She had to get to Guido’s. Luke watched Francesca Witting stand and tried to talk himself out of opening his mouth with anything but a promise to be in touch.
All he wanted was to sit right where he was and have one more beer before signing the tab and heading home.
She’d said Guido’s was only a few blocks from the hotel. He’d never heard of the place.
And he didn’t expect to find her little sister at Biamonte, either.
“Francesca.” She’d thanked him and he hadn’t missed her sincerity. She was walking away.
She turned back, that inch of skin at her waist as interesting from the back as it was from the front.
That didn’t make a lot of sense. Other than when he had a woman in his arms and her skin was his for the touching, he was pretty much immune to naked female skin. In Las Vegas it was more commonplace than cheap buffets.
She was looking at him, her brow raised in question over dark eyes that intrigued him. All that dark ness. Her hair, her eyes. Tanned skin.
“Did you call me?” She’d walked back to the table, was standing there with that belly almost at eye level.
“I have an idea where you might find her.” Damn, when would he ever learn not to take on responsibilities that weren’t his? He already had enough of them at work—and at home.
“Where?” Her eyes were huge as she sank back to the edge of the chair.
“Have you looked on the Internet yet?”
“At missing person’s sites?” She was frowning. “We put her picture there.”
“No.” He shook his head, fairly certain that other options hadn’t occurred to her. They weren’t ones people like her frequented—or probably even knew about. They weren’t ones the police frequented, either, at least to his knowledge. And even if they did, it would take someone who knew Autumn Stevens to recognize her. A headshot probably wouldn’t do it. “At the Las Vegas ‘for hire’ sites.”
“Want ads? On the Internet? I didn’t even know there was such a thing. You think she’d register there?” She dropped her bag to the floor, leaned forward with both arms on the table. “I doubt she’d use her own name, so how would we even know it was her? I suppose I could just start calling them all….”
“Francesca.”
She stopped.
“I’m talking about escort sites.” Rubbing at the pain in the back of his neck, he added, “There are hundreds of them.”
“Escorts or sites?”
“Sites. Thousands of escorts.”
“Oh.”
She understood what he was saying. Her shoulders drooped. And her eyes lost the light of hope they’d been carrying most of the evening.
While Luke suspected that this side of Vegas was something only people who’d actually seen it would grasp, he could almost see her preparing herself.
Figuring that plain speech was kindest, he said, “There are many different Web sites, many businesses and some independents, too. Girls are ranked by age—or by other interests that may attract their clients….”
“Interests?”
Luke’s respect for her went up another notch. She wasn’t going to spare herself.
“You know, those who want fantasy, or mature women, or buxom ones….”
Her face expressionless, she gave one small nod of acknowledgement.
“There are pictures and descriptions for every girl who has a listing.”
“And you think Autumn’s there.”
Wishing he still had that beer, Luke looked her straight in the eye. “I think, considering the fact that she’s a runaway who’s been in this town a long time, obviously using false identification—which means no social security number and thereby eliminating any chance for a legitimate job—it’s a possibility.”
Chin forward, Francesca nodded again. Very slowly. “I’m not going to find her at Biamonte,” she said.
The crowds in the walkway just outside the lounge were growing larger—their movement more halting. By midevening they’d be at a standstill as people waited just to walk through.
He didn’t get the pleasure in that.
“Not unless she used her real name, or had some way to obtain a real social security number for a bogus name. Every single Biamonte employee is verified through the Social Security Administration.”
He’d known he couldn’t let her go without telling her that. Even though her eyes showed her emotional exhaustion. And, when he’d said he’d help her, she’d smiled a real smile.
“She could have legally changed her name.”
He looked at her, certain she knew better than that. “Not while she’s a runaway minor. If the law enforcement you’ve contacted has anything on the ball, the minute she tries to access her social security number the police will be notified.”
John, the bartender whom he’d known for years, caught his eye, brow raised in question.
Luke shook his head.
“So how do I find these sites?”
“Get on a search engine and type in Las Vegas prostitutes. You’ll have plenty of choices.”
Her skin paled. “You sure know a lot about them.”
He forgave her the accusation in her voice. He’d probably have handled himself much less circumspectly if it had just been suggested that his younger sister—not that he had one—was being used by men like himself who knew exactly where to find them.
“I’ve never been with an escort or hired a woman’s services in my life,” he told her quietly. “But you don’t grow up a guy in Las Vegas without hearing about them. Or how to access them. And you don’t grow up a guy in Las Vegas without being curious enough to at least have a look.”
Francesca swallowed. Picked up her bag. Hugged it against her.
“I don’t have a computer.”
“I have one in my office. You’re welcome to use it.”
“Okay.” She didn’t look as if she had the energy to keep her eyes open, much less spend hours staring at a computer screen.
“Tomorrow?”
“If that’s the soonest you can do it.”
“It’s probably the soonest you can do it,” he told her, smiling gently. There was nothing about this woman that said “take care of me.” On the contrary, she was completely self-sufficient, bruised and battered, yet standing with fists at the ready. Luke found that he wanted to help her.
