“Yeah, I do. If she knew who’d murdered those guys, she’d kill him herself for depriving her of two of her best clients.”
“Sentimental girl.”
“In her own way, she misses them. Maybe it’s more accurate to say she misses their patronage, but that’s damn near the same thing in her mind. Whichever, it’s pretty clear she didn’t feel driven to punish them for their misbehavior at Deuces. She’s too focused on the bottom line to let, as she termed it, ‘some stupid, drunk behavior’ get to her. Certainly not enough to put someone up to killing them. If she were inclined to kill someone for those incidents, Ramon would be dead.”
“Not that she has the physical capacity to do the kind of damage done to those men, but does she happen to have alibis?”
“Montenegro’s murder was too long ago. She doesn’t remember where she was. She’s alibied for the night of Long’s murder. Aside from the broken leg—date and time verified by the ER—she spent last Friday evening at a bar, made a friend, and went back to his place after last call.” He shrugged. “I’ll check it out, but it’s going to hold.”
“What did she say about the whole Stacy/Kylie switch?”
“It’s an old fallback for them. Since they were kids, if she was in a jam, she’d ask Kylie to take her place. She swears nobody at Deuces knows Kylie’s been dancing her shifts for the last two weeks.”
Ian nodded. “That’s exactly what Kylie said. And you know what? I’ll bet they’re right. Even for identical twins, the resemblance is amazing.”
“There are subtle differences. Kylie’s eyes are a deeper blue, her lips less pouty.” More shapely…more expressive.
Ian grinned. “Yeah, classy versus sassy. But nobody at Deuces is looking at eye shade or lip definition.”
“Probably not. The personality differences are less subtle.”
“Still waters and roaring rapids—but nobody’s looking at their personalities either. Given that their switch remains undetected, we gonna let the charade continue?”
A part of him wanted to say no. The knee-jerk, protective part preferred to bundle Kylie onto a plane with a one-way ticket back to Two Trout, or somewhere else far away, where she’d be safe. But he didn’t control her and, considering she’d been willing to pose as a stripper to stay in LA, he knew damn well she wouldn’t easily abandon the life she’d built here just because he asked her to. And if she stayed, then pulling the plug on their switch simply shot their investigation in the foot. They were close to forcing the killer to make a move. He felt it. They just needed to push this guy a little more.
“We keep going. If Kylie were underage or something along those lines, I’d have a different opinion, but as it stands, her dancing there doesn’t violate any vice laws. We’re not responsible for talent management at Deuces. If they don’t realize they’ve got a substitute stripper, that’s their problem. Kylie’s a crucial part of the undercover op. Our act may be the only way we’re going to catch this killer.”
“I’m on board, you’re on board. But is Kylie on board?”
The thought of Kylie dancing until two after only a couple hours of sleep and all the trauma of the morning made his conscience bleed, but he nodded. “She will be. I don’t want to lose whatever attention I attracted by leaving with her last night. I want to keep pressing this guy’s buttons until he crawls out of his hole and tries to bash my skull in.”
Just then Kylie opened the door. The words “bash my skull in” echoed down the narrow hall while she looked up at him, fear and worry etched across her face.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, I’ve got his back,” Ian said. “Nothing’s going to happen to him.”
Not helpful, if her expression served as any indication. Nor was his safety what he wanted her thinking about. “Come on.” Trevor took her arm and steered her down the hall. “We’re done here. I’ll take you back to my place to get your car.”
She dug her heels. “Wait. Where’s Stacy?”
“She’s being released too,” he explained, continuing to tug her across the parking lot to the Yukon. “Ian will drive her home.”
Glancing uncertainly toward the station, she hesitated. “I should wait for her and—”
“I’d like to talk to you,” he said quietly. “Away from here. Don’t worry, Stacy’s in good hands.”
She swallowed, shaded her eyes with her hand, and looked at him. Finally, she said, “Okay.”
While they buckled up and got under way, he considered where to start, but Kylie jumped in with questions of her own.
“You don’t suspect Stacy of having anything to do with the murders?”
“No. These were a couple of her most lucrative clients. She doesn’t have a motive to kill them.”
He heard her small sigh of relief, and while he didn’t want to burst her bubble, he felt the need to point out some less
optimistic findings. “I guess you could consider that the good news. The bad news is everything Stacy told us about her coworkers, VIPs, and the rest of the suspect pool jibes one hundred percent with what you said. Which means the interview brought us no closer to finding the killer.”
“I’m sorry.” She was. He could hear it in her voice; see it in those sad, tired eyes. “Am I in trouble for pretending to be Stacy? Obstructing an investigation?”