She Has A Broken Thing Where Her Heart Should Be - J.D. Barker Page 0,164

Stella did not wear a garter. She didn’t approach the sides of the stage at all. She remained out of reach. The men in the audience were forced to throw their cash on the floor at her feet. This didn’t seem to stop them, though. Bills piled up before Alanis Morissette finished the first verse.

Stella only stared at him, at Leo Signorelli, as if no one else in the club existed.

I so wanted her to look at me that way, if only for a second.

At one point, she leaned against the pole and simply slid to the ground, her slender legs curling beneath her, her dark eyes on him, a single finger pressed against her red lips. The look she gave him had been enough to send him leaning back in his seat, his hard cheeks flush. I hadn’t realized how quiet the club got until the song ended. Without the music, there was utter silence as all eyes watched her.

When Stella left the stage, she walked past Leo Signorelli, and he reached out to her, his hand going for the creamy white of her exposed thigh. Her gloved fingers stopped him before he could make contact, and Stella nodded to a sign on the wall with a playful giggle:

TOUCH THE GIRLS

AND THE BOUNCERS

WILL TOUCH YOU

Signorelli laughed at this. After all, he owned the club. But he raised both palms in defeat, anyway. As he did, I saw the note Stella had slipped to him, held tight between his thumb and forefinger. When she disappeared down the hallway beside the stage, he quickly read it and followed, two of his large bodyguards behind him.

When Detective Joy Fogel arrived, I had been surprised to see her. Having arrived much earlier myself, I was also a number of shots up on her. While I enjoyed her company, as brief as her company may have been—and I particularly enjoyed having someone to drink with—I wasn’t drunk. I probably wouldn’t even qualify as buzzed. Okay, maybe a little, but not bad, not to the point of impairment. Much like a long-distance runner outpacing a novice, a practiced drinker can easily outdrink someone who is not. Jameson was my whiskey of choice and had been for years. While I would get drunk if I drank it too quickly, I’d have to drink it far faster than I did tonight.

When Stella, followed closely by Leo Signorelli, owner of nefarious businesses and killer of the innocent, disappeared down that hallway, I stood at my table and finished the detective’s cranberry and vodka. I was fairly certain she wouldn’t be back for it, and I’d be leaving soon. No drink left behind.

I counted out four twenties, more than enough to cover my bill, and set them on the table. The waitress scooped them up before I was halfway to the front door.

I couldn’t follow them down the hallway, not with the women’s dressing room down there. I’d be stopped and probably beaten senseless within seconds.

I’d wait outside.

And hope she didn’t intend to kill him in the building.

Nine white vehicles sat in the parking lot.

Six sedans.

Two SUVs.

One van.

None of them occupied, but that didn’t mean they weren’t watching.

I brought a knife. A six-inch switchblade I found in a pawnshop in Reno a few days earlier, and I used the knife to puncture two tires on each of these vehicles. I stuck to the shadows as I darted around the parking lot, careful to avoid the cameras on the corner of the building and the valets who occasionally ran into the lot to fetch a car or park a new one.

When finished, I went to my Jeep and slouched low in the seat. Earlier, I parked two cars over from Signorelli’s black BMW Z3 Roadster convertible.

Stella and Signorelli emerged from the back door of the club twenty minutes later. She had changed into jeans and a long-sleeve red top. She still wore the gloves, though, and she held his hand.

At his car, she pleaded for the keys, and he finally obliged. She climbed behind the wheel of the little two-seater with a laugh. He got in beside her, and the engine roared to life.

Leo Signorelli leaned over then. In the silhouette of the parking lot lights, I watched as he leaned into her and she into him, her arms going up around his neck as she allowed him to kiss her. They remained that way for a long time, and I wanted to jump from the Jeep, yank open his