Night of the Living Deb by Susan McBride

boyfriend.
    “She wasn’t exactly a neatnik, was she?” I remarked, for want of anything better to say. She walks in filth, came to mind.
    Lu let out a humorless laugh. “Girl, it’s looked a whole lot worse than this. Only something’s different. Let me think.”
    She put a finger to painted lips and made a few slow turns in the tiny space, and I tried to imagine how things could look any worse.
    “Ah.” Lu stopped and stared at a bare nail on the wall.
    “What happened to her pretty picture? A rich dude she was dating gave it to her, and she was so proud of it.
    Showed it off to anyone who’d look. She wouldn’t take it unless—” The barmaid in the bustier froze for a second, the skin beneath her overdone makeup suddenly several shades paler. “—unless she wasn’t coming back,” she finished in a much quieter tone.
    “You think she took off and didn’t plan on returning?”
    Allie asked, voicing my thoughts exactly.
    Lu pressed glossy red fingertips to her forehead. “But when I saw her leaving last night, she only had her robe on. Why would she split without getting dressed? And without finishing her set?”
    “Could she have been fired? Told to leave without packing?”
    Allie offered, and Lu shook her head, clearly upset.
    “If she was, nobody said a word, and she was making a bundle in tips, so I know she wouldn’t have quit unless something came up all sudden-like.” Lu looked at me accusingly.
    “I’ll bet it has something to do with your man.
    Maybe she ran off with him.”
    Oh, puh-leeze .
    This had gone far enough.
    If I had to listen to one more misstatement about my boyfriend and this “hootchie mama,” as Allie had called her, I would explode like a carton of toxic yogurt.
    I whipped the photo of Malone out of my back pocket and held it right in front of Lu’s kohl-lined eyes.
    “Is this the guy you saw going out the back door with your friend? Because, if it’s not, don’t be afraid to admit your error. He was wearing a pink button-down shirt and blue jeans. I can understand your making a mistake, since it was late and kinda dark and really loud.”
    If my heart wasn’t banging in my ears before, it was now.
    She chewed on her glossy lips for a minute, studying the shot I’d taken of Malone while we’d moseyed around the Botanical Gardens last weekend. It had been a gorgeous fall day, more like spring, and we’d enjoyed every minute.
    Lu exhaled hard, like she was blowing out smoke, and pushed the photo back in my hands. “Yeah, that’s him. I’d recognize him anywhere.”
    My heart did a nosedive. “You’re positive?”
    “Yeah, I said so, didn’t I?”
    “But—”
    “But nothing.” She narrowed her eyes on me, and I saw pity in them. “Hon, it was him. Same preppy glasses.
    Same button-down collar. He looked so straight, but I guess he’s a bad boy at heart, huh? So many of ’em are like that.”
    No, I wanted to shout. He wasn’t.
    Or was he?
    “Was he someone important?” she asked. “Like a politician?”
    “No,” I said softly. “No one important.” Except to me.
    I held the photo before my own eyes with a shaky hand, staring at the face I thought I knew so well, the gentle smile, the blue eyes warmly crinkled behind the thin wirerims.
    It was all I could do to keep breathing.

“What else do you want, Kendricks?” Allie was quickly on me. “An affidavit? A videotape? A signed confession?”
    I glared at her.
    Lu murmured, “Sorry, girls, but I’m as confused as y’all,” before tacking on, “Stay put, okay? Let me check with the office and see what they know.”
    She took off, leaving me with black-hearted Allie, who probably wouldn’t know what sympathy was if it ran over her in a bulldozer.
    She had a sour look on her face that I didn’t like. Her slender nose wrinkled, her eyes squinted meanly.
    “Spit it out, for Pete’s sake, and quit looking at me like that,” I demanded none too nicely; because I knew exactly what she was