“If I’m not looking at a computer someplace, I’m going to be spending the next few hours at Guido’s,” she said, not moving a muscle.
“I have the evening free,” Luke heard himself say. “If you’d like to go up now, we can start checking them out.”
He’d have to call home first, make sure his mother had eaten and was content ensconced in front of the classic-movie channel. He’d spoken to her just before he’d run into Francesca and she’d been having a good day.
“If you’re sure you’re free…”
He wasn’t free. He wasn’t ever going to be free. Even after his mother left this world, her influence would remain with Luke—as the episode with Melissa over the weekend had made painfully evident.
But right now, he had the time to help an admirable woman who no longer knew where to turn.
It was the best he could do.
Fetish? What, exactly, was that? Francesca didn’t want to know, not in this context, anyway. It was the first word she saw on the first page Luke brought up. Before she looked away.
“Have a seat,” he said, vacating his chair to give her access to the computer mouse.
“I’d rather just stand if that’s okay with you.”
He’d shed his suit jacket. His shoulders seemed even broader in the starched white shirt, his blond hair half an inch from touching the collar. And if she stared at those shoulders, she couldn’t see the computer screen….
“For that matter, here’s her picture. You look.” She pulled a copy of the photo from a side pocket of her bag, set it on the desk. But she knew he couldn’t do this for her, that she had to look at those photos.
But not until he’d at least seen a picture of the real Autumn Stevens. The one Francesca cried for almost every night lately.
“Chances are she’s going to look quite different,” he said, although he had to realize it’d been her desperation talking.
“I know,” she told him, moving forward once again. “The police already warned me that she’ll have changed in any way she can to avoid detection. I’m sure she’s cut and dyed her hair.”
“On one of these sites she could easily be wearing a wig. And enough makeup to change her eye shape or the shape of her mouth, depending on who did her photos.”
Francesca continued to focus on the image of the Autumn she knew while she fought with herself.
You want to do this.
No, she really didn’t.
You want to find her.
Not here. Not like this.
“Okay,” she told him. “Let’s take them systematically from the top so we’re sure we don’t miss any.”
He moved the blinking cursor arrow to the top of the list. College girls. Francesca held her breath. He clicked.
And the screen filled with a couple of paragraphs claiming that their college girls were the youngest legally available. Firm. And fun. To the left was a list of names.
There was no Joy among them.
With his right hand dropping to the desk, Luke asked, “Now what?”
“Let’s do it.” The words were sharp. “Start at the top.”
Storm Hunter.
She couldn’t be more than twenty. Had long brown hair that hung down seductively at her side as she lowered her head. Her eyes were big and brown and accentuated with dark makeup. Her mouth slightly open. Moist. Red. And she was completely naked.
Her breasts were huge. In the middle of the computer screen and staring straight out. She was sitting with her legs spread, and while there was a bit of blurring across her crotch, the black hair was obvious. As were her fingers as she touched herself.
If Autumn had ever done that…
If someone had seen her that way, stood before her with a camera…
Tears sprang to her eyes and, as embarrassed as she was, Francesca couldn’t seem to blink them away.
Warm fingers threaded through hers, not intimately, just connecting. “It’s okay.”
She couldn’t look at him. Just kept staring at the screen.
“Nope,” Francesca said when she could speak. “She’s fairly small-busted.”
This wasn’t her sister they were talking about. It couldn’t be. It was a job. Detach.
Yes, detach. Take a deep breath. And another. She could do this.
“Don’t let that blind you.” Luke’s voice sounded very loud suddenly. She’d thought he was much farther away. “She could’ve had them done.”
“A runaway? If she had that kind of money she wouldn’t need to be here.” She was decisive. Professional.
“And if she works for any of these escort companies, they could’ve paid for it. Like an investment.”
Last night’s alcohol took another wrong turn in her stomach. Pain shot through her head, leaving her in a numbed haze.
Jessica was a redhead. She had smaller breasts. Smaller everything. She was cute. And claimed to be soft enough for even the most discriminating man.
Amanda knew every hot spot in Vegas and was always up for a good time.
Lillian loved to travel and would go anywhere.
Francesca took a deep breath as they finished the first list. Autumn wasn’t there.
The next link was only one word. Exotic.
Luke clicked quickly. And then again. Bringing up several girls in short order before he closed that page.
“They’re all Asian,” he said.
“Guess it would be too much to hope that all these lists would be that easy?”
He turned, glanced up at her with eyes so compassionate she had the urge to hug him. Until she remembered that she was detached. Safe. Distant. Unmoved.
Buxom was next.
Gross was more like it.
After that were the strippers.
As they moved through the list, she and Luke developed a system. Standing beside him, her brief brush of his upper arm translated into the next click.
When they got to the fantasy screen, she had to look away. And detach herself all over again. The first click showed a guy and a girl.
The girl’s name was Joy.
She couldn’t have been more than eighteen.
She had short blond hair. Francesca looked away again. None of the photos of this girl were nude. Suggestive, yes. A butt shot in a thong. But not nude.
The hum of the computer’s hard drive overwhelmed the room. Luke didn’t move. Francesca pulled air into her lungs. Exhaled slowly. Inhaled again.
