Fall Gently (Red Light: Silver Girls series) (3 page)

"Not tonight. I need to catch up on my laundry." Roni moved the breaded fish around on her plate. If she found a chance to take off without anyone noticing, she wanted to be ready.

"You can still hang with us." Ella wiped her fingers on the napkin beside her plate, careful of the long nails that she bragged about having professionally painted with no chips, worn edges, or smudges. "I don't care if we pause the show. You can do laundry, and while you're busy folding clothes or whatever, we can pop popcorn or something while we wait for you."

Roni put her hands on her lap under the table, hiding the torn and chewed fingernails. A nervous habit that had only intensified under Vince's care until she made them bleed.

Lynn pushed her plate away from her. "I can't do it."

"Do what?" asked Marci, the madam's assistant who ruled the upstairs when Tiff wasn't around.

"Eat fish." Lynn leaned back in her chair. "It's not my favorite thing in the world. It's at the top of my list of things to avoid, like sushi."

"But when we went over the menu, you said you liked fish." Marci tilted her head and smiled. "Should I change the menu while you're here."

"No. No. You don't have to do that." Lynn's cheeks reddened, and she mumbled. "Sorry. I can eat it if I have to."

Marci's gaze softened. "Nonsense. We can order you chicken and fries next time."

Roni looked away, her appetite gone. Lynn's need to please everyone backfired on her. Somewhere in Lynn's past, someone pressured her to accept everything thrown at her without question. Roni picked up her plate and carried it to the sink. Not that she had room to talk. She understood the need to do whatever made someone else happy, even if it killed her.

She dumped her food in the garbage, rinsed her plate, and loaded the dish in the dishwasher. Shortly, the music would start downstairs for the Silver Girls dancers and the ladies in Red Light would be left to entertain themselves until two o'clock in the morning.

The free time upstairs came with a cost. Roni couldn't leave the building, except to go up on the roof where Tiff had set up an entertainment area where the women could get outside without being seen by the public or to step out on the small balcony outside her room.

Once Silver Girls closed, and there were fewer people around, Red Light's security alarm came on, and her chance to escape without everyone noticing would be impossible.

While the others talked, she slipped out of the kitchen and grabbed her dirty clothes out of her room. Carrying the basket to the end of the hallway, she pushed through the last door with her hip and entered the small laundry room. Inside, she dumped her dirty clothes in the washer. Nothing she owned needed separated into similar colors or washed on the delicate cycle. What little belongings she owned had come from the homeless shelter or one of Vince's girls. The colors no longer ran together, but muted into a bland, washed out blah of their original color.

The washer began to fill with water. She shut the lid and returned to her room. No longer able to ignore Dawson's visit, she removed the phone and reread the article on Vince.

Then she read it again.

Instead of relief that the man who'd held her prisoner, abused her, treated her like a whore, and gave her mouth away free to Sparrows members whenever he snapped his fingers was dead, she only dreaded what would come next.

Dawson would be back, and her safe haven with the Network was over.

T
he sheriff's car turned the corner and disappeared out of sight. Dawson adjusted the rearview mirror in his car and rolled down the window letting the biting cold inside keep him alert. The farthest he'd gone away from the Sterling Building in the last two days was the gas station at the end of town to fill up the tank and buy enough junk food to keep him moving.

During the day, he slept in the backseat and every night he stayed awake in the driver's seat. He wasn't going to take a chance of Roni escaping without letting him help her go somewhere safe.

The alarm he'd set vibrated on his phone.

In fifteen minutes, he'd walk up the staircase to the second floor of the Sterling Building and knock once. The madam, who belonged to Jeremy Aldridge, an acquaintance from his short one-year stay in the Idaho State Penitentiary when Washington State Prison transferred him during a takeover and before they bussed him back to his home state to finish the rest of his four-year sentence, would let him in to spend fifteen minutes with Roni.

He hoped to convince her to let him help her.

A loud hum of a motorcycle grew into a roar. Dawson looked out the windshield and watched Jeremy pull to the curb behind the building. With the chance of talking privately to Jeremy, he exited the car and strode to the back of the building.

