“Shit, you got a charger in here?” I interrupt Seth.
“Bro, do you know me at all? Take your pick,” he replies, pulling out a drawer in the desk that has a giant charging station assembled with what looks like thirty different ports. I find one of several iPhone cords and snap it into the bottom of my cell, setting it on the desk before leaning back against the wall once more. I had barely plugged it in at home when Seth texted me to get my ass here.
Heather sets her purse in her lap and clutches it to her front. “Dr. Walker, I… I should’ve come sooner. I know that. But when you work for a man like Randy, who makes it perfectly clear that if you cross him, it’s your life that’s endangered, not your job, then it’s hard to find the courage to ask for help. But… but I really like your girlfriend. She’s so sweet and… so innocent in a way, like that baby sister you want to take care of. And I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if something happened to her.”
I’m instantly on alert. What does this have to do with Astrid? I thought she was just coming to give details about her coworker and didn’t think she’d get much protection from the police.
“How would something happen to Astrid?” I prompt, forcing my voice to stay calm even though the panic is rising inside me to fly out of here like a bat out of hell to go to my woman this very second.
“Um.” She pushes her hair behind her ear. “I… I guess I need to start from the beginning. Well, actually the end… of Alison. She was our makeup artist before Astrid. But A Secret isn’t just a strip club. It’s an auction-based brothel. There are three levels—the dance club, where nothing scandalous goes on. It’s just like a regular nightclub. The strip club, which is exactly what you think. And then the auction room, where after a girl strips, the members can bid on a night with her, and then they go upstairs and… do what they will. Well, sometimes Randy partakes in his own product—the girls I mean. He still pays them and stuff, but like… let’s just say he’s not a gentle lover. Alison also delved into dancing whenever she needed extra cash. She wasn’t a regular, but when someone would take a night off or we needed an extra girl, she didn’t mind getting that bonus.
“Anyway, Randy saw her, which I don’t think he had up until that night, because he doesn’t tend to venture to the dressing room, and he wanted her. She wasn’t on the auction level, just the strip stage, but he had two of his men escort her to a room upstairs. Now, we don’t know for sure if he took her willingly or if he forced her. All we know is an hour later, they carried her lifeless body out the back door—past the dressing room—and it looked like she had something around her neck while the rest of her was naked.” She pauses to take a breath, and with it, Seth opens up an Imperium Security report, typing quickly to get down the details.
Heather continues, “Her best friend, one of our coworkers who was there that night, knew she couldn’t go to the police and tell them she was dead, so she reported her missing, hoping Randy wouldn’t find out and that the police would start digging. Well, they did, and that’s when Randy had Crystal call in as Alison to tell them she was fine. The rest of us protected her bestie so he wouldn’t find out who alerted the police.
“So with no makeup artist, Randy tells all of us that we need to find a new one. And if we find one who will also dance, there will be a referral bonus of ten thousand dollars. So Crystal decided to go through Facebook, checking out local makeup artists, sending messages and feeling them out, and then she came across Astrid’s group. She recognized her from the workout classes she does at the gym. And I think you know what happened after that.”
I fill in so Seth understands. “Crystal approached her before class with a card asking if she was looking for a job. And then Astrid told her she was a makeup artist. She and I both thought that was pretty odd, but it turns out, Crystal already knew she was one before she even spoke to her. I wonder why, though. Why not say something like ‘I follow your makeup videos on Facebook and have a job for you if you’re interested’?”
Heather sits forward. “I don’t know if you know this, but Crystal is a conniving, evil bitch. When she realized who Astrid was from her class, she admitted to us girls who were around her while she was searching Facebook that she had been a super-cunt to her because she wanted a piece of her hot boyfriend. So I guess it would’ve been weird for her to suddenly go from bitchy to ‘OMG I follow you on FB!’ so she played dumb. But not very well, apparently.”