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“Nothing happened. I’m working on my manners. No big deal.”
Ginger held up her hands. “Fine, fine. Forget I asked. But for what it’s worth, the girls and I thought what happened to you a few weeks ago—when Carlton pulled you offstage—was terrible. We went to Vern and told him to fire Ramon’s worthless ass. He didn’t, naturally, because Ramon is one of the owner’s nephews, but we tried. Then last Saturday, finding Carlton by the Dumpster? Awful. Like a nightmare. We figure you’ve had a pretty tough patch lately. So, if there’s anything we can do to make things easier, just let us know, okay?”
“Thanks, Ginger.” Kylie closed the lockbox and turned around. “I’m good, honest. Also, you don’t need to worry about Ramon anymore. I think the police took him into custody earlier this week, for killing Carlton and possibly another customer.”
Ginger’s perfectly arched brows lifted. “Are you sure? Last night he was—”
Before the redhead could finish, Vern pushed through the door and pointed at them. “Let’s move it, ladies. Ginger, you’re giving the birthday boy at table five a lap dance. Now,” he added, and stared until she hustled out of the room. The finger switched to Kylie. “You’ve got a private dance in VIP room two. Benny’s bouncing. If the private doesn’t extend, come see me. We’re busy, so I may be able to squeeze another client in before we call it a night.”
“Great,” she said to Vern’s departing back, then stuffed her tip box into her locker and slammed the door. On her way to the room, she could barely concentrate on the private dance. She was too fixated on Ginger’s unfinished sentence. Last night he was…what?
Still puzzling the words, she slipped into the VIP room. The lights were low. Smooth, smoky jazz simmered from the sound system, and the telltale gleam of a polished shoe told her Benny already occupied his corner. Inhaling a deep breath, she turned to the client chair—and stopped dead in her tracks.
…
The emotions flitting across Stacy’s face were worth the price of admission. Trevor read surprise, followed by a hint of unguarded pleasure, overrun almost immediately by concern, and then suspicion.
Her brows knitted and her lips formed a small frown. He imagined she thought it a stern expression, and wondered what she’d think if she knew it gave him an instant hard-on.
“Trevor, what are you doing here?”
“Would you believe I came to get a dance?”
She shook her head. “Ramon?” She said the name softly, mindful of their audience.
Now it was his turn to shake his head. He watched apprehension steal into her face and found it less of a turn-on than the stern expression. Seeing no reason to include Benny in the conversation, and every reason to bring her closer, he tapped his knees. “Sit down. I’ll tell you all about it.”
Might have been then she noticed the bottle of vodka on the side table, two-thirds full, along with two shot glasses, one full, one already empty. Considering her history with over-served clients, he wondered if the bottle worried her. Then her anxious eyes flicked to his, and damn if she wasn’t worried for him.
She hustled her sexy little self over until she could get in his face. He was having some difficulty keeping his eyes on hers—they kept straying down to where her soft, perfectly uptilted breasts challenged the confines of a lacy scrap of a top. The combination of blush-pink skin and frothy white lingerie had him imagining a bride on her wedding night, shy but eager to please. Too bad he couldn’t put the blame entirely on her outfit. Whether he liked it or not, a wall had come down when he kissed her in the interrogation room. They’d simply been a man and a woman, not a detective and a witness.
He was having a hell of a time putting the wall back.
“When you said you’d be picking Ramon up for questioning, I thought this was all over. You wouldn’t be around anymore. What happened?”
Hands at her waist, he settled her on his lap. She was either too upset or too distracted to object to him taking the initiative. Good thing, because the wedding night fantasy definitely worked for him.
“Ian questioned Ramon. Turns out he had a decent alibi for the night Carlton was murdered.”
“But how ironclad could it be? Carlton never set foot inside Deuces Friday night, so there’s no telling when he showed up in the parking lot. Didn’t you say the exact time of death was hard to pinpoint?
Trevor shook his head. “Hard to pinpoint, yes. Not hard to ballpark. Although Carlton’s whereabouts Friday night are still in question, we know he died exactly where you found him. There’s no blood trail or other evidence suggesting someone killed him and dumped him there. One of the barbacks at Deuces took trash to the Dumpster around 1:00 a.m. and there was no sign of Long at that time. You called 911 at two thirty. He died sometime during that hour-and-a-half window. Ramon went to a club downtown on Friday evening with his cousin and stayed from 10:00 p.m. until just after one thirty. Cocktail waitress at the pla
ce remembers him well enough because he put the moves on her all night. After they left, he drove his cousin home and then went straight home to bed.”
“He could be lying about where they went afterward.”
Trevor nodded. “Yeah, but at this point, with no eyewitness, no physical evidence, no big inconsistencies in Ramon’s story, and not a hell of a lot of opportunity, we don’t have enough to charge him.”
“So, is he in the clear then?”
“We’re watching him, and digging deeper into his background. Ramon could be involved, he’s still got motive, but we’re a long way from ‘beyond a reasonable doubt.’”
Her shoulders slumped as she blew out a nervous breath. “Well, shoot. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I don’t want the man spending time behind bars for a crime he didn’t commit. It’s just…I’d convinced myself Ramon was the killer. I was so relieved to consider it over.”
He ran a hand along her back, in what he’d intended as a consoling gesture. The slide of lace over skin turned it into something else. He dropped his hand. “I understand. But we’re still pursuing all leads, and we’re not exactly starting from scratch. All the connections we made earlier are still valid.”
The comment pulled her nervous gaze back to his face. “The earlier connections? You don’t mean—?”
