LITMIR.BIZ

      Chapter One

      Heather recoiled with disgust and turned away from the couple in the dark corner, their gyrating bodies moving as wildly as the couples filling the dance floor. Every beat of the music hammered at her skull. The smoky haze had her eyes watering. And the rancid odor of the sweaty mass of people seething around her had nausea coiling in her stomach.

      Normally a seedy bar wouldn’t faze her. She’d been in nearly every major nightclub in northeast Florida, let alone Saint Augustine, because of her job. The free-flowing alcohol lowered inhibitions and made gathering information far quicker and easier than an old-fashioned stakeout ever could. But tonight wasn’t about work. Tonight wasn’t about snapping pictures of a cheating husband in a compromising position for a couple hundred bucks. Tonight was about finding her sister, going home and soaking away her pounding headache in a tub full of strawberry bubble bath.

      She clutched her purse to dissuade any greedy fingers from trying to pilfer her wallet and fought her way to the bar, like a salmon swimming upstream. By the time she found an empty stool to perch on, she’d been groped and propositioned so many times she was seriously considering exchanging her tub of strawberry bubble bath for a tub of hand sanitizer.

      The bartender stopped in front of her. But even though his lips were moving, Heather couldn’t make out what he was saying over the heavy-metal music pumping out of the speakers. He motioned to her and she leaned forward.

      “What are you having?” he shouted.

      She shook her head. “Not drinking. Looking for my sister, Lily. She looks like me. Have you seen her?”

      “Do you have a picture?”

      “I am the picture. She looks exactly like me. We’re identical twins.”

      He wiped his greasy hair out of his face and squinted at her in the dim light. His mouth curved in a lecherous grin, as if he was considering the possibility of a threesome. “Sweet.”

      Heather’s stomach rolled. She hopped off the bar stool, but the bartender waved for her to wait.

      “Check the bathroom,” he said. “I might have seen her heading in that direction a few minutes ago.” He pointed to the dark hallway just past the couple who’d been enjoying each other so enthusiastically earlier. They both had silly, sleepy grins on their faces now. The guy looked at Heather and winked. She shivered with revulsion.

      After thanking the bartender, she braced herself for another battle and fought her way through the throng of people to the pink neon sign that read Females and hung over the women’s restroom.

      When she pushed the door open, the strong smell of urine and stale beer hit her with gale force. She coughed and waved her hand in front of her face. If her sister wasn’t in this bathroom, she was leaving. She’d go home until Nick was finished with whatever emergency his boss had called him about. And this time, when he offered to help her get her sister into an alcohol treatment program, she’d listen.

      Just thinking

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