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Category: Erotica/Classic Erotica/Mystery/Crime
Description: A noire mystery with a dash of sex that is guaranteed to satisfy your needs for a great read! Casey Sturm once danced around poles and she thought she was out of the life forever when she got her PI license. But when a bar owner who kept her off the streets as a teen is implicated in the murder of a young dancer, she is drawn back to the last place she wanted to go. She gets involved with an old lover, a skirt-chasing attorney, and a handsome police detective. Another dancer is murdered and Casey hits the stage to trap a killer and it nearly costs her life.
eBook Publisher: Renaissance E Books/Sizzler,
eBookwise Release Date: November 2012

Available eBook Formats: OEBFF Format (IMP) [341 KB]
Words: 78589
Reading time: 224-314 min.

CHAPTER 1

Sometimes an opportunity can be invitation to disaster. I had three opportunities to avoid the whole thing in the same morning. I took two of them, but in the long run, all three decisions contributed to the disaster.

"Come on, girlie, a hundred bucks for one night," Benny Trout said over the telephone.

I hadn't danced in his club for almost eight months. I had overdue bills, a poorly functioning air-conditioner, and I was living off TV dinners, apples, and coffee, but I was trying to erase everything I had done wrong for the last fifteen years. Going back to strip only one night for easy cash was too much like going back into the life.

"Sorry, Benny. I can't do it." I hung up before I was tempted further.

I didn't know at the time that one of his girls had been murdered.

The air-conditioner died sometime during the night and the next morning was even hotter. I was trying to figure out how to pay my gas and electric bill and regretting not taking Benny's offer when I received another call. A professor at Johns Hopkins University wanted to hire me in a custody case. I agreed to see him after his last class.

Although I didn't particularly like the way he sounded, an old boyfriend of mine had recommended me, and the call itself put me on a temporary high. I was toweling off, when the phone rang again and my body went stiff.

What if the professor was calling back to cancel? I couldn't stand the suspense. I dropped the towel and snapped the hand piece before the new but not too reliable answering device kicked in.

"Sturm Investigations."

"It's Benny. I need you."

"I told you, I can't help you." With potential of Rombaugh's case, I was more confident.

"One of my girls got herself murdered."

My stomach knotted. I thought about Gretchen and Tasha, women I had danced with for the last five years. I swallowed before I spoke.

"Who?"

"Kristal, the girl I brought to your party."

I barely knew her. I was relieved and then I felt rotten because I was relieved.

"I won't dance." It was a nicer way to say "strip" or "pole dance."

"OK, you won't, but you're a private detective, right?"

My license was less than six months old.