“I’m stress-free for the first time in twenty-three years.”
Okay. That was odd. He’d retired several years ago, why would he only be stress-free now?
“But I should have tried harder. He could be in danger.” The guilt was flaying her.
“You cannot make him drink if there is no water,” a heavily accented voice boomed.
“That’s not even close to the saying,” Mrs. Spain said to Andrey.
Andrey immigrated to the states from Russia at least a decade ago. And his accent was still as thick as when he’d first moved there. She was starting to think it was on purpose. He seemed to take great delight in annoying everyone around him.
“No?” Andrey asked.
“It’s you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink,” Mrs. Spain explained.
“But we no talk of horses.”
She sighed. Too much more of this and her migraine would return.
“Hush, all of you. You’ll make Millie even more stressed. And she looks pale. Have you been eating? Did you finish Dan’s jerky? Do you need us to send you more? Are you taking your medication?” Mrs. Larson shot the questions at her.
She smiled at the fussing. She didn’t bother to remind any of them that she was vegetarian. They all tended to forget that she didn’t eat meat. “I’m fine. Thank you.”
“Dan said to remember to use the cash he gave you for bribes,” Mrs. Larsen reminded her.
She smiled and nodded.
“We have to go now. It’s late. We’re old. Good luck, dear,” Mrs. Spain said.
“What?” Mr. Spain barked.
“Don’t worry about that biker, he’s not your problem,” Mrs. Larsen told her.
Only problem was. She couldn’t forget about him. Or stop worrying.
She ended up tossing and turning half the night. And she kept coming to the same conclusion. If he wouldn’t listen to her, then she was just going to have to make certain nothing happened to him. How, exactly, she wasn’t sure. She still had to work that part of the plan out.
She also needed to figure out where to find this Damon Steele. Then there was her mission. There was a lot to do. But Millie could accomplish it.
Failure wasn’t an option. Not this time.
7
Spike nodded to the bouncer as he walked through the front door of Pinkies. As far as strip clubs went, this one was at the higher end. And Steele looked after his girls. There was a zero tolerance of any sort of abuse. He also didn’t sell sex. Yeah, there was full nudity. You could also get private lap dances. But that was it.
Still, it wasn’t Spike’s kind of place.
He scowled as he made his way to the stairs that led up to Steele’s office. Some flunky he didn’t know was standing at the door at the bottom of the stairs.
He gave Spike the once over, sneering as he took in his worn jeans, scuffed motorcycle boots and leather vest.
“You
can’t come up here. It’s private.”
“Get out of my way.” Spike didn’t have the patience for this. That dark-haired vixen from last night was still plaguing him. This morning, he’d found himself scouring the news for any mentions of a missing or murdered woman like some crazed stalker.
When he didn’t find anything, he’d actually sighed in relief. What was it about her that had gotten to him? He never should have stopped to listen to her nonsense. But then she’d tripped and he couldn’t just leave her sitting on the ground.