Steph shook Clarissa’s hand. “So great to meet you. I’m excited to see the club.”
“Let me give you a quick tour, and then we’ll make sure you can be up front when Jane performs.”
With a hand on her lower back, Clarissa guided Steph through the club. Though it didn’t take any special insight to figure out the long mirrored bar was, indeed, the bar, or that the black hardwood floors were, in fact, the dance floor, the VIP treatment was welcome when Clarissa plowed through the crowds on the winding staircase that led to the second level. A balcony wrapped around all four sides of the dance floor up top, giving a perfect view of the crowds below.
Including Jake.
He leaned casually against the bar, a glass of what looked to be Scotch in his hand. No Tommy Bahama shirt tonight. He wore a black T-shirt that showed off his toned, muscular arms and a pair of dark blue jeans. Simple, yet totally hot, even from a distance. She made eye contact, but that was all. That moment was enough for him to walk away from the bar.
On cue.
“Eli loves to watch the crowds from here,” Clarissa said, gesturing to the throngs below—young women in tight dresses and guys in shorts and short-sleeve shirts. “You can just feel the energy radiate, can’t you?” Clarissa said, inhaling as if she were drawing in that very energy.
“Oh yes, absolutely.”
“And,” Clarissa continued, pointing a French-manicured nail toward the ceiling, “We have a dozen disco balls. They just make the whole place light up, don’t they?”
The silvery disco balls swirled above the floor, casting slivers of rich purple, royal blue, and lush red rays of light on the dance floor. They were retro and seventies, but somehow they weren’t cheesy at all. They worked.
“Gorgeous,” Steph said, and she meant it.
“Come. Let me show you our VIP rooms,” Clarissa said, gesturing to a hallway lined with three paintings—a square, a rectangle, and an oval in black tubular frames that maintained the geometric theme of the art.
“The art is lovely. Anything special to them?” she asked.
“They’re from the gallery around the corner. Isla’s gallery.”
“Ah, but of course.” Naturally, Eli would shower his fiancée’s business with greenbacks.
Steph peered at the name of the artist in the corner: Lynx. So Lynx liked to make shapes, and Eli liked to buy them. The question tugged at her—was the art connected at all to the missing funds? Jake had said they originally thought the fund’s missing money had been channeled into art, but now they were sure it had gone into gems. Even so, given Eli’s affection for art, she and Jake wanted to know if art played a part.
As a hiding spot.
As they walked down the hallway, the hair on her neck stood on end. She sensed Jake was nearby. That was the plan—as she received the tour, he’d follow behind, peeking into corners, checking out secret passageways, assessing locations for a safe. Steph swallowed nervously. She’d never tried to pull off this sort of cloak-and-dagger routine. But she reminded herself, as Clarissa gave her a tour of the VIP rooms with blue velvet couches and bottle service, that she wasn’t the one who had to slink around.
Jake needed to ghost through the club, and he seemed to be doing a damn fine job of it.
He slowed as they passed the three paintings that matched the style he’d seen in the gallery yesterday, though it was hard—no pun intended—to tear his gaze away from Steph’s ass. That dress was clinging to her body in all the right places, stirring up not-so-distant memories of how she’d felt in his hands this afternoon on the beach.
The way she’d rubbed against him. How her breath had caught when he’d squeezed those cheeks. Damn. He could use a little breathing room in his jeans right about now.
He zoned in on the art to get his mind away from the off-limits woman who rounded the bend in the hallway, out of sight.
What was the deal with these paintings? They didn’t seem very good, but then he knew little about art. He was more interested in what they might be hiding. Most people were creatures of habit. They had their routines, and they followed them, including criminals. Even the smartest of thieves. They might unearth more clever cover-ups and devise trickier schemes, but human nature was human nature, and that didn’t change even for the best con men.
That often meant a thief’s likes and dislikes were guideposts on the path to cracking a case. Passwords, combinations, and locations were rarely truly cryptic.
Eli liked art.
So Jake needed to study the art. Even if art was no longer the item in question, the art here at the club might tell him something.
As he strolled down the hall, he lightly ran his hand along the frame of the first one, looking for any clues. He didn’t expect Eli had hidden a safe right here in plain sight, but something caught his interest. The frame looked awfully heavy for such a light, airy, contemporary piece of art. Didn’t modern art have simpler frames? Or no frames at all? But this was a sturdy bastard, and he was damn curious why.
Before he could investigate further, a group of people walked by. He tucked his hands in the pockets of his jeans and struck his best just-a-guy-wandering-down-the-hall pose. Seconds later, Steph and Clarissa emerged from a VIP room, their backs to him.
“And here’s Eli’s office,” the woman said, pointing to a door at the end of the hall. “Now, let’s get you out to the dance floor. Jane is about to start.”
They left his line of sight.