Tinged (The Electric Tunnel #3)
Author: Rachel Blaufeld
Miami
PULLING MY convertible out of the Wave's lot at two o'clock in the morning, I turned my metallic-white baby toward the beach as the ocean waves slapped in the distance in the dark night. I told myself to go home, but knew I wouldn't listen. Instead I did the same thing I'd done several nights a week for the last year.
I headed for a drive.
As much as I needed to clear my head, unwind, and allow Miami's humid ocean breeze to wash over me, it wasn't that type of drive.
It was a mission. One I shouldn't be on, definitely a self-appointed assignment I should drop. Immediately. I was a renegade on a journey to hell because my assignment would certainly only end in heartbreak and pain.
Oh well. Fuck it.
I drove along Washington Avenue, scanning the sidewalks. Block after block, I noted bar crawlers on a crazy Saturday night, party-goers on a mission, and vacationers out for a good time. But tourists weren't who I was here to see.
Narrowing my focus to the locals, I searched for a familiar face. When I saw who I was looking for, I pulled over, shifted into park, and climbed out of the small sports car. After patting my little lady's door for good measure, I took casual strides down the street, pretending to be out looking for a good time.
"Hey, Chantilly, how you doing, girl?" I wrapped my arm around the shoulders of a tall, curvy blonde clad in black leather and lace, walking confidently on mega-heels.
"Heya, Mikey baby. How ya doing, tough guy?" she said, pulling me in for a hug.
There I was, Michael Wind, Big Mike, the prep-school-educated bad-boy bouncer turned strip-club owner to everyone who knew me, caught in a full-on embrace with a high-end escort in the middle of South Beach. And it was the best I'd felt in months. Fucking months.
Lingering in Chantilly's embrace a second or two longer than appropriate, I finally said, "All good, babe. All good," before releasing the woman from my arms, feeling empty as soon as I did. She was all I had . . . my only true connection to the woman I really wanted, Lynx, was a five-foot-nine-inch bottle blonde with a tube of KY and a box of condoms in her small purse.
Chantilly hooked her hands on her hips. "Come on, Mikey, don't play games with me. You good? Business booming at your joint?"
I smiled. "Yeah, business is always booming. Got good girls who make even better money. You should come work for me. Got a girl who'll show you the ropes, help you make a decent living."
She laughed. "Nah, baby. I got a good gig. Heading over to the upscale joint on Seventeenth now for a big-money job. Don't you worry about me, honey."
I tilted my head toward the sidewalk. "Come on, I'll walk you."
She hooked her arm in mine as we walked slowly.
"Did you have some extra free time and decide to take a walk on the wild side tonight, Mikey, or you here for your regular?" Chantilly asked as we made our way to her destination.
"The usual."
The call girl stopped and turned to face me. "Michael, honey, I haven't seen her. She's gone. Haven't seen her in thirteen months. Told you she was cagey the last time I laid eyes on her, was up to something she knew I wouldn't like. A gig even I wouldn't be down with, so she clammed up. I'm worried just like you, but there's nothing we can do." Placing a hand on my arm, she said, "This isn't something we can involve the authorities in, honey. We gotta let it go."
Michael.
God, it's been so long since a woman called me by my full name.
One woman specifically.
Arriving at the entrance to the Fritz Hotel, I lied when I said, "I know," before letting her go do her thing. I might not have approved of what she was about to do, but Chantilly was her own woman. And I knew better than anyone, when a woman was an escort, there was little to nothing anyone could do to change her mind.
I figured it was a mindset so deeply ingrained, a facade any self-respecting girl immersed herself into in order to degrade herself enough to hook, it took nothing short of a military de-conditioning like in the Special Forces.
Watching the last person known to have seen Lynx on the Florida Coast walk away from me, resigned to let the whole situation drop, I knew what I had to do. Call Carson. It was something I'd been avoiding, but the problem was too big for me. I needed his help, and quick. Women didn't just up and disappear without a trace.
I walked back with a full-blown knot in my stomach and slipped into my white BMW. Before I sped out, I flicked my finger against the green dice hanging from the rearview mirror, watching them rock back and forth in limbo, just like my life. I brought those dice all the way from Sin City with me. Funny, my life had been hanging by a thread since I left there two years ago.