“You both look amaaazing! And the perfect canvases for me. I can’t wait to see what all I can create for you every night,” I say, and the girls’ eyes meet in the mirror for a moment, seeming to have a silent conversation between them that I hope is saying they can’t wait either, but I don’t have time to really figure it out, because a group of women who are in a heated conversation come through the door.
“They found her—”
“Ashley!” Heather calls out, cutting into their discussion, and the woman who was talking turns toward us, her eyes then meeting mine. “Our new makeup artist, Astrid,” she introduces.
“I’ll tell you later,” Ashley tells the group behind her, and she strolls up to where Heather is still sitting in her chair while Tracy gets up and walks over to the rack and starts sifting through the dresses.
Ashley leans close to Heather’s face, and Heather tilts her head from side to side, showing off her makeup in different angles. “Daaang,” she drawls. “Looking good, girl. Can I be next?” She stands up straight and turns to look at me.
I smile wide with all my teeth, unable to hide the pride I feel that these women are impressed with my abilities. “By all means,” I say, gesturing toward the row of chairs, and she sets her purse down in the station to the right of Heather and takes a seat.
I spend the next three hours doing the makeup of eighteen girls, including Crystal, able to fit in more than I thought because a lot of them could at least get their foundation and blush on, so I only had to do their eyes, lips, and a little contouring. Several had eyelash extensions, so I didn’t need to do falsies for them, and more than a few had their eyebrows dermabladed, saving me even more time. But just so Neil wouldn’t come storming inside demanding to know where his woman was, I sent him a text letting him know everything was going great but taking a little more time than I thought. He replied back saying he was parked and would wait for however long I needed.
When all the girls were finished—half of which had gone “out on the floor” when the clock struck eight—it was needless to say they were now Team Astrid. They said my work was better than any artists’ who had come through here—which made me wonder how many had before me.
I grab my purse and make my way to the foyer, keeping my eyes down, my face hot at the first glimpse of nipples in the big room across the way. I hurry to the window I’d seen earlier and hand the intimidating man behind the glass a piece of paper each girl signed her name to after Crystal got there a little after six thirty. He tallies up the eighteen names then counts out seven crisp hundred-dollar bills and a twenty and hands it to me like it’s my lunch money for the day, not even blinking at the fact that I made over seven hundred bucks in just three hours.
I don’t question it though. I thank him, and he gives me a nod, and I’m out the door without a backward glance as I go in search of Neil’s truck.Chapter 18Doc“Hey, man,” Seth says after I answer his call, sitting in my truck while I’m waiting on Astrid to get done with work. I had gone to the club and gave him details about what I discovered—that the website I had him looking into turned out to be the place Brian had been surveilling, that it was actually a business and not someone’s home. He didn’t get very far into his search before I had to leave to get Astrid by eight. But then she texted me and said she was going to be later. I was already almost here, so I said fuck it and just parked and started listening to my audiobook.
“I finally had a chance to dig into this place. Nothing yet on the website. I have a few programs running to get in without leaving a trace instead of just creating a log-in and paying the fee. But I did search all the police databases within the state to see if anyone has ever mentioned A Secret in any report, and let me tell you—that was a fucking pain in the dick. Errbody and their freaking brother’s got a damn secret. But with a few tweaks and some keywords included, I was able to narrow it down to one report in the local department made by a girl who is an exotic dancer—'cause, ya know, they don’t like to be called strippers anymore—at Astrid’s new job.” He pauses. “B-T-Dubs. Can we talk about the fact that both our sweet and innocent Quill sisters ended up working at a sex shop and a strip club? What’s up with that?”