Jeremy's head came up, and his long hair came off his face. Dawson lifted his chin.

"You can come through the downstairs." Jeremy removed his gloves and stuck his hand out.

Dawson shook his hand. "It's better if I keep up the appearance of being a customer."

"Suit yourself." Jeremy widened his stance. "How'd the first appointment with the girl go?"

Dawson rubbed the knuckles of his right hand. "She's scared shitless."

"She's smart. Don't underestimate her." Jeremy paused. "Tiff empowers the women that work for her. The longer she's here, the stronger she'll become."

"Yeah." Dawson gazed up to the second story. "And, the longer she's here, the more men will use her body."

In Roni's best interest, she needed to stay for the three months of her contract with Red Light. She needed the confidence to move past Vince, Sparrows, and the head games that permanently scarred her thinking.

"I owe you for letting me have this time with her," he said, knowing if it weren't for Jeremy's return phone call confirming Roni's presence in Federal, Dawson would still be out there looking for her.

Jeremy tugged on his beard, straightening the errant whiskers from his ride. "I'll call on you when I need your help."

"When?" Dawson asked, preferring to have everything out in the open.

"When the time is right." Jeremy's gaze intensified. "Not now. Got a baby coming and need to close the bordello first."

"Are things heating up here?"

Jeremy shook his head. "Sheriff's retiring in six months, and he's our person on the inside. Tiff's got the idea to turn the upstairs into a place to raise a family. She'd like to leave the illegal side of her business in the past, make it right for the kid."

"What about you?" Dawson had never met a more dangerous man than the president of Moroad Motorcycle Club. Not inside or outside the prison fence, unless you counted Jeremy's father. The stories from the old days kept many men awake inside the prison, staring at the mold on the cinder block ceiling, wondering if they'd see tomorrow's one-hour yard break and survive Cam Farrell's attention, including him.

"I'm going to keep on keeping on," said Jeremy. "I'm a Moroad."

Dawson looked at the phone in his hand and shoved the cell in his back pocket. "I need to go upstairs."

"Luck, man."

"Yeah, I'm going to need it," he mumbled, stepping away. Changing his mind, he stopped and turned back around. "Hey, I'm going to need a place to stay once I know Roni won't run. The fucking sheriff isn't going to overlook a car parked on the street much longer before he checks it out."

"There's no reason to stay close. Moroad has the building covered." Jeremy pulled out a can of chew and put a pinch of tobacco between his lip and gum. "Stay at the Ryan Hotel across the street and up two blocks. You'll see the doctor's office on the first floor. There's a locked door with a phone number posted. Call it, and they'll open up for you. If you have any problems, tell the lady there that I sent you."

"Will do," he said.

"The ladies go see the doctor once a week. You can watch Roni if you get one of the suites at the front of the building facing the street."

"Thanks." He walked to the stairs, taking two steps at a time up to the back door on the second story.

He knocked once.

Tiff opened the door. He dipped his chin in greeting and followed the madam down the hallway. She never acknowledged his relationship with Jeremy, and he never questioned her if she knew his reasons for coming to Red Light. How Jeremy handled his business was of no concern to him.

"You'll be visiting Roni in the yellow room." Tiff stopped and opened the canary yellow door. "You have fifteen minutes."

"Thanks," he said, stepping inside, his gaze swept the room for Roni.

He found her standing in front of the bathroom door, robe tied around her slim waist, her hands behind her back. She had the face of an angel, one men would glance at and go back for a second look and decide never to walk away. Her short brown hair accented a bare neck that bowed forward in fear.

The door closed.

Alone with Roni, Dawson stayed on the other side of the bed. "How are you?"

She stared at him without raising her head. He left his hands loose at his sides taking the way her dark blue eyes flittered over his face. She remained skittish despite giving her the news article on the phone backing his story regarding Vince.

"I don't want you to come back here," she said, barely moving her lips.

"That's not your choice to make. You're working at Red Light. I'm a paying customer."

