Brian Freeman: Stripped

The cop rubbed his oversized neck and smiled. “Whatever you say.”

“But hands off the girl,” Stride added.

When Elonda was safely in the back of a patrol car, Stride sought out his new partner.

It was odd, working the street again, a detective on the case. He had been the lieutenant in Duluth, a big fish in a small pond, and now he was just another investigator on the Metro Homicide Detail in Las Vegas. The closest thing he had ever had to a partner back home was Maggie Bei, the senior sergeant in his detective division. Stride and Maggie had worked together for more than a decade, and the tiny Chinese cop with the sharp, sarcastic tongue had become his best friend. Now Maggie was still in Minnesota, married and off the force, a baby on the way. Stride was in Sin City, the last place he could have imagined being.

Thanks to Serena.

He had met Serena Dial over the summer, while the two of them investigated a Las Vegas murder that had its roots in a teenage girl’s disappearance in Minnesota years earlier. The investigation had upended his life in Duluth and destroyed his second marriage, which he knew had been misguided from the start. Maggie rarely missed an opportunity to remind him that she had seen divorce coming for him like a train wreck, and he had ignored her warnings.

But old things ended, and new things began. Meeting Serena had changed everything. She was beautiful, smart, and funny, despite the sharp edges that came with a troubled past. He fell for her fast and hard. When the investigation was over, he had followed Serena here, to this wild world, and wound up back on the street.

Now he had a real partner again, who looked like she didn’t relish the task of playing second fiddle to a Vegas newcomer.

“Amanda Gillen,” she announced brusquely as he approached her, as if she expected him to challenge her. Her voice was husky. Or maybe she was just half asleep, as Stride was, after the phone call had dragged him out of bed, and out of Serena’s arms, in the middle of the night. His first murder case in Vegas. A body on the street on Flamingo.

“I’m Stride,” he told her.

Amanda nodded and began nervously tapping her foot on the street. Her lower lip jutted out, and she glanced around to make sure they were out of earshot. Her face was taut and unhappy.

“Look, I give everybody one free joke before I get pissed off, so do you want to make it now, or do you want to save it for a rainy day?”

Stride cocked his head. “What?”

“You know,” she said sourly.

“You lost me, Amanda.”

Her eyes narrowed as she watched the puzzlement on his face. The wrinkles in her forehead went away, and her jaw unclenched. She gave him an odd, sparkling smile that was suddenly friendly and not at all closed off. “All right, maybe you don’t know. Forget it. No big deal. It’s two in the morning, and I’m crabby.”

“You and me both.”

‘That was nice with the hooker. The way you got her to talk. You’re good.”

“Thanks,” Stride said. He added, “I like your boyfriend’s car.”

Amanda smirked. “Oh, the Spyder. It’s mine, actually. We were out dancing when I got paged. I told him if he puts a dent in it, I put a dent in his dick.”

“Yeah, that’s an incentive,” Stride said. “You win it at the slots?”

“Something like that.”

Stride watched her swallow hard, and a flush rose in her cheeks. She had a long face that tapered to a slightly protruding chin. Her lips were puffy and pale pink. She had thin black eyebrows and she had taken the time to apply her makeup with considerable care. Her Saturday night look, Stride guessed. Despite the wrestler-chick bravado, she looked pretty when she smiled and vulnerable when she was nervous. Stride figured she was about thirty.

“Got an ID on the vie yet?” Amanda asked.

Stride nodded. “Canadian driver’s license. Probably a tourist whose luck ran out. Name is Michael Johnson Lane.”

Amanda did a double take. “MJ Lane?”

“That’s right.”

She whistled and shook her head. “Oh, shit.”

“You know him?”

“Check your spam folder once in a while, Stride,” Amanda told him. “His bare ass is probably in half of the messages. Not to mention every issue of Us magazine.”

“My subscription lapsed,” Stride said.

Amanda studied his face long enough to realize he was joking, and a smile curled onto her full lips. “Well, you’re in Las Vegas now,” she retorted. “People, Us , and the Enquirer are more important reading than a DEA circular around here.”

Amanda walked over to the body. She wore ridiculously high heels, and Stride realized she was several inches shorter than he first thought. He noticed one of the ME staff look at her nervously and back up to give her space. Amanda didn’t pay any attention. She bent from the waist until her hands were flat on the sidewalk, and she turned her head sideways to stare at the corpse’s dead eyes. Stride found himself noticing her attractive, muscular ass and firm legs as her jeans pulled tight. He looked quickly away as she got up and announced, “Yeah, that’s MJ.”

“All right So who is MJ Lane?”

“Trust fund baby,” Amanda said. “His dad’s Walker Lane. You know, the billionaire producer in Vancouver.”

“Other than Daddy’s money, what’s his claim to fame?”

“He hangs with the right crowd. Hollywood connections. He was low profile until he filmed a very nasty rendezvous with a young soap actress last year. Somebody stole it, and it wound up all over the Internet. Bondage, anal sex, real kinky stuff.”

“A star is born.”

“Absolutely. Him getting popped is big news. You’re going to get your picture in all the tabloids.”

“I’ll whiten my teeth,” Stride said.

“So what do you think? Does it look like someone was stalking MJ?”

“It feels like an assassination,” Stride said. “A pro.”

“But he didn’t kill the girl,” Amanda pointed out. “A pro would take out the witness.”

“Yeah, true. He left the shell casing, too. A.357.”

“So maybe not a pro.”

“Maybe not,” Stride agreed. “But he planned it well. Cool, in and out fast. The question is, was the guy specifically after Lane, or do we have some kind of moral crusader out to clean up the city’s prostitution problem?”

“Or both,” Amanda said. “MJ’s not the first celeb to get his ice cream cone licked around here. The perp could have been staking out the casino, looking to make a big splash, get some headlines with the hit.”

Stride nodded. “Except from what you say about MJ, there could be plenty of reasons for someone to want him dead.”

Pete, one of the valets at the Oasis, remembered MJ Lane.

“He came in around ten o’clock,” Pete told Stride and Amanda when they quizzed him at the casino’s porte cochere. Pete was young and as white as a tube of toothpaste, with brown hair slicked down to lie flat on his head. He wore black pants and sneakers, and a snug waist-length jacket in burgundy.

“Alone?” Stride asked him.

“ Mr. Lane? Not hardly. He had Karyn on his arm. Karyn Westermark. You know, the soap actress?” He fanned himself as if the cool night air had turned warm. “You saw the video on the Net? That was her. Hot stuff. Man, she’s better than a porn star.”

“How’d they get here?” Amanda asked. “Cab? Limo?”

Without answering, Pete broke off to attend to a gray Lexus sedan, opening the passenger door and then running around to the opposite side to take the car keys and hand the driver a parking stub. He returned, apologizing and pocketing a fifty-dollar tip. He cast a nervous eye as two more cars pulled into the driveway. Two in the morning at the Oasis on Saturday night was prime time.