Read Fatal Affair: 1 (Courthouse Connections) for Free Online

act
finished half an hour later, Lanie stuffed the money customers had tucked in
her thong into her bag. Although the tips seemed to be decent, she could tell
without counting that they were way short of the eight hundred she needed.
    She hurried up the darkened stairs,
trembling at the prospect of spending the entire night with the stranger. Never
mind that she’d zeroed in on him because he’d looked unintimidating. This
wasn’t going to come easily to her.
    Come off it. It’s not as if you’re a
virgin or anything. Not that a few backseat tumbles with ham-handed teenage
boys are likely to have given much of an idea what an all-night encounter with
a grown man will be like…
    She paused outside the door and tried to
convince herself that fucking a stranger wasn’t all that much different from
fucking a casual boyfriend after he’d paid for her ride ticket at the
Strawberry Festival.
    Finally composed, she pasted a smile on her
face, unfastened the tie on her negligee and turned the knob on the door to the
room he’d indicated. When she stepped inside, she found her john stark-naked,
lying in the middle of the large couch in the corner.
    It looked as though he’d passed out. Lanie
gasped when she went closer and saw those strange, icy-blue eyes open but
staring up at the cracking plaster on the ceiling. When she touched his chest
she couldn’t feel a heartbeat. About to scream, she bolted for the door to
throw it open but a strong, calloused hand reached out and clamped down hard
over her mouth. Its mate grasped her naked belly, keeping her from escaping.
    “He’s dead. We’d better get out of here now
before somebody finds us here. Unless of course you want to be charged with
killing him.”
    When she bit down on his palm, he jerked
his hand away.
    “I didn’t—”
    “Somebody did but never mind. I hear
somebody moving outside. Keep quiet and follow me. Trust me, we don’t want to
be found in here.”
    “Let me go. I have to let the boss know…”
She tried to jerk free but he wouldn’t let go. Terrified, she stood there
shaking, her feet feeling as though glued to the floor.
    Then he jerked at her arm. “He’ll find out
soon enough. Now kick off those stupid heels and come with me. We’ve got to get
out of here.”
    As he practically dragged her out the back
door she heard a series of loud booms. When she glanced back at the club she
saw it was engulfed in flames. People poured out of every available door and
window into the parking lot, like rats leaving a sinking ship.
    * * * * *
    A dead john and another stranger
dragging her from the scene of the crime. No wonder
Lanie was shaking as though what she just recounted had taken place last night
rather than years ago. JD picked her up and took her to the living room, where
he sat on the recliner, holding her on his lap and rubbing her back and
shoulders until she stopped trembling.
    “That had to be awful, sweetheart, but you
still haven’t told me how whatever happened in the club brought you and the
senator together.”
    She shifted in his arms so she could meet
his gaze. “Wayne was the man who dragged me out of the room with the body. I
assumed at the time that they had been having sex when the other man suffered a
heart attack or something.”
    It didn’t shock JD to hear that the senator
was gay, or at least bisexual. What did surprise him was the fact that the
consummate political animal he knew slightly had been stupid enough to fuck
around in a sleazy strip club, whether with another man or a woman. “So what
happened after you two left the burning building?”
    Lanie sighed. “He dragged me up the hill
behind the club to a beat-up pickup parked on an old dirt road. Then we just
sat there while he watched the place burn down. I realized he’d been waiting
for somebody else when a short, stocky man slid behind the wheel of the truck
and started the engine. I only found out later that night that I was with
Wayne—and Bert Davies, his