And went back to work.
The girl’s hair was blond. It seemed to be her original color. Was there some comfort to be had in that? Even if nothing else was as it had once been?
“Steady.” Luke grabbed her hand as she swayed.
“Sorry,” she said, breathing, and he let her go. She had to regulate her breathing. She’d gone overboard on the deep breaths. That was all.
In through the nose. Out through the mouth. Every relaxation technique taught the same thing.
She glanced back again. The hair was still blond. The girl was standing to the side of a pole, holding on with both hands.
Francesca made it to the chin and had to stop but didn’t look away. It was a chin. Everyone had them.
The lips were painted and parted in such a seductive expression that their natural shape was unrecognizable.
Which was fine with her. She almost made it to the nose, promising herself she was going to do it, and then, against every bit of determination she had, her gaze jumped up to the hair again.
Shoulders squared, Francesca tried again. And again. She just could not meet those eyes. They’d tell everything.
Luke said nothing. He didn’t rush her. Didn’t ask if she was ready to move on. Didn’t ask if this Joy was her Joy. Her Autumn.
There was another pose on the page. The girl was standing, hands on knees, with her backside, naked except for a thong, facing the camera. She was peering at the viewer over her left shoulder.
Francesca couldn’t look. In her desperation to escape the sight, her gaze landed on the girl’s face. On the teasing smile. The pert little nose.
And the eyes.
Once there, Francesca couldn’t look away. Heart pounding, she stared. And stared.
The face wasn’t Autumn’s at all. The cheekbones were too high. The eyes closer together.
“Her eyes are brown.”
“Mmm-hmm.” She would always remember this man in this moment, staring straight ahead. Giving her the space she needed, the privacy she needed, while staying so close she couldn’t possibly feel alone.
“Autumn’s eyes are blue.”
“Color-tinted contacts are fairly common.”
“You can change hair, add plastic to body parts, colorize, lose weight or gain it, but you can’t change the person looking out from a woman’s eyes. That’s not Autumn.”
“Should we keep going?”
Oh, God. For that brief moment she’d forgotten. This one photo wasn’t all or nothing. It meant simply that they hadn’t found Autumn yet. If she left any site unseen, she wouldn’t know that her baby sister wasn’t there.
She’d have to find out, just so she could rest. The alternatives—finding Autumn’s picture or going away wondering—were equally inconceivable to her.
“Ready?” he asked.
She nodded, forgetting that he was facing forward and couldn’t see her.
“Yes,” she whispered.
He’d said there were hundreds of these pages.
She shouldn’t have been so quick to give up her chance to sit.
Brushing his upper arm, Francesca took another couple of deep breaths and went back to work. This was how she survived.
By detaching herself. Pretending, in those moments that were too difficult to bear, that her problems belonged to someone else. Pretending she was on the outside looking in.
“Tell me about yourself.”
“What’s to know?” Arnold Jackson shrugged, a bit uncomfortable in the less-formal polo shirt and cotton slacks he was wearing.
“If I had the answer to that, I wouldn’t have asked.” Sheila Miller smiled over her shot of Chivas in the intimate lounge outside town.
He toyed with the rim of his whiskey glass, not unhappy to be there. “I used to be a pretty damn good sky diver.”
He’d figured his largely impersonal answer would disappoint her. Still, as the enthusiasm in her gaze grew dimmer, Arnold knew an unexpected regret.
“Yeah, and I was a ballet dancer,” she told him, her strong but slender fingers raising the glass to lips that had appeared in his thoughts a time or two lately. “So, now we’ve got that out of the way, is there any point in asking again? Or are we just going to skip right back to analyzing possibilities in the big scam?”
That conversation had monopolized their time together the previous Saturday night when she’d surprised him at work. She’d invited him for a drink. He’d had nowhere else to be.
And enjoyed himself far more than he’d expected to. Arnold Jackson had spent so many years loving an ex-wife who no longer wanted him, the idea of being excluded from intimate relationships had become habit.
“What do you want to know?”
Her grin was cute. The fact that it reached her eyes satisfied him.
“You married?”
“No.”
“Ever been?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
He leaned forward, pinning her with a stare that served him well when a drunk was getting rowdy at his table. “And I’m divorced. Six years. She lives in Arizona and, no, I don’t have contact with her.”
Not personal contact. That was a little hard to manage these days. He wasn’t sure he loved her anymore, either, he’d been shocked to find as he’d done some soul-searching this past week. At least not as anything more than once-close friends.
Sheila had a powerful gaze of her own. And didn’t hesitate to use it. “Any children?”
This was territory she wasn’t welcome to enter. No matter how many times he’d thought about her recently.
“Nope.”
She nodded. “Well fair’s fair. What do you want to know about me?”
How soon she’d go to bed with him.
“The same.”
“Never been married, so never divorced and consequently no contact with him, either.”
“And children?”
She grinned. “Nope.”
Arnold motioned for another round of drinks. It was Friday night. Still early. He’d ask for dinner menus, too.
And then, maybe, he’d see about bed.