get ready for the job she did have.
She crossed her shoebox-sized bachelor apartment in five strides. What would it be tonight—slutty-whore red or bad-girl black? She pulled two skimpy tops from her dresser drawer and did the eenie-meenie-miney-mo thing. Black won. Or lost, depending on the point of view.
Saturday nights were the worst night of the week at Lucky’s. Lots of intoxicated idiots with alcohol-induced bravery and demands. That sucked for the girls on several levels. The shit they had to do to disgusting men was bad on the best of days, but even worse when the men either couldn’t get hard or couldn’t get off. Sara shuddered at the thought.
She fastened the last hook on the black corset-style top. Her tightest jeans, highest heels and a swipe of glossy pink lipstick later, she was ready to do her time. Maybe this would be the last Saturday she had to serve at Lucky’s.
Look at that, optimism in the face of debasement. Must be the pink lipstick—a bit of Nia rubbing off on her. Well. She couldn’t tell Nia about this fleeting moment of hope, now could she? Not without divulging the dirty details of her current employment situation. And that was never going to happen. She hadn’t outright lied to her sister about her job, but she’d done some creative truth-telling.
Nia had been so proud when Sara told her she’d found a job at a health club. She’d even made comments about Sara “working her way up in the company.” Yeah, there were opportunities for advancement at Lucky’s, but not in any way Sara wanted to progress. God, Nia would flip out if she knew what that meant in a massage-parlor environment.
Sara had to find a better job. And soon. Before her sister returned home from the honeymoon and decided she needed to join Sara’s “health club” to work off two weeks’ worth of indulgences. One of the few sins Sara hadn’t committed was lying. She’d hate to start now, but the bills kept coming, and only one thing was getting any of them paid. On the subject of coming, she’d better get to work.
Curtis
“And then all four chicks got naked and took turns blowing me.”
“Yeah, okay. Wait, what?” Curtis abandoned his visual scan of the intersection to look at his partner, currently sporting a smug smile from the passenger side of the cruiser.
“Which was the buzzword that got your attention—naked, or blowing? You know, in case I need to lure you back from la-la land again.”
“Go to hell, Campbell.”
“Since I’m stuck in here with you while you stare out the window like a lost fucking puppy, I’d say I’m already there.”
Curtis grunted. He couldn’t dispute Jake’s observation. He’d been glued to the window since spotting a woman he could’ve sworn was Sara get off a city bus. Only that made no sense. First of all, Sara had a car to get her from A to B. Secondly, there was nothing in this part of the city to attract a single woman on a Saturday night. No residential units, no restaurants or coffee shops, no night clubs. Mostly industrial-type businesses and the like.
Mostly.
“Been to Rip It lately?” Curtis posed the question as casually as possible.
“That you even have to ask makes me question our bond. Have you had a change of heart about strip clubs? Suddenly paying to watch tits bounce and asses shake isn’t so lame?”
There was no good way to answer. Jake was a buddy as well as a damn good cop. He’d know if Curtis fed him a load of bull, and he’d have far too much fun with the info if Curtis told him the whole truth. Best he could do was shoot for the middle and hope a partial version floated like shit from a high-fiber diet.
“I thought I recognized a woman who got off the bus a few minutes ago. Sara Robinson, Conn’s new sister-in-law. This area isn’t exactly geared to female foot traffic, and she has a history of making less-than-stellar choices.” Such as committing unlawful entry and destruction of property, and that was just one occurrence—on the record.
“Nothing wrong with choosing to be a stripper.”
“Says the region’s foremost connoisseur on the subject.”
Jake grinned. “You know it. So, got a picture? Preferably one with her clothes off. Make it easier for me to recognize her that way.”
“You wish, man.” Curtis pulled up his email on his cell and clicked one from Nia. “But my sister-in-law did send me a couple candid shots from the weekend that might help.” He passed the phone to Jake as the images loaded on the screen.
“Be still my heart and other parts. Sadly, I have not seen your almost-sister peeling at Rip It. But maybe this is my lucky day and she was on her way to a job interview there.” Jake double-tapped the screen to zoom in on Sara’s cleavage. “Yeah, she can just empty my wallet and spend the night on my lap.”