Adduné - the Vampire's Game (66 page)

Tiffany was furious. Not with her, but with Peter. She screamed at him at the top of her lungs.

“
You! You did this to her on purpose! What kind of man does something like this?”

Miranda didn’t understand what Tiffany was talking about. She hastily fastened the clasp looking towards Peter to hear his response – his denial. Tiffany checked to see that her friend was dressed before approaching Peter. She reached back her arm and slapped him across his smirking face.

“
Tiffany!”

Peter didn’t respond. He touched the spot on his face her blow had struck.

“
You will regret this,” he said coolly.

Miranda was shocked at the depth of malice, but he’d just been struck – for no reason. It wasn’t his fault that …

“
Miranda, snap out of it!” her friend had her hands around her shoulders – shaking her slightly.

Miranda saw Peter’s back as he exited the small private room.

“
Peter! Peter, answer her! Tell her you didn’t know!” she screamed to the man she’d just made delicious, passionate love to.

She saw her black thong on the ground. She ran to it and picked it up.

“
Here’s the lens,” Tiffany said pointing to the miniature circle. Tiffany stood in front of the camera lens blocking the secret peep show. Miranda could see the disappointment on the patron’s faces. Miranda’s image and the private room disappeared from the screen. A slick video by a new recording artist was being shown instead. In another second they had forgotten all about Miranda and went back to dancing.

“
Miranda, how could you be so stupid! I thought you said you knew about the private rooms!”

A remnant of a conversation came into Miranda’s consciousness. Tiffany had mentioned something about a scandal and she’d blown it off. She’d told Tiffany she knew about it when she didn’t have a clue.

“
I, I, I’m sorry. No, I didn’t know what you were talking about.”

“
I was talking about what happened here! A girl, that stupid starlet. Samantha Bucher came here and did what you did. These rooms are all taped – for legal reasons. There had been a theft and an allegation of rape so the club had security cams installed to prevent it from happening. Christ, didn’t you even read the notice on the door?”

There was a notice? Miranda hadn’t even looked at what the sign said. She’d been in too much of a hurry to have her brains fucked out, but did that mean Peter knew? He couldn’t. He’d said he didn’t live in New York – he’d said it earlier. Besides, why would he …

“
I can see you didn’t. Evidently, Samantha didn’t either. The next thing she knew, her sexcapade was being shown on the closed-circuit TV’s, but the worst was to come because somebody stole the tape and it ended up on the web, Miranda! The web as in everyone seeing it! Everyone except you apparently!”

The story was enough to snap Miranda into rationality. She couldn’t let a tape like that be shown! Her family would go crazy. Just as importantly, it would ruin her reputation in the business world. She could well imagine dealing in antiques with people that had seen her get boffed by a complete stranger.

“
Protection,” she mumbled realizing she hadn’t even insisted he use a rubber. Yes, she was on birth control, but she didn’t know his sexual appetites and …

“
What?”

“
Nothing,” Miranda exhaled in a barely audible tone. How could she have been so stupid? How? She never participated in that kind of risky sex. Never.

Tiffany handed Miranda her purse.

“
Well, come on!” she urged, grabbing her wrist with her hand.

“
The tape?”

“
You bet your sweet, exposed ass! We need to get that thing before anyone else does. And that anyone else left about five minutes ago!”

“
But Peter … Tiffany, he couldn’t possibly have known this. It was spontaneous and …”

“
Oh, my freakin’ God, chickie! How stupid can you be?”

The sight of tears forming in Miranda’s beautiful brown eyes was enough to back Tiffany off from saying anything more. She gave her friend a huge hug.

“
Come on, chickie. Let’s hurry!”

Miranda followed her down the hallway. Tiffany pushed through the crowd trying to find the office. She stopped along the way and asked some customers who pointed in a general direction. Tiffany took off running, Miranda kept pace. They found the door. It was open. Inside two burly security guards were standing with the manager.

Tiffany approached the manager.

“
Tony! Thank god, you’re here! We came to get that …”

Tony turned and looked at Tiffany and then to Miranda and back again. He put his hands in his pockets.

“
Yeah, the tape of your friend. I saw. I’d be more than happy to give it to you, but you’re too late. We were just discussing it.”

“
Fuck, Tony.”

“
Fuck indeed, Tiff.”

“
But don’t you lock things up or have security?” Tiffany asked rather aggressively. She never did back down from a fight. She was a pit bull once she got her teeth into something.

Tony pointed to the two muscular security guards.

“
You see them? They’re my security. Plus the fucking door was locked. Dead bolt, but that doesn’t help when someone just pushes their way in.”

Tiffany turned and saw the door was broken. The lock hadn’t given way, the door had been split.

“
But … how the hell? Must have used a sledge hammer.”

“
At least. Course we could find out simply by looking at the tape of the security cam in the hall, but …”

“
But that was taken also?”

“
Yeah, the entire camera. Whoever it was had this thing planned.”

Tiffany turned to Miranda and gave her another hug.

“
I’m sorry, chickie. I tried.”

Tony’s voice came from behind them. He walked towards them apologetically.

