Chapter 6
Kinsley
I sat quietly in the cab as it wound through the city streets, gaze fixed on the rain-splattered window. Even at the crack of dawn, the neon lights of the city blurred together in streaks of color, matching the chaotic swirl of thoughts in my poor, aching head.
The events of the night, coupled with my building anxiety as we approached our destination, accumulated into one big headache that no amount of aspirin could possibly alleviate. Beside me, Ethan flicked through his phone, leg bouncing restlessly.
I hadn’t wanted to drag Ethan into my mess, but after what he saw, what he knew, I couldn’t do what I needed to do without him. The name – Penelope – hung in the air between us, unspoken. Penelope was missing, not dead. Definitely not dead. But she felt like a ghost, hovering in my peripheral. Always present, always just out of reach.
"We’re almost there.” Ethan spoke up, breaking the silence and jolting me out of my misery. He glanced over at me, his expression significantly less severe than it had been when Hunter was present.
Something in my own expression made him lower his phone. “You okay?”
The sharp, barking laugh was past my lips before I could stifle it. “Aside from the crippling guilt and ten thousand ‘what if’s’ playing on loop in my head? Just dandy.”
Ethan gave me a wry smile in response.
I looked down at my hands, picking at long, manicured nails that had once been foreign to me. “Sorry, just… tense.”
He shrugged, leaning back in his seat and crossing long, gangly legs that barely fit in the cramped space. “It’s all right, I get it.”
He was probably the only one who did.
Back when Hunter had asked about Ethan, I couldn’t give her the truth. Not the whole truth, anyway. Ethan had helped me climb the ranks, and he did get me the job at Micere. Hell, he even taught me how to walk in heels. But before that, before I had ever crammed myself into a corset and stepped into the spotlight, Ethan had known Penelope.
He knew her, and he knew something of what happened to her.
I kept my gaze fixed on the window, watching the streetlights zip by. “I’m sorry, by the way – for how I treated you back then.”
It was Ethan’s turn to laugh, the kind of breathy half-laugh that insinuated ‘you were an asshole – but water under the bridge’.
“I mean it.” I knocked my knee against his, a small, sheepish smile on my lips. “I was so rude to you, and you just wanted to help.”
I could still remember the night he turned up at my apartment, banging on every door until he found the right one – found me. He said he’d been looking for me, and I’d told him I hadn’t ordered a stripper. He told me Penelope was taken.
I let him in swiftly after that.
The shaking blond had been nearly inconsolable, oscillating between snarky and sarcastic, and overtly distressed. I made him a cup of tea and he told me what happened.
“Seriously, K.” Ethan nudged me with his elbow. “It’s fine. Besides, from what I’d heard about you, I was prepared for you to be a tight ass.”
“I am not a tight ass!”
Ethan snorted in response, then his expression grew more somber. “I wish I could have done more that night. I keep replaying it in my head, trying to figure out what I could have done differently.”
My burgeoning grin quickly dissipated, the weight of the world crashing down on my shoulders once again. I reached for his hand, giving it a light squeeze. “You did the best you could.”
Penelope’s ghost was at my shoulder again, wide eyes watching the both of us.
Ethan had witnessed her kidnapping at Micere where she danced every night. He’d been out for a smoke, eyes half-lidded, his mind somewhere else. He barely noticed the trio slipping out the back entrance, didn’t pay them any mind – until the one in the middle cried out to him.
By the time he realized it was Penelope, she was already in the car. And by the time he reached the sidewalk, the car was long gone.
He’d tried the police and found no allies there. So he came looking for me.
We were both angry then, both distressed. Both determined to get her back. It was why we stuck together, and it was why we were in that cab, speeding off with no sleep to speak of to meet with someone who might have some answers – a former client of Penelope’s who claimed to have more information.
Penelope. The name was an echo in the back of my mind, building to a thundering roar. Alongside it were my usual companions – tearing pain and unavoidable, crippling guilt.
I should have listened to her.
I sighed, sinking into my seat. “You’re not the only one wishing to turn back the clock.”
Ethan cocked his head to show me he was listening.
“She called me, months ago, right before she went missing. She had asked for advice, casually, like it was an afterthought – something about a friend struggling with addiction.”
I winced, like the memory was bound in barbed wire, pricking and poking where it rolled around in my head. “She needed help. And I, always busy, always working, brushed her off. It hadn’t seemed important at the time. I had promised myself I’d call her back later, but – later never came.”
Now, I would do anything to do that conversation over again. To pay attention, and hear what she was really trying to tell me.
