Naked Truth (Crimson Romance) (5 page)

“Um … he, uh …”

“Didn’t you say the woman contacted you through Facebook, and when you confronted Jerry, he didn’t deny it?” Sabrina supplied.

Kennedy vigorously nodded, thankful her cousin had remembered the lie she’d concocted when she finally told her family and friends about her divorce. “Yes. That’s it.”

“But what were the signs?” Vanessa asked. “Maybe you didn’t notice before you found out, but you can’t tell me you didn’t think about it afterward and think, duh, I should’ve known all along. What were the signs?”

The only sign she’d had was when she’d gone grocery shopping and her debit card had been declined. When she’d gone home and logged into her bank account on the computer, she’d discovered it was empty. As was the shared retirement fund and the separate account she kept specifically for Christmas gifts. And her credit cards had been maxed, every one, even the department store cards. Jerry had really done a number on her. There had been plenty of times over the past three years that she’d almost wished he’d cheated instead of nearly pushed her into bankruptcy.

“Vanessa, this isn’t a subject I really like to talk about,” Kennedy muttered, because she did not want to spin a web of lies that she would have to remember every time she saw her cousin in the future.

“Is that why you came to visit?” Sabrina wondered. “To get away from Mac for a few days?”

Vanessa shook her head. “No. I came here to have my own affair. With Jack.”

• • •

Jack rubbed his raw eyes with his hands and shook his head when Cullen offered him another cup of coffee. “If I drink any more coffee, it’s going to eat through the lining of my stomach.”

“If I don’t drink more coffee, I’m going to fall asleep standing here,” Cullen replied as he sipped at the scalding liquid.

Jack glanced at his watch. It was after eight in the evening, and they’d both been awake since four that morning. He had gone to bed close to midnight the night before, so he’d been working for sixteen straight hours on just over four hours sleep. At some point, they would both crash and burn.

But not yet. The case wasn’t solved yet.

“Do you sort of wish the locals had kept this one?” Jack asked his partner.

“Yes,” Cullen agreed, just before their boss walked into the office and tossed a manila file folder onto his desk.

Their boss was a hardened man with small, sharp eyes and a thick, salt-and-pepper mustache. His head was bald and shiny. He’d spent thirty years in the field before finally giving in to his superiors and accepting a director position, which forced him to spend more time behind a desk but no less time on the job. He was a tough boss but a good one, and he’d taught Cullen and Jack everything they knew about being solid field agents.

“Too damn bad,” Hank said as he dropped heavily into the creaking, faux leather chair behind the desk. “Just as we already suspected, this is connected to that murder down in Houston. And five others in three states. This is an FBI case, whether we want it or not.”

Jack shrugged and leaned against the wall, crossing his ankles and his arms. “We get to learn about a different lifestyle at any rate. Unless you’re familiar with this particular lifestyle, Cullen?” he teased his partner.

“Sorry to disappoint you, but I’ve only ever hung out at strip clubs that feature women. Half-naked men don’t do it for me.”

“How about the women who fawn over those half-naked men?” Hank suggested as he opened the file. “Do they do it for you? Because you two are going undercover to figure this thing out.”

He and Cullen exchanged uneasy glances. Undercover? At a traveling all-male revue?

“The owner seems to think dying dancers is bad for business. Apparently it isn’t easy to find guys who are good enough at dancing, have nice enough bodies, and have the ability to convince women to spend their hard-earned cash for a chance to cop a feel.” He snorted. “I guess women are more discerning than guys. I’ve been to some strip clubs with some pretty ugly dancers, but when they take off the clothes, it’s still hot.”

Hank picked up a stack of eight-by-ten photographs and, one by one, dropped them onto the desk. Each photograph showed a man, lying on his stomach, his back a mangled, bloody mess. While the settings were all different, the men had varying hair colors and body styles, and their clothing wasn’t similar, the mode of death was the same in each picture: multiple stab wounds to the back. There was no denying these men had been killed by the same means, likely by the same person.

Hank picked up a piece of paper and read it over the top of his bifocals. “This all-male revue travels from city to city and stays for two weekends at a time. It partners with a local club and splits the cover and drinks. Dancers also give the owner a percentage of their tips. They start on a Wednesday, play through the weekend, take off Monday and Tuesday, and then play Wednesday through Saturday night before packing up to move to the next town on Sunday.”

