“I can’t push on this,” he’d said. “But you can.”
He was right. My mind was already turning over options, trying to figure the best way to slide my pretty ass into Destiny, chat up the girls, and get a line on Amy. Once I was in and poking around for information, there was no reason I couldn’t poke around for more.
Frankly, that would be my pleasure. Immunity might be a necessary evil in the world of jurisprudence, but I was more than happy to give Karma a little push. And if I found out that those guys were into other shit, bringing them down would be a damn good way to balance the scales of justice.
All of which explained how my mission to get one missing dancer back to Indiana had morphed into a full-fledged, albeit off-the-books, undercover operation. At one point I might have considered waltzing into Destiny and boldly announcing that I was looking for a friend, but once I knew that the owners could be dirty, that plan went right out the window. I wanted to know what they were up to—and if the white slavery allegations turned out to be true, I wanted to kick a little ass.
It was that whole “undercover” thing that was my current sticking point. You’d think it would be easy for a genuinely pretty woman—that would be me—to get a job as a cocktail waitress in a Chicago-based gentleman’s club, but you’d be wrong. Despite my camera-ready face, nice tits, and tight ass, the application I’d submitted yesterday had been politely declined. And that despite the fact that I have honest-to-goodness waitressing skills.
Thus illustrating that First Truism: Nothing is ever as easy as it should be.
And that brings us right back to the Second Truism: no one is what they seem.
Take Evan Black, for example. This was his party that I’d crashed. A formal affair to celebrate his engagement to Angelina Raine, the daughter of vice presidential hopeful Senator Thomas Raine.
I saw him standing across the room, a movie-star gorgeous man with his arm around an equally stunning brunette that had to be Angelina. She was leaning against him, looking giddy with happiness, as they chatted with two other couples. All clean and shiny and polished. But if Kevin was right, Black wasn’t the man he appeared to be.
Or what about Cole August, Black’s business partner, who received so much adulation from the press and the public for the way he’d pulled himself up out of the muck of his Chicago South Side heritage to become one of the most respected and influential businessmen in the city? He might look positively drool-worthy as he stalked the far side of the room with a cell phone pressed against his ear, the very picture of the entrenched businessman.
But I happened to know that August hadn’t left that shady heritage as far behind as he liked to pretend.
And then there was Tyler Sharp.
“That’s the one,” Candy had said when I ran the name by her. “Amy was head over heels for the guy.”
“He feel the same?”
“Don’t know.”
“But she was fucking him?”
“Yeah. At least, I think so. I mean, wasn’t like she was posting pictures on Facebook. But no way would she have walked away from that, and from what you’re saying …”
We might have been talking on the phone, but I could still picture the way Candy shrugged as she trailed off. I knew what she meant. I’d done additional homework on Tyler Sharp, much of which I’d relayed to Candy. To bottom line it, he had a weakness for women, and I fully intended to capitalize on his womanizing ways. If I couldn’t get into Destiny through my stellar waitressing skills, I’d get in close through the man.
In other words, I was planning a seduction.