“
Yeah, I’m sorry, too, Ms. Perry. I recognized you from … well … never mind that. I never expected something like this to happen again. I thought after the last time, everyone would have known. And it’s just downright bad luck that the guy that stole the camera was a grasshopper … or hummingbird.”

“
What’s that supposed to mean?”

“
It’s what the witnesses said.”

‘
Witnesses? People saw him take down the camera?”

“
Well, just one people,” Tony said chuckling at his own joke.

“
And?” Tiffany assumed her tough New Yorker posture – hands on hips with jaw jutted out ready for someone to try and take a poke.

“
And what?” Tony answered oblivious to her intent.

“
Oh, Lordie Tony! Come on! The guy! What’d he look like?”

“
Of course,” Tony responded playfully hitting himself in the forehead. Tiffany seemed tempted to perform that maneuver with a hammer, but held herself back.

“
He was tall, thin, dressed in black with long blonde hair down to his shoulders. Don’t see that too much anymore. Guess it was the guy I saw on screen.”

Miranda grabbed her stomach. She felt sick.

“
Like I couldn’t have guessed that,” Tiffany said sarcastically.

“
In addition to his obvious sexual talent, apparently he could play basketball. Guy said he jumped and just hung in the air better than Jordan at his peak. Course the guy that said that was wasted and not exactly the brightest candle on the cake if you get my drift.”

“
You startin’ to believe now, chickie? Come on, let’s hurry.”

“
Hey,” Tony shouted after the two girls running down the hallway, “you need any help getting that tape back or prosecuting that guy, you let me know!”

“
Thanks!” Tiffany yelled back at the stalwart club owner.

“
Well, at least there are some decent people left in the world,” was Tiffany’s brief summation.

Miranda shuffled blankly along behind Tiffany. She still couldn’t get a handle on why he would have done such a thing. Why humiliate her? He had been so into her and …

Miranda spotted the blond hair above the crowd of people at the bar at the same time Tiffany did. She felt Tiffany’s hand pat her arm.

“
There’s the loser now. Look at him talking to that skank ho like nothing happened.”

A couple moved and Miranda could see he was talking to the raven-haired girl she’d seen him with earlier. He leaned down and gave her a peck on the cheek. It still didn’t mean anything. It couldn’t.

Tiffany’s fingers dug into Miranda’s bicep as she was once again shunted along by force. She needed the aid as her feet didn’t seem to want to move on their own. She allowed herself to be towed. Peter looked up and saw them.

“
Hey, loser! We want to talk with you!” Tiffany shouted across the room.

Peter merely gave one of his shadowy smiles and began to walk away. Tiffany broke away from Miranda and ran after him trying to break through the partying crowd. Tiffany had no choice but to circle behind him. It was the only path that was clear. She looked at him and then behind him, at the mirror behind the bar. She stopped in her tracks. He wasn’t there. The girl to his right, the man to his left, the crowd in-between them and even Tiffany’s own reflection were clearly visible in the long, glassed wall, but not Peter. His reflection was not there. She stared at the mirror right at the spot that was empty and absent of the image that should be there. She rubbed her eyes and looked again. He was gone – both from the mirror’s surface and from the room. Tiffany turned and saw him quickly exiting through the archway – heading to the front door.

Miranda caught up to her.

“
What’s the matter, Tiff?”

Miranda’s voice brought her racing thoughts to a halt. What she saw – or didn’t see was impossible unless …

She turned towards Miranda.

“
Never mind that right now. Let’s get you home.”

Miranda again was pulled behind a tug boat. Tiffany’s stern lead towed her through the dense stream and out the door. Miranda felt the sweet, fresh night air hit her face. She looked around her, feeling lost. She swallowed hard fighting back tears. She felt used and betrayed. If it were true that Peter had set her up to be filmed, she’d been an idiot. Certain things made sense now – the lighting being turned up and left on, the positioning of her body to the camera. He’d directed her to face in the camera’s direction. Was it all coincidence? Or did he want her humiliated? Embarrassed? He did have that side to him. He’d done as much with the remark in Fairfield. As much as she cared about the tape, what was really bothering her was the idea that Peter had set her up.

She thought back to college and realized her choice in men had never really changed. She still only chose losers.

CHAPTER 33

Tiffany thought it best if she stayed the night and she wasn’t going to argue. She didn’t want to be alone. She’d called Reginald from the back of Tiffany’s limo. She wished she had another option other than involving the stuffy barrister, but she didn’t. She faced the problem and made the very difficult call. It had been a very bumpy ride both because of the potholes, and because the conversation with Reginald had not gone smoothly.

As soon as she entered Tiffany’s condo, she’d taken a shower. She couldn’t bear being in those clothes – that dress. It smelled of sex and that person she didn’t want to remember. She towel dried herself realizing she was cleansed, but not purged. In fresh, trendy sleepwear courtesy of her best friend, she walked sheepishly into the living room where her friend paced.

“
I swear if I get my hands on that piece of shit, I’ll kill him!”

“
But we don’t know …” Miranda found herself saying almost against her will. She had written him off, but offered the weak defense just in case she was wrong. Just in case she hadn’t just made the biggest mistake of her entire life in trusting him. Tiffany was not having any of lame excuses.