Skin

dug around just as she had with the other girls’ possessions.

“Looking for something?”

Caresse popped up and knocked over the case. Makeup and hair clips spilled onto the floor. Caresse immediately got on her knees and stuffed the loose articles back where they belonged.

“Sorry, Lilith. One of my eyelashes came off, and I ran out of glue. I was gonna borrow yours. Hope that’s not a problem.”

Lilith saw she was telling the truth about the eyelash, but there was glue in full view on the counter.

“No. No problem.” She stepped forward, picked up the tube and handed it to Caresse, who had the grace to looked shamed.

“Lord, ain’t I the peabrain? Must’ve looked right at it and not seen it.”

“You must have.”

Not that Lilith believed it.

She took a big breath. It was time. Having brought one of Hannah’s costumes with her, she changed out of her uniform into the spangly gold number from the underwear to the boneless hourglass corset to the micromini that added a touch of modesty. She was going to do this, but she didn’t like it, and she certainly wasn’t comfortable getting on that damn stage.

“What the hell you doing?” Caresse asked.

“What does it look like? I’m getting dressed.”

“To do what? Not dance.”

She unfroze her lips to say “Yes, dance.”

She had to buy time for Hannah and Carmen. She was going to do this for them.

“Child, are you crazy? You can’t go out there looking like that. Like Anna.”

“Why not? There must be good money in dancing or you wouldn’t do it, right?”

Lilith wasn’t about to play true confessions with Caresse. She didn’t trust anyone here, certainly not a woman who dug through other people’s things and took whatever she wanted. She’d made a deal with Irene, though, to dance to her music. Told the woman it was a one-time surprise for her boyfriend and asked her not to let anyone know lest word got around.

Her stomach clenched every time she thought about it.

“You’re asking for trouble,” Caresse said. “As if you haven’t already. There’s a killer out there who already has you on his radar. You taunt him, and he’s gonna come for you.”

That’s what she was counting on.

This time, she was stoked psychologically.

This time, she was ready for him.

oOo

DESPITE THAT, Lilith’s stomach still churned when she sashayed across the stage to hot music. Not the real Lilith. This one wasn’t thinking about what she was doing as she strutted her stuff, but her body was taking over where her mind simply wanted to shut down.

She went on auto-dance.

Inviting the men in the room to taste something they couldn’t have.

Taunting them.

When bile rose into her throat, she reminded herself she was doing this for Hannah and Carmen. To save them for at least another day. To draw out the killer. Get him to make his move on her. Her body wasn’t sacred. Their young lives were.

Anyone who hadn’t paid attention to her before was doing so now, including several topless dancers with customers who stopped their lap dances to watch.

“I got something for you!” a man called out.

Another said, “Hey, baby, over here!”

“No, here!” insisted a third, who was waving a twenty.

Fake it. Fake it, she told herself.

Lilith went to them all, let them tuck bills into her corset. Steeled her mind against strange fingers touching her. Removed the modesty skirt and let them put more in her g-string. There was nothing unnatural or stiff about the way she was moving, nor about the way she was smiling as if each and every man in the room were desirable. This wasn’t personal — not that most of them understood that.

This was for Hannah and Carmen.

To give them more time.

Her attention was only marginally on the enthusiastic customers around the stage as, all the while, she scanned the room for a killer. As if she could somehow identify him from his rapt interest in her.

Having a drink with a customer at his table in front of the deejay’s booth, Caresse sat stiff, her expression disapproving. Behind her, Rudy Barnes shook his head as he watched, arms crossed over his chest. On the other side of the room, Paul Ensdorf looked both seduced and aggrieved as he did when his sister Melinda danced. As usual, Michael sat at a table near the wall. She couldn’t begin to read him. Or Gabe, who’d stepped away from the bar to watch.

Still dressed in the corset and g-string, Lilith picked up the skirt from the stage floor with numb fingers and tossed it over her shoulder just as the music ended. A discontented rumbling set through the room.

“More!”

“Take it off!”

The killer had only told her to dance for him, not to strip for him.

“Hey, where’s the flesh?”

Ignoring the demands and questions, Lilith took her time strolling off the stage as Melinda came on.

“Not bad for a first dance,” Melinda whispered, then went into her act.

Lilith prayed that it had been enough to save her sister and Carmen until she could find them.

oOo

AN HOUR LATER, Lilith wondered what she was doing back at Michael’s place. After she’d put herself out like that, nothing. To her disappointment, she wasn’t any closer to knowing the identity of the killer than she had been when the evening started.

She’d changed back into her waitress costume and had gone back on the floor. And nothing. Paul wasn’t even speaking to her. Rudy had gone back in his booth. Gabe had suggested she was going to get herself killed. And when she asked Michael how he’d liked it, he’d said, “What I would like is to hear what this Lilith has to say.”

And so, deflated, she’d left the club halfway through the night, and here she was, sitting in front of Michael’s camera once more.

The red light glowed, telling her he was recording.

“Let’s go back to your stepfather. The cruelty you suffered at his hands — how has that affected the way you see the world?”

Surprised that he hadn’t jumped right into the fact that she’d gotten on stage tonight, Lilith said, “You mean the way I see men? I don’t hate men, if that’s what you’re getting at. Not all men, anyway. Only the ones who have to prove their strength by beating up on the weak. Women. Kids.”

“What would you like to do about it?”

Lilith looked away from the camera. Elena had basically asked her the same thing. She still didn’t know how to answer that. Part of her hungered for vigilante action, but most of her just wanted to see justice done.

When she didn’t answer, Michael surprised her by stopping the recording. The red light went off, and he stepped out of the shadows.

“Wouldn’t you like to get even with the bullies of the world?” Michael asked.

Not wanting to answer, to put into words some of the things she’d been imagining, Lilith realized this was a mistake. She should have stayed at the club, played out her hand. Maybe late at night, when she exited the stage door, he would be waiting to challenge her. The killer.

“Coming here tonight was a mistake. I’m going back to the club.”

As she moved toward the door, Michael stopped her from behind, his hands firm but not cruel on her shoulders. “You always avoid the tough ones, Lilith. Tell me what you really want from this charade.”