Provocation (Explicitly Yours 3)

“Where is she?”

“I told you already.” The man spit chewing tobacco on the sidewalk next to Beau’s feet. “She ain’t in here.”

“She has to be. She’s not out here.” Beau took a threatening step closer. “You know her?”

The man just looked him over. “Yeah. I’m the owner, Kincaid.”

“So what the fuck happened tonight?”

“Not my business. You take that up with her.” He went to shut the door, but Beau grabbed it, stopping it cold. Kincaid was short and squat, not nearly as meaty as the security guards.

“Tell me, or I’ll get LAPD here within five minutes. I know the chief. You don’t want them sniffing around.”

He shrugged. “Call them. I got nothing to hide. Maybe you ought to get the police on the phone anyway, because like I said ten times already, your girl isn’t in here. And I tell you, I got a real thing about possessive boyfriends. Don’t like them, don’t want them hanging around. Kind of a pet peeve I got.”

Beau didn’t remove his hand from the door. He didn’t know the police chief personally, but he had a solid link to him. He wasn’t going to involve him, though, not yet anyway. He’d had a neighbor call the police on him once, when he and Brigitte had lived in a dump with thin walls, and she’d gotten hysterical over something. The officer’d arrived to find her calm and charming, and by the time he’d left, it was with her phone number. The police had done nothing for Beau that day or since, and they certainly wouldn’t give a fuck about a woman who’d gone missing from a strip club twenty minutes ago.

“All right,” Beau said, lining up his options. “Okay. What do you want? Money?”

Kincaid reeled slowly back, as if Beau’d offered him a bag of shit. “I want you to get the fuck off my property. That’s all we been telling you since the moment you touched her.”

“Just tell me why. Why’d you kick me out?”

Kincaid sighed, looked around the lot. “Something fishy here, but if it’ll get you to leave, I’ll te

ll you. Lola was here this afternoon, said she was bringing you by, said if you touched her, I should remove you. Treat you like any other customer, but I’ll be honest, the guys went easy on you. Weren’t really sure what we were dealing with.”

Beau breathed through his nose, trying, failing, to put the pieces together. She’d arranged it beforehand, that he’d known, but why go through everything she did, from warning him not to touch her to begging him to? “If I find out she’s in there—”

“She ain’t. She got a key to your place?”

“Of course.”

“Probably at home then. Good luck.” Kincaid pulled on the door, and Beau released it. He fumbled with his keys, got into his car and sat with his hands gripping the wheel. He shut his eyes and envisioned himself at the head of his boardroom faced with a problem. Everyone around the table, looking to him for the solution. Because there was an answer. He just needed to find it.

Beau was no angel—he had enemies. Powerful ones. Business was their battlefield. It’d never crossed into personal territory for him—but perhaps he’d pissed off the wrong person.

Beau opened his eyes and looked into the side mirror again, the lip mark plastered on his reflection. It seemed like a message that had nothing to do with business. It was a stretch, thinking someone had targeted Lola to get back at him. Those weren’t the kind of enemies he’d made, and Lola wasn’t a damsel in distress.

Beau tried her cell again and got the same recording. He turned his phone over in his hand, checked the screen and battery. He dialed Warner as it occurred to him Lola might’ve contacted him for a ride.

Beau spoke as soon as the line clicked. “Warner, have you heard from—”

“—reached the voicemail of—”

He hung up. Of all the days he could’ve given Warner off. He called the house, reasoning if Lola had left right after he’d seen her, she could be back there by now, but nobody answered.

There was only one other place she could be, and the last place he wanted to go. He started the car, the engine waking up like a hungry lion. As he pulled out of the parking lot, he made another call.

“Hey Joe.” It was a man, not difficult to figure out which one.

Beau cursed silently. He wasn’t about to ask Lola’s ex-boyfriend if he’d seen her. Lola had talked about two other people she’d worked with, Amanda, who’d blown Johnny, and Veronica, a friend.

“Hello?” Johnny asked.

“I’m calling for Veronica.”

“One sec. Vero!”

Beau waited through some shuffling until a woman came on the line. “Yeah?” she asked, already wary.

“Is this Veronica?”

“Who is this?”

“I’m looking for Lola Winters. Have you seen her tonight?”

Veronica grunted. “She doesn’t work here anymore.”

“Have you seen her, though? Tonight? Is she there now?”

“Now? I haven’t seen her since—”

“Who is that?” Beau heard in the background, Johnny again.

“Nobody,” Vero said. There was more rustling on the line. “Johnny, what—mind your own fucking business.”

“Sounds like my business,” he said.

“It’s not. Go pour a drink or something.”

Beau was halfway between Hey Joe and Cat Shoppe now. He didn’t want to go in if he didn’t have to. No good would come from being in the same room with Johnny.

“You still there?” Veronica asked after a few silent seconds.