Sin on the Strip

Sin on the Strip

Women of Vegas

Lucy Farago

LYRICAL PRESS
Kensington Publishing Corp.
www.kensingtonbooks.com

All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

Table of Contents

This book is dedicated to my husband, Grant. You made me realize my dream. I love you.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wish to acknowledge the colleagues who shared their wisdom and lent their support; and especially Cindy Gerard, whose invaluable critique and praise kept this book out of the trash bin. I'd also like to thank my wonderful friend Debbie, for reading and believing in me.

M
aggie Anderson had dealt with her share of harrowing experiences since moving to Vegas. Sin City's seedier reputation had challenged her more times than she cared to remember—and wished for all that was holy she could forget. But this was the worst. For once in his sanctimonious life, had her father been right? Was she ill-equipped to help these women?

After five minutes of stalling in her car, staring at the bland stucco façade, she gave up searching for composure and made her way up the concrete path to the Clark County Coroner's office. Twice she attempted to open the heavy tinted-glass door, but it won out over her nerves. Clenching her teeth, she smacked the handicap pad. A knot lodged in her throat at the thought of identifying Heather's body, of coming face-to-face with her failure to protect one of her girls. Of a broken promise.

As she walked through the doors, she clutched her purse with trembling hands, refusing to let even the front security guard see them shake. She gave her name and the purpose of the visit.

“Please wait,” he politely instructed and made a phone call.

The lobby looked like any other county office, clean and sparse, but knowing what lay inside gave the building an air of malice. Some might think the sensation ridiculous, but this wasn't like paying your respects at a funeral home or cemetery. Here, family didn't come for a loving farewell or an end-of-life rite of passage. This building demanded answers from death, even if you weren't ready to hear them, never mind wishing you never had to ask the questions.

Maggie flinched as the elevator doors sprang apart. She blinked, surprised and relieved to see her friend. “Horace? You shaved your head.”

Lieutenant Cooper ran a hand over his clean scalp. “You were right,” he said, a sheepish grin taking ten years off his fifty. “A cop should be scary.”

She hadn't meant to twist the truth, but she hadn't been able to think of a delicate way to get the man, who had come to mean so much to her, to lose the comb-over. “You look good,” she offered, managing a smile.

“My wife sends her thanks. . . . She also sends her condolences.”

Maggie nodded. “Thank you.”

“I'm sorry too,” he said. “And I'm real sorry I couldn't give you the news in person.”

Midnight phone calls were never good, and from the tone in Horace's voice last night, she'd braced herself for the worst. In the drawn-out seconds between “Maggie, I'm sorry” and “there's been a murder,” she must have swallowed her heart ten times over. Prepared as she was, she was still horrified when the lieutenant's sentence ended.

“Just tell me you're going to catch who did this.”

“We're working on it,” he assured her. “We'll get the asshole.”

She prayed he was right. Keeping the women who worked for her at the club away from trouble, and trouble away from them, wasn't easy. The street was an eager villain, only too happy to end the lives of anyone simply trying to survive. Last night, Maggie discovered that diligence wasn't enough. She wanted to scream. Heather didn't deserve this.

“I don't know if it will help, but I have some good news for you. They have Hannah. She's back at the group home with the rest of the kids.”

“Where was the little miscreant?” she asked, thankful the wrong person hadn't found her. Volunteering at the group home was as rewarding as it was challenging, but this newest addition had a way of pushing her luck, and Maggie's patience.

“Bus station. She made the mistake of offering a trade of services to the bus driver. She's lucky the guy had scruples. This is her second probation offense, Maggie. She's on an order to reside. One more and she
is
back in lockup.” He rubbed a hand over his bald head. “Damn, I like that kid, but it's taking that one a long time to learn.”

“It's what she knows,” she said, with a need to defend the runaway.

“Yeah, well, she's lucky we found her before she had time to call Devan. At least secure custody would keep her out of his stable.”

“But it would introduce her to kids far worse than she is. She's a survivor. She'd adapt, and not in a good way. I'll talk to her tomorrow.”

