Against the Night. Kat Martin

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СКАЧАТЬ want me to come out here.”

      Imagine that.

       “She’s afraid something will happen. She said losing one daughter was enough.”

       He tossed a glance her way as he made the turn off Laurel Canyon onto Sunset and merged with the traffic. “Your mother’s right. Snooping around the way you’ve been doing…that’s dangerous business, honey.”

       “Maybe, but so far I haven’t found out much of anything. I’m hoping tomorrow will be different.”

       “What time’s your appointment?”

       “Two o’clock at Kyle’s house. He lives in Bel Air so it isn’t that far a drive.”

       “Bel Air, huh? Pretty ritzy for a scumbag. You got a car?”

       “Babs is lending me hers.”

       “I need your cell number. Write it down on a piece of paper.”

       She pulled a pen out of her purse and scribbled the number on the back of a Kitty Cat Club napkin she dug out of the bottom.

       Johnnie pulled into the parking lot and stopped beside the rear entrance. “If Tate gives you any trouble about being out with a customer, tell him I’m helping you with a personal problem. He knows what I do for a living. That should be enough to keep him off your back.”

       “All right.” Amy handed him the napkin, opened the car door and got out. He rolled down his window as she walked around to his side of the car.

       “I’ll call you late morning,” he said, handing her a business card. “We need to work out the details before you go in. And I need to talk to your sister’s friend Barbara. Can you make that happen?”

       “Babs usually sleeps till noon, but I can get her up a little early.”

       “I’ll call, set up a place for us to meet.”

       She just nodded. “Thank you, Johnnie. I really appreciate this.”

       “Yeah, well, I’ll see you tomorrow.” He watched her walk into the club and realized it bothered him to think of her working in there. She was a schoolteacher, for chrissake. She shouldn’t be dancing naked in a goddamned tittie bar.

       He sighed as he turned the car around and drove away. There wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. Except find her sister. Then he could send her sweet little schoolteacher ass back to Michigan where it belonged.

       Amy usually slept late on her day off, but her nerves were strung too tight. Instead, as the sun came up, she dressed in a pair of white stretch Levi’s and a pink T-shirt, left Babs asleep in the apartment, and walked a block down the street to a little espresso bar called The Caboose.

       “I’ll have a skinny double-shot latte,” she said to the barista, a dark-haired girl with braces who didn’t look old enough to be out of high school. With a chocolate biscotti in one hand and the coffee in the other, Amy sat down at one of the small square tables.

       She reached over to the table next to hers and picked up an L.A. Times someone had left behind. She did a quick perusal, checked the local news, which was nothing but murder and mayhem, the weather, which never changed in sunny California, and the comics, which at least made her smile.

       When she finished her coffee, she headed back to the apartment and found Babs up and dressed in jeans and an orange tank top. Babs was extremely big busted so no matter what she wore, she looked top heavy, as if she would topple onto the floor if she leaned too far over.

       “Oh, good, you’re awake,” Amy said.

       “My cell phone rang and woke me up,” Babs grumbled. “Wrong number, can you believe?”

       “Why didn’t you just go back to sleep?”

       “You said the Ranger wanted to talk to me. I figured I might as well get up and get ready.”

       Last night, Babs had still been awake when Amy got home. Her friend had been worried, she knew, though Babs would never admit it. Amy had told her all the gory details, how she had made a fool of herself by reneging on her sex-for-work proposal and how John Riggs had again behaved as a gentleman.

       “Johnnie was really great last night,” Amy said. “I was starting to freak and he knew it. He didn’t push me. He agreed to help anyway.”

       Babs scoffed. “Don’t expect the same treatment from Kyle Bennett. Your sister said he was a real horse’s ass.”

       Amy grinned, having no difficulty imagining her outspoken sister saying something like that. The grin slid away. “I’m not looking forward to meeting him, especially not at his house. I feel a lot better knowing Johnnie is going to be helping us.”

       “You can say that again.”

       Amy paced over to the window. The room they shared wasn’t glamorous, their only view the parking lot below. Still, she felt safe here, with Bo Jing and Tate to look after them, Dante and the rest of the crew. In the beginning, she had worried that someone Rachael had worked with might have been responsible for her disappearance, but Tate screened his employees well and after she got to know the men she worked with, she didn’t believe they’d had anything to do with it.

       Along with that, no men were allowed upstairs, which was one of the reasons the girls liked living there. They could work, pay cheap rent and save their money, and not be hassled by drunken Kitty Cat patrons.

       Amy walked over to the kitchen counter, where Babs was making coffee. “Do you think he’ll be able to find out what happened to her?”

       Babs pressed the start button on the coffeemaker. She knew what Amy was asking. “In a city this size, women disappear all the time. Some of them are never seen again.”

       A cold chill slipped through her. “You mean their bodies are never found.”

       “I’m sorry, honey, but yeah. That’s what I mean.”

       “We pretend she’s still out there, but I’m not sure either of us really believes it.”

       “Oh, she’s out there. We just don’t know if she’s alive or not. Until we’re sure one way or another, we’ll do whatever it takes to find out.”

       Amy felt better just hearing the words. They wouldn’t give up—not until they knew what had happened. She could handle Kyle Bennett. He was just a man and their plan was a good one. At least it was a place to start.

       And now she had John Riggs to help her.

       Johnnie climbed the short flight of steps and shoved through the front door of the redbrick building on North Wilcox Avenue. The Hollywood Community Police Station handled La Brea, Sunset, Hollywood and a half dozen surrounding communities.

       First thing this morning, he had run a check on Amy Brewer. Looked like she was exactly what she said—a kindergarten teacher from Grand Rapids. He groaned. Last night’s hot kiss popped into his head and he thought how much he still wanted her, bit down on a curse and forced his mind back to business.

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