Brian Freeman - Stripped

The dressing room was small and dreary. Yellowing linoleum stretched across the floor. The ceiling was made up of water-stained foam panels, and aluminum pie pans on the floor caught occasional drips that plinked like music. There was a sleeper sofa on the right and a card table with several chairs around it. Hangers holding Claire’s costumes dangled from a clothes rack on wheels. She had a refrigerator, a sink, and a bathroom at the rear.

Claire gestured to the sofa and the card table. “Take your pick.”

Serena sat in one of the card-table chairs.

“Can I get you a drink?” Claire asked. When Serena shook her head, she added, “I guess it would be bad form to offer a joint to a cop.”

Serena laughed. Claire retrieved a bottle of water from the refrigerator and slouched into one of the other chairs, her long legs stretched out, her elbow on the table. She opened the water bottle with slim, delicate fingers. “Serena Dial,” she said. “Great name.”

“Thanks.”

Claire leaned over and combed her hand through Serena’s black hair. “I love your hair, too. What do you use?”

Serena told her, feeling embarrassed that it was just a cheap shampoo.

Claire nodded and rocked back in the chair. “I guess detectives don’t talk about those kinds of things. You’re tough, right? Detectives are tough. Shouldn’t you be fat and wear a bad suit, instead of being gorgeous?”

“This is my after-hours look,” Serena said with a smile. “During the day I’m fat and wear polyester.”

Claire smiled. “Did you like my show?”

“I thought you were amazing,” Serena told her honestly. “Why aren’t you in Nashville?”

“What, this isn’t glamorous?” Claire replied. She caught one of the drips from the ceiling in her hand. “I don’t do this for the money, and here I can sing whatever I want, whenever I want. In Nashville, people would want to control me.”

“Like your father,” Serena said.

Claire pursed her lips. “Yes, like my father. Am I supposed to be impressed that you know about him? It’s not a secret.”

“But you don’t advertise it.”

“No, I don’t. He probably likes it that way, too. Is that why you’re here? To talk about Boni?”

Serena nodded. “In part.”

“What’s the other part?” Claire asked, taking a drink of water.

“To tell you that you might be in danger.”

“That’s intriguing,” Claire said. “Will you be the one to protect me?”

“This isn’t a joke. Two people are dead.”

Claire nodded. “I never said it was a joke. But why would anyone want to kill me? Because I’m Boni’s daughter? We may be estranged, Serena, but someone would have to be a fool to do that. I know my father, and you’re a cop, so I guess you do, too. Boni would eradicate them. Torture them. They’d wind up in a cornfield like Spilotro.”

“I don’t think whoever is doing this cares about that.” Serena explained about the deaths of Peter Hale and MJ Lane, and the connection that had brought the detectives back to the forty-year-old death of Amira Luz. She added, “Have you ever heard of Amira?”

“No” Claire said. “Boni never mentioned her. But I wasn’t born until later that year.”

“How about Walker Lane?”

“I know of him, of course, but that’s it I wouldn’t have been able to tell you he had anything to do with my father.”

“Why are you and your father estranged?” Serena asked.

Claire didn’t answer. She put her bottle of water between her lips and drank again. Then she took one of Serena’s hands in hers and turned it over, palm upward. Serena didn’t pull away. Claire used her middle finger to lightly trace a line down along Serena’s palm to her wrist. Claire’s finger was moist from the condensation on the bottle.

“I can read palms, did you know that?” she said, with mischief in her voice.

Serena played along. “What do you see?”

“Well, we already know you’re tough.”

“Rights”

“You’re a cop, so I’m going to hedge my bets on your life line. Your love line is broken, I’m sorry to say.”

“Is that so?”

“Definitely.”

“I can also see that you had a passionate affair with another woman when you were young.”

Serena yanked her hand away. “What the hell is this?”

Claire raised her own hands in surrender. “Easy, okay? It was a joke.” She added, “But methinks I touched a nerve, Serena”

Serena realized her heart was pounding. “No, you just surprised me.”

“Well, don’t worry about it,” Claire replied smoothly. “I was reading my own palm. That’s my story. I’m gay, if you hadn’t noticed.”

“Did Boni not approve?”

“That’s part of it”

“But only part?”

Claire sighed. “I spent my first twenty-eight years with Boni running my life, like he runs everything around him. I’m his only child, and he wanted me to follow in his footsteps. I went to UNLV, got a master’s degree in hotel administration, all so I could take over the business whenever he was ready to hand it over. That’s what I wanted, too. He bred all his ambition into me.”

“So what happened?” Serena asked.

Claire’s face was emotionless. “He had to make a choice between me and the business. The business came first. Big surprise.”

Serena guessed that she was covering something up. “What about your mother?”

“She died giving birth to me. It’s always been just me and Boni. At least until I walked out. I decided I wanted to be my own person, not some clone of my father.”

“You sound pretty tough, too,” Serena said.

“I told you, I was reading my own palm. Anyway, that was more than ten years ago, and we’ve hardly spoken since. He makes overtures from time to time, but I’m on my own now. I don’t want him to buy me. It drives him crazy. I’m the only person in the world he hasn’t been able to dominate.”

Serena felt sure that Claire must be very much like her father. Stubborn. Dominant. She imagined that they must have had titanic fights over the years. It impressed her that Claire had stood her ground. That was what she had had to do herself, along the rocky road from her mother to Deidre. People who promised to save her and then betrayed her.

“You’ve made it hard for me to ask what I wanted to ask,” Serena admitted.

Claire shook her head. “Not at all. Ask me anything. I may ask for some of your secrets, too.”

“I need to talk to your father. We think he may know what’s going on, and why. If it involves what happened to Amira, he’s the only one who may be able to put the pieces together.”

“And you want me to call him,” Claire said.

“That’s right”

“I’m sorry, Serena. I’m not ready to do that. If it puts me in his debt, I won’t do it”

“I understand. But lives are at stake. Maybe yours, too.”

“Do you really think I’m in danger?” Claire asked.

“Yes, I do.”

Claire nodded. “I need to think about this,” she said. A moment later, she added, “I can’t give you an answer now, okay?”

“Don’t take too long,” Serena urged her. She found a card in her pocket and handed it to her.

Claire took it and tapped the card lightly on the table. “You tell me something,” she said.

Serena smiled. “Okay.”

“Was I right?”

“You mean about me?” Serena knew exactly what she meant. The affair. Touching a nerve. “That’s none of your business.”

“I forgot, you’re tough.”

Claire stood up and stretched her arms languorously over her head. “I’m going to take a shower,” she said.

Serena scraped her chair back along the linoleum and began to stand up. “I’ll go.”