Nicky hung up the phone.
She looked at Ken and said, "Looks like we're going to the strip club."
"Guess we are," Ken said.
Nicky gave a breath of relief. She knew that their work was important and that the answers they found might not turn out the way they needed them to, but she couldn't forget the emotional toll it was taking on Terry and Linda Salinger. It was a tough case, and they were going to need all the help they could get.
Seeing Linda and Terry reminded Nicky of her own parents. She and her father were long estranged, but her mother had been kind. Nicky felt a pull in her heart, a strange longing for a place that didn't exist any more.
But she snapped herself out of it. This wasn't the time for her emotions.
She needed to go up to the strip club and see what she could find out.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The drive up to the strip club was nerve-wracking for Nicky, and she didn't know what they would find when they got there. It seemed to go on forever; as she moved along the highway, the sun lowered into the horizon and painted the sky purple and orange. Ken was silent in the passenger seat.
"Should be there in ten," Nicky said.
Ken just looked outside. Nicky was finding him a bit moody, and she wondered what was on his mind. "What are you thinking about, Agent Walker?" she asked him.
He glanced at her but was quiet as he readjusted himself in the seat. "Nothing, Lyons."
"Come on," she said. "I'm not saying we need to be best friends but tell me what's on your mind. I'd like to know who my partner is."
"Fine," he said. He turned to look at her. "I'm... I'm thinking about Meghan Salinger. I feel for her parents. It's not right that they have to go through this, and I don't know how they do it. Meghan could be dead, and they have no clue. They'll never know. And the ones who were supposed to give them answers just shrugged it off and did virtually nothing. It's not justice, and that pisses me off."
Nicky nodded, listening. It seemed like that struck a personal chord for Ken.
"Is that why you became an agent?" Nicky asked. "So you could do things the right way?"
"More or less," he muttered. "What about you?"
Nicky almost laughed, shook her head. "I was trying to get to know you, Agent Walker. I'm not as much of a closed book."
He let out a bit of a laugh but said nothing else. Nicky sighed.
"It's not a secret that I was abducted when I was younger," Nicky said. "With my sister, Rosie. I got away. She didn't."
Ken was quiet. Nicky had been open about her past with her colleagues; it was all in her file anyway, and Dr. Graham had suggested that if she wasn’t going to open up to friends, she should at least open up to her coworkers. It was better than keeping everything inside. And Nicky personally felt like part of being a good leader was being open and honest, rather than closed off and mysterious.
"That's why the senator chose me for the job," Nicky said. "I've got... personal interests in missing girls. You get that, right?"
"I do get it," Ken said. "Maybe you're not the only one with personal interests."
Nicky shot him a look, then refocused on the road. "What do you mean?"
"We're not here to investigate me," Ken said. "You want to find Meghan Salinger, don't you?"
"Of course I do. I want to see her safe."
"I feel the same way," Ken said. "So let's focus on our jobs."
Nicky nodded again. She understood that. Somebody as distant as Ken Walker wasn't going to open up so easily.
The sun had fully set now, and the blackness of the night was descending fast. The lights of the strip club were coming up, and Nicky was getting nervous. This was a dangerous man they were looking for, and when they found him, she didn't know what they'd have to face.
They pulled into the parking lot, which was half-full. Nicky parked the car and called Grace. She answered immediately. "You at the strip club?" Grace asked.