CHAPTER 29
EVANGELINE WALSH
The club was loud, dark, and full of hard bass notes that rattled his skeleton. Ephraim felt lost the second he entered.
The doors were doubled — inner and outer. He entered with no outside light for company. His eyes fought to adjust from the morning sun, but until they did, he was mostly blind. In here, the night was forever.
Someone brushed by him holding a drink. A woman with jet black hair. She looked a lot like Sienna Minelli, the Italian actress. She didn’t stop to apologize. Instead, Ephraim watched her part the crowd, bumping into others until she disappeared.
“Excuse me,” said a voice.
Ephraim turned. The “excuse me” hadn’t sounded polite. It was more like get out of my way.
The shadow-draped woman had brunette hair pulled high, wearing a gown with a slit so far down one side that it was obvious she had nothing underneath. The garment clung to her like a vain hope.
“Do you mind?”
“I’m sorry,” Ephraim said, “but are you …?” But no, asking that particular question was stupid, even given what he knew. He asked it anyway. “Are you Evangeline Walsh?”
“Can I get through?” she shouted over the music.
Ephraim moved aside.
“The other way. I’m going that way.” She said it like Ephraim was a professional asshole. Her lips pursed. Her eyes rolled up, their whites nearly blue in the lighting.
Ephraim moved back to where he was. She shoved him aside with a huff. Her body brushed his. As she passed, he saw that her lips were painted fire-engine red, her eye makeup heavy and dark.
The woman (Evangeline?) turned. She projected above the music, “Are you coming?”
She wanted him to follow?
That couldn’t be right.
His eyes wandered. Ephraim realized that everyone in the club was beautiful, looking plucked from the pages of a fashion magazine. Except for Ephraim, who wore jeans and boots, with at least four days’ stubble. He looked like a delivery guy who’d taken a wrong turn, which was exactly what he’d assumed the parking lot attendant out front figured when she’d sent his truck to the rear.
Again, the woman rolled her eyes. Ephraim’s vision must be adjusting to the gloom because he saw her condescension.
She snorted, seemed to decide that Ephraim was worthless, and moved on. If she was supposed to be an escort, she was a terrible one. He was about to lose her in the crowd. But was that a bad thing? He barely knew why he was here; if he’d ever known. He’d woken this morning clearheaded for the first time in a week, finally settled about his mission to pick up his clone then loudly blow the whistle on Evermore.
Snapping to, Ephraim pushed himself through the well-dressed crowd, passing many people he felt sure he recognized. Then he was back at the woman’s rear — so much that he couldn’t arrest his momentum enough to avoid a crash.
The woman turned and gave him a look, both venomous and sexually magnetic. It said, for that, I’m going to fuck you ‘til you bleed.
“Don’t touch me,” she said as if reading his mind. “I’m here with someone.”
Ephraim scrambled, trying to recall who Evangeline Walsh was rumored to be dating. Then he had it.
“With Jason Brady?”
She rolled her eyes. Not Jason Brady. Not for this Evangeline.
She opened a door in front of her, though Ephraim hadn’t seen it until she pushed. She entered the concealed room and Ephraim followed, taking particular care to keep his hands to himself.
The space was small. There was another door on the far end — another inter-club airlock, like the one at the front door — but this one must have been heavily insulated. With the club-side door closed, the thumping music diminished. Lights in this new place were dim, but it was worlds brighter than the outer room; at least it was bright enough to see how annoyed his escort so obviously was.
“Touch me once we’re inside, and I won’t be the only one to break your arm.”
“Jason Brady will break it too, huh?” Ephraim attempted an ill-fitting smile.
She gave him another annoyed expression. Ephraim’s eyes wanted to wander, but he felt somehow sure that if he looked at Evangeline’s body, she’d make good on her limb-shattering promise.
“Just shut up and come this way. The sooner we find yours, the sooner I can get away from you.”
“Mine? My what?”
A cat’s smile creased the woman’s red lips. She opened the second door to reveal what looked like a bright, well-appointed ballroom filled with even more immaculately dressed people. With both doors now shut, the club’s rhythms were lost in well-bred chatter and a string quartet in the corner.
A strange place to receive an illicit crate.
“Excuse me,” Ephraim repeated as the woman walked off. “My what?”
She squeezed between two men in tuxedoes and vanished.
A hand touched Ephraim’s shoulder, soft through his T-shirt, like it hadn’t seen him in a long time.
“Ephraim,” a tentative voice whispered. Almost a question, as if she hadn’t seen him in a long time.
He turned.
Standing in front of Ephraim was the merchandise he’d come here to retrieve, dressed in clinging black.