“Pretty grueling lifestyle,” Jack commented as he inspected one of the gruesome photos. Not that he needed to. He’d seen the real thing shortly after four this morning.

The guy had been twenty years old, his life ended just a few feet from the back door of the club in which he’d danced the night before. Since then, Jack had learned that the kid was a college student, majoring in criminal justice, who danced only during the summer months to pay for tuition. If the kid had lived, he might very well have become an FBI agent someday.

Hank snorted. “Yeah, right. Party all night, get laid as often as you want, sleep all day, and do it all over again the next night. And you get to see the sights on your off days.”

“Maybe you should look into a career change, Jack,” Cullen suggested. “That’s practically your lifestyle now.”

He didn’t bother to contradict his partner. Cullen wouldn’t believe him anyway if he told him he hadn’t gotten laid since Cullen’s own wedding. Since he figured his partner would be pissed off to learn that he’d screwed Sabrina’s cousin in the back of the limo during the wedding reception, that was just another reason not to tell him the truth.

“Well guess what?” Hank said as he once again leaned back in his creaky chair. “That’s exactly what you’re going to do. You’re going undercover.”

He barked out a laugh. “Cullen’s going to be a dancer? He’ll scare all the chicks away.”

“That’s why he’s going to be a bouncer. You’re going to be the dancer.”

This time, Cullen laughed.

“You start tomorrow,” Hank said brusquely. “The owner shut it down for tonight, ostensibly out of respect for the dead, but really, I guess this kid was a pretty popular act, and the owner was afraid the show wouldn’t be as good without his act.

No one but the owner will know who you really are. Cullen—you’re a bouncer, working for the club. Jack—you’re a dancer, working for the revue. You don’t know each other.” He glanced at his watch. “Doors open at eight. If I were you, I’d go home, get some sleep, and then hit the gym. Like I said, the ladies are more discerning than the men.”

“Go out with me tonight, Kennedy.”

“It’s Friday,” she complained. “I had a long week at work. I’m tired. I’m going to put on my pajamas, have a glass of wine, and spend time with a good book.”

“That’s lame. That’s not how single women act. How do you ever expect to pick up men with that attitude?” Vanessa asked.

“Picking up men isn’t exactly high on my to-do list, I guess.”

“Well, it should be. And it’s high on mine. Come on; let’s go trolling. Sabrina told me where Jack tends to hang out on the weekends. Let’s go find him.”

That was exactly the last thing Kennedy wanted to do. Not to mention her utter lack of interest in watching her cousin seek revenge on her husband by throwing herself at Jack. Although apparently that wasn’t the entire reason Vanessa wanted to hook up with him.

“He is so damn hot,” she’d cooed the evening before, as they’d sat around a table and shared margaritas and nachos. “I could just lick him from head to toe.”

Kennedy recalled how he’d licked her from head to … well, not quite toes. But it had been pretty damn hot.

“I swear, I could have taken him home from Sabrina’s wedding if Mac hadn’t been there.”

That was a revelation to Kennedy, since she’d been the one to have sex with him that night. She’d learned that after she went back to the hotel and Jack returned to the reception, Vanessa had latched onto him for the rest of the evening, completely ignoring her husband and blatantly flirting with the good-looking FBI agent.

Would he have gone home with Vanessa if not for Mac? Sabrina insisted he was a player. Did players hook up with more than one woman in a given night?

Of course they did. And Vanessa was, undeniably, an exceedingly attractive woman. She was also highly aggressive. When she set her sights on something or someone, that person was hard-pressed to say no.

Which Vanessa proved correct when Kennedy showed up on Sabrina’s doorstep an hour later, a reluctant club buddy to her cousin. Sabrina was out, attending a work function.

“Cullen go with Sabrina?” she asked as she waited for Vanessa to stop admiring herself in the hall mirror.

“No idea,” Vanessa muttered distractedly, “although they left separately.”

So, did that mean Cullen was working, or were he and Jack out someplace, having a beer? She considered the potential places where she thought they might run into Jack, and then she steered her cousin in exactly the opposite direction.

