"She say anything about going on a trip?" Johnnie asked.

"Not then, but earlier. A couple of weeks before that she mentioned she was going to the Caribbean. She seemed really excited about it."

Johnnie flicked a glance at Amy. Another confirmation that Rachael was planning a trip.

"Did she say exactly where she was going?" Amy asked.

"She might have. If she did, I don't remember."

"Could it have been Belize?" Johnnie asked.

The woman frowned, then shook her head. "I don't know. She did say that she and a friend would be staying in some fancy villa. But that was a week or so earlier. She didn't mention it after that."

Amy's heart was pounding.

"She happen to say who she was going with?" Johnnie asked.

"No, but I think she was dating someone she really liked. She seemed happy, you know? I thought maybe she had met someone really special. Rachael deserved a man like that."

But she had never told anyone his name. If she was seeing Manny Ortega, a drug dealer's son, she might not want anyone to know.

"Anything else you can tell us?" Johnnie asked.

"I wish I could. Like I said, she didn't mention the trip after the first time."

"We appreciate your help, Eileen."

They left the house a few minutes later and headed down the concrete path to the street.

"I rented a car," Amy said. "That little white one over there."

Johnnie walked her over, waited until she unlocked the car and opened the door.

"Did you talk to Manny Ortega?" she asked.

"I went to his place last night, a restaurant called the Vieux Carre. Manny wasn't there. He left town yesterday. He'll be gone for the rest of the week."

Disappointment slipped through her. "Oh."

"I'll talk to him as soon as he gets back. Sooner if I can find him."

Amy just nodded.

"Listen...I was thinking...wondering..." He cleared his throat. "I've got some friends coming to town. I'm going over for dinner tomorrow night, do a little business. I was wondering if you would maybe...ah, like to come with me. I mean, if you can get off work."

He seemed nervous. She couldn't believe it. He was always so firmly in control.

She beamed him a smile. "Tuesday's one of my nights off this week, so yes, I'd love to meet your friends."

Johnnie looked down at his feet. "It won't be anything fancy, you know, so you don't have to dress up or anything."

"Okay, what time?"

"I'll pick you up at six. That'll give us time to get downtown."

"All right." She glanced at her watch. She needed to get back to work, but she didn't really want to leave. "I'd better go."

"Yeah."

She started to get into the car but Johnnie turned her into his arms and kissed her, a hot, deep kiss that should have embarra.s.sed her since they were standing right there on the street. Instead, she slid her arms around his neck and kissed him back.

Johnnie broke away. The hot gleam in his eyes said he wanted a lot more than kisses.

"I'll see you tomorrow night," he said gruffly, then stood back as she got into the car. Her hands were trembling so badly she could barely stick the key into the ignition. She finally got the engine running.

When she looked back out the window, Johnnie was gone.

Sixteen.

Rick Vega pulled off Melrose down a lane lined with box hedges and palm trees and stopped at the gatehouse at the entrance to Paramount Studios. The place was impressive. Rick knew a little of the history-everyone did who lived in L.A. Paramount was the oldest running studio, started way back in 1912. Every major actor from Rudolph Valentino and Mae West, Gary Cooper and Elvis, to Mel Gibson and Sean Connery had made movies there.

The guard leaned through the window and Rick flipped open his badge. "I need to talk to Marvin Bixler. He's the director on the LAPD Blue series."

Information he had received from Melinda Richards at the children's shelter. According to Melinda, Rachael had interviewed for a part in a new TV series, a takeoff on the old NYPD Blue show. She had been waiting to hear from the studio when she had disappeared.

He hadn't thought to give the information to Johnnie, figured his friend would get the news when he talked to the people at the shelter. And Rick wanted to check it out himself.

"They're shooting in studio twelve," the guard said, after a quick look at his notes. "It's around the corner near the back of the lot." He handed Rick a clipboard. "You'll need to sign in."

He printed his name on the appropriate line, noted the date and time and signed his name, then handed the board back to the guard.

"Go on in."

Rick drove his brown, unmarked Chevy police car toward the back of the lot, parked and went into the big steel building, number twelve, the guard had indicated. It was huge. He figured somewhere around fifteen-thousand square feet of soundstage, with every conceivable sort of staging equipment.

He snagged a guy in the lighting crew, young with short brown hair combed skyward, as the man walked past. Rick held up his badge.

"LAPD. I'm looking for Marvin Bixler."

"You one of the technical advisors? Marv's over there-" He pointed across the set. "The bald guy with the mustache."

"Thanks." No point in correcting him. Rick wasn't there to give advice. He just wanted information.

"Mr. Bixler?"

"Yes?"

"LAPD. I need a few minutes of your time."

"Look, we won't be needing you for at least a few hours. Why don't you wait over-"

"I'm not here as an advisor. I'm hoping you'll be able to help me with a missing persons case."

The director's gaze sharpened. "All right, sure, go ahead."

"I was told a woman named Rachael Brewer tried out for a part in your series. A few days later, she disappeared and no one has seen her since."

"I heard about that. She was using the name Rachael Summers so I didn't put it together till I saw her photo in the newspaper. Rachael was a really talented young actress. She was perfect for the role of Heather Stone, one of the female officers in the show, tough but a heart of gold. I felt like I'd made a real find."

"So Rachael got the part?"

"Would have. No one ever reached her to tell her the news. Then we heard she'd disappeared. d.a.m.n shame."

"Did you interview Rachael yourself?"

He nodded. "She talked to the producer and ran some lines with a couple of the lead actors in the show, as well. We all agreed she was perfect for Heather."

"You ever meet any of her friends, a man, maybe, or a girlfriend?"

"She interviewed more than once but she always came by herself. She was beautiful. Attracted plenty of male attention, I can tell you." He shook his head. "Hard lady to replace but we had no choice. We were scheduled to start shooting a few weeks after she disappeared."

