“I pressed the boss a little to see what I could find out and Tate told me Riggs is a good investigator but he doesn’t work cheap.”
“I had a feeling.”
“It never hurts to ask, right? You never know till you try.”
Amy drew in a breath. “I don’t know quite what I’m going to say, but I guess I’ll think of something.”
“Are you kidding? After that little performance you gave him, the guy is going to be toast.”
Amy thought of her behavior during the dance and closed her eyes against a blush. “I guess we’ll see.” She waved over her shoulder as she pushed open the door.
“I won’t wait up,” Babs teased with a grin, and Amy’s stomach knotted.
What would Riggs expect?
What would she be willing to do?
With a breath for courage, she stepped out into the parking lot and spotted him behind the wheel of a black Mustang. The car fit him perfectly, dark and powerful, dangerous and predatory. Her insides tightened.
Dear God, how far would she be willing to go to get John Riggs to help her?
Leaning back in the seat, Johnnie spotted Angel the minute she walked out into the night. He knew the instant she saw him. She froze like a deer in the headlights, and Johnnie didn’t hesitate, just shoved open the car door and came out of his seat, started striding toward her.
“I’m glad you came,” he said with a smile meant to put her at ease. “I know a little café just a couple of blocks away. We can get some coffee there.”
She nodded. He could feel the tension thrumming through her, figured if he didn’t get her out of there now, she was going to turn and run.
“It isn’t that far,” he said, setting a hand at her waist and urging her back to his car, not giving her time to change her mind. He led her around to the passenger door and helped her climb in, reached over and pulled the seat belt across her lap and fastened the buckle.
“Thank you.”
Always so polite. Almost prim. Angel Fontaine was about as far from his idea of a stripper as a woman could get. And yet he had seen her up onstage and she was hot.
Maybe that was the appeal. Sweet and hot at the same time—sort of like cinnamon candy.
He chuckled to himself as he slid behind the wheel. If Angel was a piece of candy, he’d be the man to eat her up.
Looking uncomfortable, she shifted in her seat. “About what happened tonight… I want to apologize. I’ve never—”
“It was only a kiss, Angel. Nothing to get upset about.”
She fell silent as he shoved the key into the ignition and the engine roared to life, then started to purr. He drove toward the café, pulled into the lot, which was full, but his luck was holding and a gray-haired couple in an old brown Buick was backing out. He parked in the space left behind, guided Angel inside, and they slid into an empty booth.
The Eatery had a kind of retro decor with pink-and-white vinyl booths and a long lunch counter with a row of round stools. The café had been there for years, had once been called Norm’s but that was a long time ago.
A waitress in a black skirt and white blouse showed up to take their order. Sheila, he recalled, frizzy blond hair and big boobs. He was kind of a regular, though he rotated his meal stops to keep his information channels open. In his line of work, you never knew what rumors might come in handy.
Sheila pulled a pencil from behind her ear. “Hey, handsome, what can I get you?”
He looked across at Angel. Damn she was pretty. More so, he thought, without all that makeup. He tried not to look at her mouth, since now he knew exactly how good she tasted. “What would you like?”
“Just coffee,” she said. “Cream, if it isn’t too much trouble.”
“Two coffees,” he said. “One with cream. Thanks, Sheila.”
They made small talk for the short time it took for the coffee to arrive. Angel poured cream into her cup and daintily stirred.
She looked up at him and smiled, but it looked a little forced. “I’m…aahh…glad you asked me to come here.”
“Oh, yeah?” Here we go, he thought. He’d known something was off. He had a hunch he was about to find out what it was.
“The thing is, I heard you were a private investigator.”
“Of sorts.” He took a drink from the heavy white china mug in front of him, set it back down on the Formica-topped table. “That why you agreed to the dance? You wanted to talk to me about business?”
Soft color washed into her cheeks. “That was part of it. I really don’t…don’t know exactly what happened in there. I just…I guess I got carried away.”
Amen to that. “So what did you want to talk to me about?”
“I…umm…want to hire you.”
“You in some kind of trouble?”
Her eyes rounded. “Me? No! Of course not.”
“Of course not,” he said with a hint of sarcasm she seemed to miss.
“It’s my sister. Her name is Rachael.”
“Then it’s Rachael who’s in trouble.”
“I don’t know. A little over six weeks ago, Rachael disappeared. I talked to the police, of course. Babs says they haven’t tried very hard…you know…because she’s an exotic dancer.”
He leaned back in his chair, trying not to be disappointed that her real interest came in wanting something from him. “So you want to hire me to find her. Is that it?”
“Not exactly. I want to hire you to help me find her. I could do some of the work, and that way it wouldn’t cost as much.”
“Okay, I get it. You want to hire me but you don’t have any money.”
She sat up straighter in her seat. “Well, I have a little. Some savings from my job back home, but I’ve gone through a lot of it for my plane ticket and phone calls. I could borrow some, maybe a couple thousand. I get the feeling you don’t come cheap.”
She was right. He charged up to a grand a day, plus expenses. She looked across the booth at him, bit her plump bottom lip, and heat throbbed low in his groin.
Her fingers tightened around the handle of her coffee mug and the skin over her knuckles turned bone-white. “I thought…you seem to be attracted to me. I thought maybe we could…” She swallowed. “Maybe we could…you know…work something out.”
A jolt of anger slipped through him. It began to fade when he noticed her face had turned as pale as the hand that gripped the mug. He hadn’t pegged her for a prostitute. He looked at her and he didn’t buy it now.
Still, he could be wrong.
He stood up from the pink vinyl bench across from her. She had barely touched her coffee. He tossed down a five and a couple of ones, more than enough for the coffee and a tip, and hauled her to her feet.
“Let’s get out of here.” Angel didn’t protest when he caught her hand and led her toward the door, didn’t say a word as he guided her out of the coffee shop back to his car. But as she slid into the seat and fumbled to fasten her seat belt, he saw that she was trembling.
Johnnie fired up the powerful engine, slipped the car into gear and pulled out onto the busy street. It didn’t take long to drive the winding road up the hill above Sunset to the guesthouse on the estate that was his home. He used the remote