Maggie might not be front line anymore, but she could at least help another kid from ending up dead, leaving this world believing no one cared. Heather had been like Hannah once, unconvinced a group home was a better alternative to secure custody. She too had taken the hard road. But this was Vegas. As cliché as it was, if you don't know when to fold 'em . . .

A kid like Hannah and that old cliché had taught Maggie a valuable lesson. The war was fought in the trenches—the streets. Five years ago it had been Maggie fighting on those streets. She clutched her purse closer, both ashamed and grateful. Ashamed the streets had become the snapping jaws of her nightmares; grateful the club allowed her access to women who, like Heather, had once been like Hannah, beaten down by others until they believed they were worthless.

“I'm glad you're here,” she said.

“I'd never let you do this by yourself. Ready?”

“No.” How exactly did one prepare for what was ahead of her?

He wrapped his burly arms around her. Beer belly and all, she was grateful for the affection. The man was like a father to her, but unlike her father, Lieutenant Horace Cooper stuck by her, even when she screwed up.

They stepped into the elevator. An anxious twenty seconds later, a ding opened them onto a brightly lit basement. The hollow sound of her heels against the speckled terrazzo broke the eerie silence, and added to her trepidation. As they reached their destination, a sick antiseptic smell made her already queasy stomach lurch. Then he asked her to wait outside the steel doors.

Half content to delay the inevitable, half terrified that if he left her alone she'd break down and cry, she snagged his jacket sleeve just as he pushed against the door. “Are you leaving me?”

“I need to see if they're ready for you,” he replied, easing out of her grasp and giving her shoulder a comforting squeeze.

She'd reached out without thinking, but the relief from those reassuring hands had been worth even this tiniest of meltdowns. “Okay.”

“Don't worry, Maggie. I'll be right back.”

She paced the narrow hallway, her silk blouse doing little to chase the chill away. She shivered from the cold, and from the realization that only the living would care about the frigid temperature on this floor.

True to his word, Horace returned quickly with an apologetic smile. “Mags . . .” He cleared his throat. “I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but the viewing screen . . . well, it's under repair.”

A wall clock filled the silence as she waited for him to elaborate, each tick making her stomach roll. Finally, she understood his meaning. “Seriously?” She'd done this once before, but from pictures, to ID a dealer she'd seen selling to one of her runaways. He'd tried to rip off the wrong people.

“You . . . we have to go into the room,” he said in a tone meant to rally courage.

She had ten—nine women who counted on her. She could do this. “Let's go, then.” Squaring her shoulders, she followed him through the door. Although she was even colder in this room, she forced her arms to her sides, determined to face this head-on.

Seated behind a chrome modular desk, the medical examiner looked up. “Ms. Anderson, give me a minute, please.” He signed whatever document he'd been reading, then stood. A short man in his fifties, he removed wire-framed reading glasses and tucked them in the breast pocket of his gray lab coat. A plastic card clipped to it identified him as Dr. Ronald Wilson.

“I'm sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you.”

He gave her the kind of comforting smile someone gives at funerals, then moved to a sterile wall of steel cubicles. “I'll warn you,” he said, his back to her, “this is never what people expect.”

What exactly
did
people expect? The person to be as they were when last seen? She wasn't that hopeful, and certainly not that naïve. Not anymore.

He unlatched one of the small doors to slide out the heavy gurney. On it lay a body covered in a white sheet. Her throat refused to cooperate when she attempted to swallow. Her brain warned that what she was about to see would bring back the nightmares. But instincts be damned, she owed this to Heather.

Few understood why Maggie didn't work at a shelter for women, her father included. But too often women, and Heather had been one of them, believed that they deserved the crap that life tossed their way, believed no one cared.

Maggie cared. She'd helped Heather take a new road, promised her a better life. Help was foreign to some. For others, asking for it was a show of weakness. Unfortunately, wads of five-dollar tips were a poor substitute for self-worth. Many, like Heather, turned to drugs or alcohol, or worse, ended up dead. Maggie wanted to get to them before their fates were sealed, because no one had reached out when it counted. Although a bright future had been cruelly snatched from Heather, even in death, she had to know Maggie still cared.

