“Shit,” I hissed when I peeked my head into the cracked door of the VIP room. “Angel?”
He came up beside me. “Yeah?”
I threw the door open, revealing the dead escort lying on the floor. “Does his lack of injuries look like hers?”
Angel turned his head away. “They were poisoned. They had to have been.”
I chewed on the inside of my cheek. “I need to know who the fuck else was in this room and I need it now.”
“Um, eh—excuse me?” a soft voice asked.
I whipped around and found a young girl with tears streaking her cheeks leaning against the railing of the second floor. She had her arms wrapped tightly around her and she trembled so violently that I was concerned her legs would bottom out beneath her. I turned to face her, tilting my head and attempting to make myself look as unintimidating as possible.
“Angel, I’m going to take her downstairs for some water. You got this up here?”
He pulled out his cell phone. “Yeah, I got it. You go.”
I offered my hand to the young woman. “Come. There’s an ice water with your name on it.”
She quickly took my hand and I guided her down the steps. Her heels were impossibly high, and about halfway down the steps I paused so she could take them off. I offered to carry them for her, but she didn’t pass them on to me. So, we eased our way to the bar as the last of the panicked crowd exited through any door they could find.
“Can someone turn off those fucking alarms!?” I bellowed.
And a few seconds later, an eerie sort of quiet washed over the expansive, empty space.
“Ice water?” I asked as I wrapped myself around behind the bar.
I dismissed the bartenders with a wave of my hand as the young woman nodded. “Yes, please. With ice to munch on?”
I grinned. “Ice water with extra ice, coming right up.”
I made both of us the same drink before I leaned against the counter, hoping she’d open up to me.
“All you need to do is tell me what you saw. That’s it. No more, and no less. Okay?” I asked.
She chugged the water back before she started chewing on a piece of ice. “I don’t know. I mean, we had drinks delivered—”
“What kind of drinks?”
She thought for a while on it. “A bottle of…”
Her eyes scanned the bottles behind me before she pointed.
“That red bottle, there. And two of those gold and black bottles.”
I peeked behind me. “All right, so a gin and two tequila bottles. Any mixers?”
She shook her head. “Just soda chasers. That’s all they wanted.”
“Do you know what kind of soda?”
She nodded. “Dr. Pepper and Sprite. It was all I drank that evening.”
So, the poison was in the liquor.“Do you know who delivered the bottles?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t recognize the guy, no.”
A guy delivered the liquor? We didn’t have any men that worked the VIP bar upstairs.
