Stuck behind the bar, Matt did his best to track Lyle’s movements, but distance, demanding customers, and the shifting crowd on the dance floor made it impossible to get an accurate read on their interaction. McCormick discreetly worked his way closer to Sorenson at the far end of the dance floor, only one customer separating them from Lyle and Eve. The crowd closed again, blocking Matt’s view.
Then Eve, Lyle, and the two sore thumbs rose above the crowd, up the winding staircase to her office, Eve smiling over her shoulder at Lyle, as if nothing was wrong.
Except for the white-knuckled grip on her iPhone.
Matt’s every instinct was to abandon his station and find out what the hell was going on in her office. Three thugs and one slender female alone in a confined space usually meant brutal trouble.
The raspberry daiquiri Matt extended across the bar to a customer nearly slipped from his grasp and onto her expensive-looking white top. “Omigod,” the woman gasped as the crushed ice and deep red juice sloshed to the rim of the glass.
“Sorry, sweetheart,” he said, flashing all thousand watts at her as a distraction. Glass firmly in hand, she smiled back, mollified.
He looked up at the closed door and drawn curtains. No sign of movement, but the office was good-sized and in this noise no one would hear her scream. He’d give them another thirty seconds, then he was going up there. He’d think of a good reason to abandon his station on a busy Friday night and storm Eve’s office, a place bartenders rarely went.
Then the mysterious door in Eve’s office, the wooden staircase leading from the alley to a second-story door, and the best way to minimize the impact from the two out-of-place thugs clicked together in his brain. He caught McCormick’s eye and tipped his head toward the front door. Sorenson and McCormick pushed through the crowd to the door as Matt brushed past Tom and Mario to the end of the bar, then down the hall to the storeroom. He tugged open the door to hear Eve’s voice above him, on the staircase’s landing. She’d taken Lyle and his friends through the office and out the back door. Smart. Thinking on her feet.
“Look,” she snapped, her voice sharp enough to slice through the brick walls lining the alley. “This isn’t the strip club down by the warehouses you guys used back in the day, the one the cops raided the nights they weren’t slipping dollar bills into thongs. If you want this to work, you have to fit in, and you have to treat my customers with some respect, or I’ll go out of business and then we’re all screwed. Understand?”
“Understood,” Lyle said. “Looks nice in there. You done good, Evie. Not bad for an East Side girl. It’ll be even better when you get rid of that thing.”
Matt followed Lyle’s glance to the brick wall behind Eye Candy. Get rid of what thing? The building?
“I have to get back to work,” she said, her voice warming from arctic to almost-friendly. Matt could hear the effort it took. “I’ll call you later.”
But she didn’t step back to let them in the building. There was a pause, then the sound of shuffling feet on wooden stairs, as Lyle and the two thugs trotted down the steps and turned the corner to the parking lot. Using the wooden stopper Matt wedged open the storeroom door, then followed them, sticking to the shadows, his running shoes making the slightest of scuffling noises in the dirt. He paused just outside the bright lights illuminating the crowded lot and watched Lyle get into the passenger seat of a Cadillac Escalade. The engine turned over and the SUV moved smoothly into traffic.
Avoiding Cesar’s eye wasn’t easy, but fortunately a party of scantily dressed women was fishing IDs out of tiny purses and bras. Matt scanned the parking lot until he saw Sorenson’s pale hair and rhinestone combs winking in the lights at the back of the lot, then jogged over.
Sorenson sat on the trunk of Lieutenant Hawthorn’s car, knees primly together, her bare feet resting on the bumper, her spike heels neatly lined up beside her. Hawthorn stood off to the side, elbows braced on the roof as he spoke into his cell phone: “… left the parking lot in a black Escalade.” He rattled off the plate, waited a second, then disconnected the call. “McCormick just picked them up at the corner. He’ll follow them, see where they go next. What happened?”
“She sent them out the back door,” Matt said, his heart pounding. “There’s a door from her office to her apartment that leads to the alley.”
“I remember,” Hawthorn said. “Did you hear them?”
“Through a crack in the storeroom door,” Matt confirmed. “She handled it like a boss, LT. Ice in her veins. We need to tell her what’s going on. She can handle it.”
“Absolutely not,” Hawthorn said, “because the more involved Murphy gets with Eye Candy, the better our case is. It’s best for her if she doesn’t know. The less she knows, the less she can accidentally give away, and the less danger she’s in. Just do your job.”
“We can’t keep her in the dark,” Matt objected.