Undercover in Six Inch Stilettos (5 page)

Chapter Five

Jason did his best to persuade her to stay home, but she adamantly insisted her ankle was fine, despite the fact that it was currently throbbing as she leaned against the front of Sugar Shakers, waiting for Angela.

A million theories of what happened to Jade kept her up the rest of the night. Even when she finally managed to doze off right before six, the images kept coming. Shadows infiltrated her dreams, making her restless. Even though it felt good to be doing something, she wasn’t sure what they were going to find, but it was worth a try.

She spotted Angela crossing the street, careful to use the crosswalk. Jaywalking was a highly ticketable offense in Virginia Beach. That and cursing…there were “no cursing” signs posted all up and down the boardwalk. The heavy-duty fines were intended to keep the tourists from turning their vacation town into something unpleasant. Unfortunately, there were no signs posted against kidnapping young runaways.

“Hey, girl!” Angela waved from the corner as she zig-zagged through the off-season visitors to where Cyndi waited.

Cyndi rubbed her hands together. “It’s a wee bit chilly down here by the ocean.”

Angela was bundled up in a ski jacket, hat, scarf, and mittens. “You don’t have to tell me twice! I’ve been freezing since I woke up this morning. How long until summer?”

“We are barely halfway through fall!”

“Doesn’t get like this in Texas.”

“Well, Toto, you aren’t in Texas anymore!”

They dissolved in laughter. When the women finally pulled themselves together, they made their way to the alley behind Sugar Shakers. Cyndi tried hard not to let it show, but her ankle hurt. She limped a little, but refused to acknowledge it.

“Hey, gimpy, you sure you are up for this?” Angela asked.

Cyndi chucked her friend on the arm. “Who are you calling gimpy? I am just fine, thank you very much.”

Angela shrugged. “Okay. What are we looking for?”

They had reached the small space behind Sugar Shakers where most of the employees came and went at night. Cyndi tried the door, but it was locked. Across from the entranceway was a small trash dumpster with a few bags of discarded items piled in front of it. The lid was partly open.

“Ang, help me open the top to this thing.”

“Ew, Cyndi, it’s just garbage.”

“It
looks
like just garbage…”

Angela waved her hand in front of her face. “Yeah, and it smells like garbage too. Yuck.”

“Come on, Angela. Where do they find all the best evidence on
NCIS
and
Law and Order?
In the
dumpster!
Now help me open it up, please.”

“Fine. But I’m no rookie. I am not jumping in that thing.”

“You watch too much TV. I am not making you go in there. I want to see if there is anything that might tell us what happened to Jade. Now will you help me lift the lid?” Cyndi had found an empty wooden crate to stand on. Her ankle throbbed, but she ignored the pain as she pulled herself up.

“Didn’t the trash truck come in last week?”

“Damn. I hadn’t thought of that. I don’t know. There is an awful lot of junk on the ground here, so maybe they missed a week.”

Angela stepped up on the crate next to her and pushed up on the steel lid. “Ewww…it smells like rotten onions and spoiled milk in there.”

Cyndi tried not to breathe too deeply, peering into the interior of the dumpster. Bags of trash, wet boxes, and broken booze bottles filled the can; nothing that could explain a missing teenage girl.

Letting the lid drop, Angela helped Cyndi down from the wood crate. “I told you it was just trash, Cyn.”

Ignoring her friend’s cynicism, Cyndi grabbed a corner of the dumpster and started pushing on it. “Help me move this over from the wall so I can look behind it.”

“It’s a waste of our time.” Angela grunted as she shoved against the full dumpster.

“Maybe.” The dumpster moved with a loud whine. “Or maybe not…” A shock of pink caught her attention from beneath the can. Cyndi pulled a pair of latex gloves out of her purse, thankful Jason always made her carry some, and reached for the item. A bright pink pocketbook slid out from under the trash receptacle. “Look what I found.”

“It’s a purse.” Angela was obviously as surprised as she was.

“It’s Jade’s purse.” Cyndi held the item at the corner, remembering the way Jade wore it with its long strap across her torso. The young dancer always had that purse with her.

“Are you sure?” Angela asked.

“I’m sure.” She flipped the little bag open and peered inside, in search of a wallet. A slim black case was all the purse held. Cyndi slipped it out and opened it. Staring back at her, from the teenager’s driver’s license, were Jade’s serious green eyes. She held the wallet out to Angela. “It’s her, see?”

“She’s so young!”

“I know,” Cyndi replied sadly as she turned the purse over in her hands. A dark stain colored the back of the fabric.

“Is that blood?” Angela exhaled slowly.

“I’m not sure. It could be mud or something.”

“But you don’t really believe that, do you?”

“No.”

“Cyndi, you have to tell the police.”

“Tell them what, Ang? That I found a purse under the dumpster and it has a stain on it?”

“Well, yes. Come on, you don’t think you can solve this on your own?”

“Why not? I have been listening to Jason talk shop for years. I have learned a thing or two. If I go to them now, I lose my job, and maybe my husband. You don’t think Jason is going to be understanding of my lying to him all these weeks, do you?”

Angela’s tone was grim as she looked at her friend. “I think that if Jason loves you, he will get over it. I also think that we are talking about a little girl who may be in danger, if she isn’t already dead, and you have the one piece of evidence that might lead police to find her.”

What Angela said made sense. A week had already passed since Jade’s disappearance. The chance of her being safe was slim. It was highly unlikely that she had simply left town now that her pocketbook sat in Cyndi’s hands. Jade deserved justice if something horrible had happened to her.

“Someone needs to find Jade.”

“That someone can’t be you.”