Ethan didn’t speak, but he didn’t have to. His hand found mine and squeezed it tight. Misery loves company, but company is comfort, after all.
When the call pulled up to the curb, Ethan glanced my way. “You ready?”
Unable to muster a single syllable, a ghostly hand squeezing my throat, I simply nodded. Let’s just get this over with.
The cab was pulled up in front of an old apartment building in a part of town I usually avoided. The man we were meeting was waiting for us upstairs, one of Penelope’s return clients. He was fond of her, at least that’s what Ethan had told me, and regular enough to notice things.
Inside the building, we climbed a set of creaky stairs, dodging moths that fluttered around the lightbulbs, and Ethan knocked on the door to the apartment. After a few tense seconds it opened a crack, revealing a pale man in his forties. His eyes flickered between us with suspicion before landing on me, something like recognition passing over his face.
“Ethan, I presume?” The man opened the door wider, nodding to the both of us. “And you must be Penelope’s – ”
I stiffened at the mention of Penelope’s name, cutting him off briefly. “I’m here to ask a few questions. You knew her, right?”
He beckoned us in, and we ducked out of the warm glow of the lobby and into the apartment. The whole place smelled faintly of stale cigarettes, and the dim light made everything look washed out. The man motioned for me to sit on the worn couch but I remained standing, arms crossed, itching for answers.
“Yes, I knew Penelope. I was a regular,” the man said eventually, sinking into a chair across from us. “She was... a sweet girl. Had a lot going on, though.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, voice sharper than intended.
The man leaned back, sighing as if the memory was too much to bear. “It was clear she was struggling. Addiction, mostly – though I have no idea what she was taking. She tried to hide it, but I could tell. There were nights she’d be so strung out, I wondered if she even knew where she was.”
My heart clenched, and Ethan, already catching up with my train of thought, caught my eye. The friend with the addiction. It hadn’t been a friend at all. But I knew that. I knew it back then too, and I still put the phone down. Busy right now, talk later.
That was the last thing I ever said to her.
“She told me she had plans.” The man was speaking again and I shrugged off my swarming thoughts. “To get out of the business, to clean up. But then, one day, she was just... gone. No explanation. I asked around, but no one knew anything. Eventually, they told me she wasn’t coming back and offered to set me up with another dancer.”
“And that was it? No word from her?” Ethan pressed, his brow furrowed.
“Not a word. But...” The man hesitated, as if unsure whether he should say more. “There was one client who seemed... more interested than most. A woman. She’d book private sessions with Penelope, but it always felt like she was more interested in something else. Not the dance.”
Ethan straightened at that, a flicker of recognition in his eyes. “I remember her. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but yeah. She was – intense? Anyway, do you remember anything else about her?”
The man shook his head. “Not much. Tall, well-dressed, always wore sunglasses, even at night. Weird thing was, she didn’t seem like the type to be there for the usual reasons. She was just... watching.”
Ethan and I exchanged hesitant glances. This was the first solid lead we’d gotten in weeks. But it wasn’t much to go on.
I turned to the man again, demanding in my desperation, “Do you know her name?”
“No.” The guy sighed, reaching into the wilted sofa cushions and tugging out a box of cigarettes. “I only ever saw her with Penelope. After Penelope disappeared I tried to speak to her, see if she knew where our favorite had gone off to. But she wasn’t the friendly type.”
I swallowed, trying in vain to push down the rising tide of guilt. I let this happen. I should have been paying more attention.
“Well, thank you.” Ethan spoke for me, standing up and shaking the man’s hand. “We appreciate the information.”
As we made our way out onto the sidewalk, Ethan tentatively touched my shoulder, like he was unsure whether a hug or a fist bump would be more suitable for the occasion. “I’ll do some digging. See if I can figure out who this woman is.”
I nodded, but didn’t reply. My mind was still back in that apartment, replaying the man’s words. A strange client. Someone who had eyes only for Penelope. Who was she?
“You okay?” Ethan asked again, voice soft as he bumped my elbow with his own.
“I will be,” I muttered, pulling my coat tighter around myself. “For now, I need to keep dancing at the club. Maybe this woman will turn up again.”
Ethan gave me a long, hard look, but didn’t argue. We walked in silence, side-by-side, the first spattering of rain soaking into our clothes.
Every night I spent at the club was a chance to find the woman who had been so fixated on Penelope. And maybe, just maybe, that would lead us to the truth about what had happened that night. But until then, I would have to keep up the charade. The dancing, the flirting, the constant feeling that I was getting in too deep.
“Whatever it takes ,” I whispered to the ghost, the only reassurance I could offer, “I’ll find you.”