Rick pulled out an LAPD business card and handed it over. "If you think of anything that might help us find her, I'd appreciate a call."

Bixler read the card then stuffed it into his shirt pocket. "Happy to help if I can." When someone yelled his name, he started toward a group of actors dressed in blue uniforms standing on the stage.

Rick turned and headed for the door. Beautiful and talented. Generous and caring. This was not the woman in the department's missing persons file. Those doc.u.ments portrayed Rachael as a woman on the lowest rung of society, with few friends, most of whom were other exotic dancers. A stripper without much of a future, maybe even a prost.i.tute. Then the whispers began linking her with Manny Ortega and the possibility she had been involved with drugs.

It didn't make sense.

The next time he saw Johnnie he'd relay the conversation he'd had with Bixler. He figured in some small way Amy would be pleased to know her sister had finally gotten the break she had been working so hard to get.

He'd do that much, but this wasn't his case and he was spending department time on a matter that shouldn't have involved him. He was supposed to be investigating a homicide down on Sunset that appeared to be gang-related.

But there was something about this case that bothered him, something that niggled the back of his mind but stayed just out of reach. He told himself to mind his own business, that he needed to refocus, stay away from the Brewer case.

Rick was determined to convince himself.

Johnnie stood at the far end of the bar talking to Tate Watters. A man in his late forties, when his hair had begun to thin, Tate had had a transplant, which had only half-a.s.s worked. Now his head was covered with little spikes of hair in what looked like corn rows. Aside from that, with his slender build and blue eyes, he wasn't bad-looking, and amazingly enough, he was happily married to a lady named Linda who kept his account books.

"I hear you're helping Amy look into what happened to her sister," Tate said.

Hearing Amy's real name jerked Johnnie's attention away from where Angel danced, moving as if she owned the stage and every man in the room.

His head whipped toward Watters. "What'd you just say?"

One of Tate's dark eyebrows went up. "You didn't think I knew her real name? I know everything that happens in this place. I knew as soon as I met her. She looks nothing like Rachael, but they both have a way about them. The way they move, the way they walk. And Angel was way too interested in what had happened to Silky Summers. It wasn't hard to find out who she really was."

Johnnie looked hard at Tate. "The fewer people who know the better. We still don't know what happened to Rachael. Angel asks too many questions and somebody might decide to shut her up."

Tate's blue eyes shifted toward the stage. "I'm with you there. I've tried to keep an eye on her. I put her on the early shift as much as I can, but I don't want the other girls to think I'm playing favorites."

"Which you are."

"A little. These women expect me to protect them. Somehow I let Rachael down."

"There've been rumors she was seeing Manny Ortega. You know who he is?"

"The drug lord's son? Haven't seen him in here. Guy does his best to protect his reputation. Since he can't escape the connection to his family, it hasn't done him much good."

"So he didn't come in to see Rachael."

"No. She didn't date much. At least not that I know of. Rachael wanted to be a star and she had the talent and brains to make it happen."

Johnnie looked back at the stage. Amy hadn't spotted him, which gave him a chance to watch her without completely losing it. She was a really good dancer, lithe, graceful, sensuous. Every movement spoke of pure, unadulterated s.e.x and every man in the place wanted to carry her off over his shoulder.

Johnnie was one of them.

Worse yet, he didn't want her dancing for anyone but him. He didn't want the other men to l.u.s.t after her the way he did. He tried to separate the nearly naked woman onstage from the sweet little schoolteacher who had shared his bed, but it wasn't working.

He ground his jaw, told himself he had no say over her. Still...

"Looks like trouble's brewing," Tate said, his gaze sweeping over the crowd of men to a group in the middle of the room who were starting to shove back their chairs. Tate started walking. "If I hear anything useful, I'll let you know."

Johnnie watched the club owner make his way toward the men pushing and shoving, yelling obscenities near the front of the stage. Across the room, the big Asian bouncer, Bo Jing, was also walking toward the men.

The show came to a close and Angel disappeared offstage, heading upstairs to change.

Johnnie watched the scuffle that broke into a full-blown Donnybrook and smiled, glad for once he wasn't in the middle of it.

Bo Jing gripped one guy by the back of the neck, grabbed another the same way and started hauling them toward the door, one in each ma.s.sive hand. Tate was reading another guy the riot act. From the corner of his eye, Johnnie saw Babs rushing toward him and he didn't like the look on her face.

"Johnnie! Some guy's got Angel-"

Johnnie was on his feet and running. Babs pointed toward the backstage area where girls started and ended their shows; he ran past her, and Babs fell in right behind him.

"I think he might have forced her into the equipment room!" Babs shouted as he charged in that direction.

There was a sign printed on the door in big black letters Employees Only. When he shoved the door open, he saw Angel struggling beneath the weight of the slick-looking muscle jock Johnnie had seen sitting alone at one of the tables. He had her on her back, sprawled over a workbench, and was fumbling with his zipper. Johnnie's vision turned red.

"You lowlife p.r.i.c.k! Get away from her!" Before he realized he had moved, he was dragging the man off Amy, slamming a fist into his face. He brought his knee up hard into the guy's privates, and the jerk let out a shriek of pain. Johnnie didn't stop. He hit him and hit him and hit him. When the man crashed into a heap on the floor, Johnnie grabbed him by the hair, dragged his head up and hit him again. He wanted to hurt him, wanted to beat him to a b.l.o.o.d.y pulp. He wanted to kill him.

"Johnnie! Johnnie, please stop!" Amy's voice, high-pitched and nearly hysterical, finally cut through his rage. When he glanced over to where she stood, he saw that she was trembling, the little red pasties missing from her nipples, her arms hugging her chest in a futile attempt to cover herself.