“Who knows how long I’ll be sitting in the truck waiting for you? I’ll run in and get some snacks and go to the bathroom while you’re pumping the gas.”
After I parked at the gas station, I inserted my debit card into the pump, my bare legs freezing in the cold wind. As I watched Neely Kate go into the convenience store, it struck me again that I had no idea what I was getting myself into . . . and I wasn’t talking about the stripping. Something was going on at Gems, and the only person who knew I was going to be there was Neely Kate. And while Neely Kate was resourceful, I wasn’t sure she’d be able to get me out of trouble if trouble came my way.
Before I could change my mind, I grabbed my phone out of my pocket and called Skeeter.
“Twice in one day. You must really miss me.”
“I got that part-time job I was telling you about. I start tonight.”
He paused and lowered his voice, a hint of controlled anger in his voice. “At my competition?”
I realized there must be someone close by him that he didn’t want to know what he was talking about. “I heard the owner’s going to show up later.”
“You don’t say.” He was quiet for a moment, and then I heard traffic sounds in the background. “I thought I told you to stay away.”
“This whole thing started with my search for Dolly Parton, and I still haven’t found her.”
He paused for a second. “Why are you really doing this?”
“I have my reasons.”
He was quiet for so long that I wondered if he’d hung up on me, but he finally said, “Do you think you can handle it?”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “My friend’s going to be hanging around.”
“The two of you girls?” He sounded unimpressed.
“Hey, girl power. Don’t knock it.”
“Don’t forget your friend disappeared while working there. There’s no reason for you to go at all,” he said. “I could just send Jed and Merv to check it out.”
“What if someone recognizes them? Then we might not get anything at all. Besides, I can force a vision if I need to get more information.”
“But what if someone recognizes you? I’d rather Jed get nabbed than you.”
“No,” I said, glancing at the building, thankful Neely Kate was still inside. The less anyone knew about Mason’s possible involvement, the better. “I’m doing this.”
He was silent for several seconds. “You’ve proven yourself resourceful on several occasions,” he said, not necessarily sounding happy about it. “You’re determined to do this, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“When are you supposed to show up?”
“At seven. In fifteen minutes.”
“Check in with me by ten. If I haven’t heard from you, I’m sending Jed to check on you.”
Oddly enough, I found that reassuring.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I had no idea that so many men in Fenton County were obsessed with breasts. But then again, Joe had told me that there were twenty-five thousand residents in the county—if half were male, I supposed thirty men was still a low percentage.
I’d been behind the bar for nearly two hours, and while I wasn’t topless, I still got plenty of men checking out my chest. It was a good thing I wore Neely Kate’s pushup bra to give them something to look at.
For the most part, the men sat at tables, staring at the stage. The girls took turns dancing on the pole, stripping off their multiple layers of underwear until all that was left was a tiny G-string.
Some of the men noticed me behind the bar and came to the counter to get drinks instead of letting the girls who were walking around get them. Most of them ordered beer, but some of them ordered drinks I’d never heard of, let alone knew how to make. My plan to use an app on my phone didn’t pan out. The first time I pulled it out, I was told phones weren’t allowed. When I asked the guy I was working with how to make a bourbon neat, he shot me an irritated scowl. “Figure it out yourself.”
The bourbon was easy enough, but some of the other drinks were tougher. When I figured out that the men didn’t care, I started creating my own concoctions.
A bearded man who looked to be in his forties sidled up to the bar. “Hey, sugar. Can you get me a drink, then come sit on my lap?”
I shot him a scowl. “I’ll get you the drink. Someone else can sit on your lap.” I got him his beer and watched him shuffle back to his table.
“You’ll never make any money that way,” Kip, the bartender who was working with me, said.
I tried not to look surprised. In addition to my drink recipe inquiries, I’d been asking leading questions during some of our lulls, and he’d been annoyingly tight-lipped.
“Some men might get off on you being cold, but most of them are here because they’re lonely.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. Some guys will pay girls just to sit and talk to ’em. But the guys who go off to the little rooms are lookin’ for more than that.”
“What little rooms?”
He laughed. “You really don’t know anything about this place, do you?”