She nodded to the coroner.

“I'll draw the sheet enough for you to identify her face. No need for you to see the rest.”

Before Maggie could think about what he meant by that, he did as he said.

She looked down at the metal bed holding the body of a once-beautiful young woman. Her skin now a light gray, her lips tinted blue, so quiet . . . so still . . . devoid of life. The girl she knew was gone. If Juan Desilva had made good on his threat five years ago, Maggie would have been on such a gurney. Unable to prevent the selfish thought from popping into her head, she shuddered. Would her parents have stood on this very spot, identifying her body? If Horace hadn't shown up when he did, they would have.

“Maggie, is this Heather?” Horace's voice snapped her out of the morbid thoughts.

She gave herself a mental shake and nodded. Now wasn't the time to wallow in useless what-ifs.

An empty shell was all that remained of Heather. Hard work had put the slums of her past behind her, but graduating college wasn't meant to be. Maggie forced herself to believe Heather had gone to a better place.

And God or no God, whoever did this would pay.

 

Christian Beck swore under his breath, his fingers barely making any headway on the knotted muscles in his neck. Three aspirins later and still his headache pounded. He knew why. The son of a bitch he'd been tracking had killed another woman. If the prick wasn't stopped, another would follow. Frustration gnawed at him, crawled into his skull and made the pain splinter. He considered a fourth aspirin.

Fresh off the plane, he'd been driving to the police station when Lieutenant Horace Cooper returned his call, letting him know that Maggie Anderson, the woman who ran the strip club, would be identifying the body. After all these years, he'd caught a break and he wanted to jump on it before his old buddies at the agency got to her first. So here he waited, outside the coroner's office, impatiently leaning against the hood of his rented car. The black sedan wasn't his style. He preferred the freedom of a Jeep, top off. But wheels were wheels, and he hadn't the energy to go through the trouble of exchanging it.

He thought about taking his jacket off, but figured he'd try the professional approach first. Maybe she'd be more apt to talk. If she was legit it might work: if not . . . His five-year stint as a special agent had taught him people that bartered sex for money tended to be tightlipped. He'd never met one who didn't have something to hide. That included the lying sleaze that'd fucked with his sister Claire's murder investigation twenty-five years ago. He wasn't going to let that happen again. He'd nail his sister's murderer, his family at last finding justice . . . closure.

He scrolled through the emails on his phone, anxious to see if his team had any updates. Nothing. He shoved it into his pants pocket, resisting the urge to crush it for sheer release. Eager for answers, he adjusted his shades, then pulled at his tie as the hot Vegas sun toasted his head. He was raised in Louisiana sunshine and could handle the heat. He just hated ties.

The doors of the coroner's office parted and a middle-aged man stepped aside to allow a woman to pass. As they continued down the narrow path, she nodded in response to whatever comforting platitudes the man offered. Lost in her own thoughts, her gaze was glued to the ground. He understood. Staring at the remains of someone you once knew would drain the color from anyone's face, no matter how stiff the spine.

Minus the stilettos, she was the type you brought home to Mom; not his of course—his didn't take visitors, not even him. The young woman wore her hair tied back, and when the sun caught the golden strands, a halo of light crowned her head. He grunted. Did angels have legs that went on forever? Hers sure did. She was too pretty, too demure for his taste, but those legs . . .

Dressed in a tapered black skirt and white blouse, she wasn't the one he was waiting for. The woman looked all Wall Street, not like the sleazy club managers he'd come to know. But as he shifted his weight to get comfortable, he realized the duo was headed in his direction.

“Mr. Beck?” the man inquired.

Taking a hard look at the guy, now seeing the badge clipped to his waistband, Christian nodded. “Lieutenant Cooper?” He shook the man's hands, his eyes darting between the pair.
What the hell?

“After we talked, I figured you'd be waiting for us. This,” the lieutenant said, placing a hand at the small of her back, “is Maggie Anderson, a close friend of the victim.”