Roni moved forward one step and stopped. "If Vince is dead, leave me alone."

"I can't do that," he whispered.

She shifted to the side, closer to the door. "I'll inform the madam who you are and tell her you're trying to steal me away from the Network."

"You can." He lowered his gaze to her chest. "But you won't."

Through her silk robe, her breasts heaved with each breath. He brought his gaze back to her face and caught her brow lifting. If he would've paid more attention to the short distance between him and Roni and planned for her right arm coming up instead of appreciating her body, he could've blocked the knife cutting the air.

A flash of heat sliced his cheek. He grabbed her wrist before she could take another swipe at him.

She held a blunt knife in her fist. Not a steak knife or even a utility knife, but a God damn butter knife.

"You got your one and only hit on me, Roni. Don't try to do that again." He squeezed her wrist until she dropped the knife.

The utensil clattered on the hardwood floor. He stepped on the knife and let her go.

She scurried across the room and pressed against the wall. He ignored the warmth of blood trailing down his cheek. If he could, he'd kill Vince again for what he'd done to the woman.

D
awson picked the knife up off the floor that Roni had taken out of the kitchen and hid in her room. She curled her fingers into her empty hand and fought the urge to lift her arm and bite the barely felt hardness of her thumbnail.

"You can keep the knife if it makes you feel safer to have a weapon." He stepped over and put it on the dresser. "Can you get me a washcloth before your madam comes back and thinks we got in a fight?"

She refused to move. Not because she wanted to stand up to Dawson or she feared what Tiff would do once she discovered the damage she'd caused a customer, she couldn't move because she'd hurt another human being.

She cut the skin on his cheek.

Everything had happened faster than she could think.

She'd brought the knife to her room because it made her feel better knowing there was a weapon available. Never planning on killing someone, she'd swung out at Dawson with enough anger to do some damage.

She only meant to show him she wasn't helpless. If he tried to hurt her or take her with him when he left, the knife was something to dissuade him.

The cut on his cheek was minor compared to death, but it wasn't until the knife met something solid that she could've killed him. The moment she swung out, she hadn't known her strength or determination or the complete loss of control over her fear.

"Roni?" Dawson stepped away from her. "Can you get me a washcloth?"

She turned and lunged for the bathroom. Scrambling to fulfill his order, she wet the corner of the cloth under the faucet and hurried back into the room. Her feet skidded to a stop, keeping her body out of his reach and thrust her arm out in front of her.

Dawson took the washcloth from her. She jerked back her arm before he could touch her and returned to the far wall in the room. The pounding of her heart slowed into a cathartic rhythm leaving her senses numb.

She'd learned long ago to distance herself from danger. Even while performing blowjobs, she could empty her head of any thoughts. She never pretended she was somewhere else or doing something mundane. She simply shut down. Completely.

Her thighs quivered. She jerked her shoulders back and glanced back up at Dawson. Her reaction took her by surprise. She couldn't ignore him. She couldn't stop looking. She couldn't stop her stomach from rolling in guilt. She couldn't tune out Dawson or the way he wiped the blood from his face without a care.

His eyes never wavered from hers, and he went through the movements of cleaning his cheek to stop the bleeding without any hint of pain or anger of what she'd done.

"Where should I put this?" He held up the rag.

She glanced at the dirty clothes basket where she placed all the throw rugs after each customer left her room.

Dawson walked over and tossed the rag on top of the pile. "We don't have much time left today. I hadn't planned for that little accident, so I'm going to send you a text later. I want you to read it, and then I'll come back on Tuesday after your two-day break."

She stared at his chest unable to meet his eyes any longer. He knew her schedule and would be watching if she ran away.

If she stayed out on the balcony after two o'clock in the morning, the alarm system would be set in the building. Tiff and the others would believe she was staying in her room for the rest of the night. Once the crowd dispersed from Silver Girls, she'd use the fire escape to leave or maybe it'd be smarter if she tried to get down into the alley while business was open and the crowd would hide her from anyone watching. She hadn't decided which way to go yet.