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"Oh, I don't think so," Gabrielle said, shaking her head. "I'm really not up for a late night, you guys. Gallery showings always take a lot out of me and I - "
"Driver?" Ignoring her, Jamie slid to the edge of the seat and rapped on the Plexiglas that separated the cabbie from his passengers. "Change of plans. We decided we're in the mood for celebrating, so ixnay on the restaurant. We wanna go where all the hot people are."
"If you like dance clubs, there's a new one just opened in the north end," the cabbie said, his spearmint chewing gum cracking as he spoke. "I been takin' fares over there all week. Fact, took two already tonight - fancy after-hours place called La Notte."
"Ooh, La No-tay," Jamie purred, tossing a playful look over his shoulder and arching an elegant brow. "Sounds perfectly wicked to me, girls. Let's go!"
The club, La Notte, was housed in a High Victorian Gothic building that had long been known as St. John's Trinity Parish church, until recent Archdiocese of Boston payouts on priest sex scandals forced the closings of dozens of such places around the city. Now, as Gabrielle and her friends made their way inside the crowded club, synthesized trance and techno music rang in the rafters, blasting out of enormous speakers that framed the DJ pit in the balcony above the altar. Strobe lights flashed against a trio of arched stained-glass windows. The pulsing beams cut through the thin cloud of smoke that hung in the air, pounding to the frenetic beat of a seemingly endless song. On the dance floor - and in nearly every square foot of La Notte's main floor and the gallery above - people moved against one another in writhing, mindless sensuality.
"Holy shit," Kendra shouted over the music, raising her arms and dancing her way through the thick crowd. "What a place, huh? This is crazy!"
They hadn't even cleared the first knot of clubbers before a tall, lean guy swooped in on the spunky brunette and bent to say something in her ear. Kendra gave a throaty laugh and nodded enthusiastically at him.
"Boy wants to dance," she giggled, passing her handbag to Gabrielle. "Who am I to refuse!"
"This way," Jamie said, pointing to a small, empty table near the bar as their friend trotted off with her partner.
The three of them got seated and Jamie ordered a round of drinks. Gabrielle scanned the dance floor for Kendra, but she'd been devoured in the midst of the crowded space. Despite the crush of people all around, Gabrielle could not dismiss the sudden sensation that she and her friends were sitting in a spotlight. Like they were somehow under scrutiny simply for being in the club. It was nuts to think it. Maybe she had been working too much, spending too much time alone at home, if being out in public could make her feel so self-conscious. So paranoid.
"Here's to Gab!" Jamie exclaimed over the roar of the music, raising his martini glass in salute.
Megan lifted hers, too, and clinked it against Gabrielle's. "Congratulations on a great exhibit tonight!"
"Thanks, you guys."
As she sipped the neon yellow concoction, Gabrielle's feeling of being observed returned. Or rather, increased. She felt a stare reach out to her from across the darkened distance. Over the rim of her martini glass, she glanced up and caught the glint of a strobe light nicking off a pair of dark sunglasses.
Sunglasses hiding a gaze that was unmistakably fixed on her through the crowd.
The quick flashes from the strobes cast his stark features in hard shadow, but Gabrielle's eyes took him in at once. Spiky black hair falling loosely around a broad, intelligent brow and lean, angular cheeks. A strong, stern jaw. And his mouth... his mouth was generous and sensual, even when quirked in that cynical, almost cruel line.
Gabrielle looked away, unnerved, a rush of warmth skittering along her limbs. His face lingered in her head, burned there in an instant, like an image set to film. She put down her drink and braved another quick glance to where he stood. But he was gone.
A loud crash sounded at the other end of the bar, jerking Gabrielle's attention over her shoulder. At one of the crowded tables, liquor seeped onto the floor, spilled from several broken glasses that littered the black-lacquered surface. Five guys in dark leather and shades were having words with another guy wearing a Dead Kennedys wife-beater tank and torn, faded blue jeans. One of the thugs in leather had his arm slung around a drunk-looking platinum blond, who seemed to know the punker. Boyfriend, apparently. He made a grab for the girl's arm, but she slapped him away and bent her head to let one of the thugs put his mouth on her neck. She stared defiantly at her furious boyfriend, all the while playing with the long brown hair of the guy fastened to her throat.
"That's messed up," Megan said, turning back around as the situation escalated.
"Sure is," Jamie added as he finished off his martini and flagged a server to bring another round. "Evidently that chick's mama forgot to tell her it's bad news not to leave with the guy who brought you."
Gabrielle watched for another moment, long enough to see a second biker move in on the girl and descend on her slackened mouth. She accepted both of them together, her hands coming up to caress the dark head at her neck and the pale one that was sucking her face like he meant to eat her alive. The punker boyfriend shouted a string of obscenities at the girl, then turned around and shoved his way into the spectating crowd.
"This place is creeping me out," Gabrielle confided, just now noticing some clubbers openly doing lines of cocaine off the far end of the long marble bar.
Her friends didn't seem to hear her over the driving pound of the music. They also didn't seem to share Gabrielle's unease. Something wasn't quite right here and Gabrielle could not shake the feeling that eventually the night was going to get ugly. Jamie and Megan began talking between themselves about local bands, leaving Gabrielle to sip what was left of her martini and wait on the other side of the small table for an opportunity to break in and make her excuses to leave.
Essentially alone at the moment, her gaze drifted over the sea of bobbing heads and swaying bodies, as she surreptitiously searched for the sunglass-shaded eyes that had been watching her before. Was he with the other thugs - one of that gang of bikers still stirring up trouble? He was dressed like them, certainly carried the same dark air of danger about him.
Whoever he was, Gabrielle saw no trace of him now.
She leaned back in her chair, then nearly jumped out of her skin when a pair of hands came to rest on her shoulders from behind.
"Here you are! I've been looking all over for you guys!" Kendra said, sounding breathless and animated at the same time, as she leaned over the table. "Come on. I've got a table for us on the other side of the club. Brent and some of his friends want to party with us!"
"Cool!"
Jamie was already on his feet, ready to go. Megan took her fresh martini in one hand, Kendra's and her pocketbooks in the other. When Gabrielle didn't rush to join them, Megan paused.
"You coming?"