She turned on her friend. “Why
not?
”

Angela reached out and touched Cyndi on the arm. “Because you don’t have the resources.”

“But I have the connections.”

“Connections? You mean an ancient cigarette-smoking dancer, a women’s underwear-wearing bartender, and a clueless bouncer?”

“Don’t talk bad about my friends.”

“Your friends, Cyn? I’m your friend. Those are some freaky people you work with one night a week because you have some strange, burning desire to be a stripper.”

“Gee, Ang. Don’t hold back or anything.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to sound harsh. I just want to give you some perspective. You can’t solve this alone. Jade deserves a real investigation into her disappearance, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, I suppose.” Jade
did
deserve justice, and Jason, or someone he knew, could do that for her. “All right, I will give the purse to Jason, but I am going to tell him we found it when we were walking to lunch.”

“Well, that’s a start. I know you want to protect your secret, Cyndi, but turning it over to the police is the right decision. You have to tell him where you found it though. What if there’s something else we missed that could help them solve the case?”

Cyndi sighed heavily. Now she had to find a way to explain why she and Angela were poking around in an alley behind a gentleman’s club. Yay.

“I’ll take care of it.”

“Okay. I’m proud of you. If this girl’s disappearance is related to that psycho who’s been calling into 9-1-1, then you don’t want to get mixed up in that anyway. What if you piss him off and he goes after you?”

Cyndi shrugged. “How would he know?”

“I don’t know, but I sure as hell don’t want to find out. Do you?”

“No, I guess not.”

“Do you want to grab a sandwich before we head home?”

“I don’t think so. Now that I have this in my hand, I want to get rid of it as soon as possible.”

“All right. I can understand that. I’ll hit a drive-thru on the way home.”

Cyndi led the way out of the alley and back to Atlantic Avenue. Sugar Shakers was shuttered and locked down for the day, and her ankle was definitely done with moving around. The best thing she could do was head home. The drive would give her a little time to figure out how she could explain to Jason where she had found the purse.

When she arrived home, Cyndi backed into the driveway, the tactically sound way Jason preferred. Another reason her Friday nights would never fly with her husband. In his mind, her job put her at risk. The part where she danced around in skimpy lingerie probably wouldn’t even faze him.

In light of Jade’s disappearance, she wondered if her husband was right about some of his crazy requirements. As long as she was careful, everything would be fine. Cyndi enjoyed dancing for reasons she could not put into words. Giving it up wasn’t an option. As long as Jason believed the story she had ready for him, all would be good.

No sooner had she shut the car off, Jason appeared on the front porch holding Harper on his hip. A lump of emotion caught in her throat at the sight of the two people she loved most in the world. It would kill her if her daughter up and disappeared. Someone had to find out what happened to Jade, and Jason was the person to start with, no matter how much she didn’t want to tell him anything. Trying not to limp too much, Cyndi covered the distance to the porch, a smile plastered to her lips.

“Mommy!” Harper reached for her as Cyndi climbed the porch steps, but Jason held her fast.

“Careful, honey. Let Mommy get into the house, and then she will hug all over you.”

Harper giggled. “Okay, Daddy.”

Jason turned his attention to her as she hobbled past him, taking care to hide the purse. “You are in pain, Cyn.”

“Of course I am. I turned my ankle last night.”

“Don’t be smart.”

She dropped into the recliner with a heavy sigh and pushed the button to raise the footrest. Before Cyndi brought it in the house, she had found one of Jason’s spare evidence bags in the trunk and tucked the pink purse into it. She now slid the bag into the space between the chair and the cushion so it was out of sight. Lucky for her, Jason insisted on her car having a mini crime scene kit in case he ever needed it. Jason was always on the job, even on his day off.

“Ahhh…that’s better. Come here, Harper. Give Mommy some love.” Giggling again, Harper dropped from her father’s arms into Cyndi’s lap. “I missed you, sweet girl.”

“I missed you too, Mommy!” Harper grabbed her around the neck and squeezed tight. “Where did you go?”

“I had lunch with Miss Angela.”

“Oh! I like Miss Angela.”

“She likes you too, sweet girl. You know what though? Mommy needs to talk to Daddy for a minute about grown-up stuff. Why don’t you go into your room and play with your princesses?”

Harper looked from Cyndi to Jason and back again, a question in her brown eyes, which was apparently quickly answered because she broke into a brilliant smile. “Okay, Mommy. Will you play with me?”

“A little bit later, honey. Mommy is going to rest for a little while.”

Harper leaned in and kissed Cyndi on the cheek before slipping off her lap and skipping out of the living room. Through the entire exchange, Jason had been eyeing her suspiciously.

“Okay, Cyn, spill.”

“Angela and I met on Atlantic Avenue for lunch.”

“I know.” Jason was standing beside her chair now, arms folded across his chest, back to the wall. Even in his own home, Jason always had to have an eye on doors and windows…just in case. She rarely ever saw her husband relax.

“We were walking on the boardwalk when we heard a cat crying…you know I am a sucker for a stray…so we followed the sound—”

“Cyndi! What if it had rabies?”

“Oh, come on, J.J., just because it was crying didn’t automatically mean it was rabid.”

“What if it was a fox?”

Cyndi picked up a throw pillow and tossed it at her husband. “Stop making fun of me! I never should have told you about that article.”

“I’m sorry. I couldn’t resist. Tell me about the crying cat.”

“You are a bad man, Jason Mills!”

“Come on, Cyndi, finish your story.” He tried to sound firm, but he was grinning like a cat that ate a canary.

“We followed the sound into an alley and found this.” She pulled the evidence bag containing the purse out of its hiding spot and passed it to Jason.