• • •

Jack had been undercover for less than an hour, and already he hated the lifestyle of a male stripper. It sure as hell wasn’t exotic, at least not yet. In fact, so far, it was pretty damn high maintenance.

When he arrived at the back door to the club at seven, as instructed, the owner of the Diamond Dancers All-Male Revue met him there. The owner called himself Danny Diamond, and he looked like a well-preserved extra from
The Sopranos
television series. He had a thick head of dark hair, a large, square jaw, and despite the fact that he was fifty, his body was just as buff as Jack’s.

Danny talked a mile a minute as he filled Jack in on the dancers’ various processes, rules, and responsibilities, and then he handed Jack off to a dancer named Sweetspot, who, Danny explained, was going to show Jack how to prep himself for the stage.

“Don’t worry,” Danny tossed over his shoulder as he walked away. “Sweetspot’s not gay.”

Gay or not, it was still damned uncomfortable to let some other guy shave his legs and chest, so he insisted on doing it himself. Shaving his face every day was bad enough. He had a whole new respect for the lengths women went to in order to maintain their beauty. While he appreciated a smooth pair of legs, he’d never really given much thought to what went into making them feel that way.

At least Sweetspot didn’t offer to shave that other area of his body. Instead, he handed Jack a black bikini that looked small even for some of the women he knew, and instructed him to “make sure no hair shows when you put this thing on. Most guys just shave it all, but that’s up to you.”

Sweetspot shrugged and walked away, tossing over his shoulder, “When you’re done, go find Lancelot. He’ll work through the stage moves with you.”

Jack was left alone to wish Cullen had been chosen to be the dancer in this undercover gig. Unfortunately, he knew damn well Cullen could never do it. He probably didn’t even own a sharp razor, if the state of the perpetual scruff on his face was any indication. Besides, the rest of the guys in this revue were all what Cullen would call “pretty boys.” Jack was the least pretty of the bunch, and Cullen had even on occasion accused him of spending too much time on his appearance.

“You’re a way better dancer, too,” Cullen had said with a laugh earlier this evening when they’d met at Jack’s place to formulate their game plan for this gig.

It was true, unfortunately. While his mother’s insistence that he take dance lessons as a pre-teen had aided his quest to score dates and consequently get laid throughout life, for the first time, Jack considered it a curse. If he hadn’t had the ability to dance, no matter how pretty or how hairless he was, he would not have been able to carry off this assignment.

He shaved as little as he could get away with, and then coated his body with baby oil, per Sweetspot’s instructions. He pulled his jeans on over the ridiculous black bikini and went in search of the dancer named Lancelot, who was the most effeminate of all the dancers, and who also had the best moves.

Lancelot had long, blond hair and pale, blue eyes, and was shorter and thinner than the rest of the dancers. He sniffed and looked up at Jack. “Where does Danny get you brutes?” he muttered. “He picks you for your looks, and then expects me to make dancers of you. And it’s half an hour to show time. All right, let’s get started. Let’s see what you’ve got.”

He pressed a button on his phone and then placed it on a dock perched on a small table nearby. The space they were using was small, too small to do any sort of twirls or significant dance moves, but that wasn’t what Lancelot wanted from him anyway.

“However you want to dance out onto the stage doesn’t matter,” he explained as the chords of “Closer” by Nine Inch Nails filled the air. “It’s what you do once you’ve reached the middle of that stage. Now, watch.”

Lancelot placed his hands behind his head, closed his eyes, and twisted and swirled his body. In the blink of an eye he morphed from a slightly too skinny, slightly too girly guy into a sex machine that Jack was certain every girl in the room would drool over.

“Your turn.”

His rendition was far more clumsy and awkward.

“You have promise,” Lancelot commented. “Good movement. Very fluid. I bet the ladies love how you fuck.”

Kennedy certainly hadn’t complained. Well, neither had any of the myriad other women he’d hooked up with over the years, but for some reason, he’d been damned pleased with himself for hooking Kennedy. He’d developed a bit of an obsession for the woman.

The fact that it had been her idea to escape to the limo had made the experience even hotter. The fact that she had admitted she’d never done that with anyone else before had made it damn near impossible for him to hold out long enough for her to find release.