Night of the Living Deb by Susan McBride Read Free Book Online Page B

still had Allie on the other phone, so I was doing this two-fisted. “It’s important.”
    “We’re just about to sit down to eat—”
    “It’s about Brian. I can’t seem to find him, and I thought if I talked to Matty, we could figure out where he is.” My own voice sounded odd to my ears, anxious, bordering on tearful.
    My worry must’ve come through loud and clear to Eleanor, because she murmured, “Just a minute,” and I heard mumbled voices before a man said, “Um, Andy, you do know Brian ditched me at The Men’s Club last night, so I’m not exactly high on him right now?”
    “Yes, I know. Allie told me.” I took a deep breath. “But he hasn’t been to his apartment or the office, and I’ve left him tons of messages on his cell and his landline, and Allie’s even paged him, but he doesn’t answer, and I’m getting scared,” I yammered without so much as a pause.
    “Please, tell me you’ve heard from him?” It was impossible to cross my fingers with a phone in both hands, so I did it mentally.
    “No, I haven’t.”
    Well, crud.
    “I’m not surprised he’s somewhere, hiding with his tail between his legs, since he took off after that woman last night and ditched me completely. I had to bribe a waitress to go backstage and look for him, which is when I heard he’d left with the chick through a back door.”
    “Left with a chick?” I echoed, thinking I’d heard wrong,
    what with my pulse pounding so loudly in my ears. “You saw him go backstage with a woman? And he took off with her?”
    “Oh, hell, Andy, I don’t think I should be telling you this.”
    I doubt I’d ever shaken with disappointment before, not so my teeth chattered, but I was doing it now. My whole body quivered, my knees fairly knocking, “For God’s sake, Matty, spill, or I’ll come over there right now and drag it out of you.”
    “All right, all right.” He sighed. “But I shouldn’t be the one to do this. If Brian’s got something going on, he should tell you himself.”
    I didn’t move. Didn’t say a word. Just stood there, holding the phones to my ears with trembling hands, and waited.
    “He was supposed to go arrange for me to have an, um, lap dance .” He whispered the two words as if not wanting his fiancée to hear. “I thought that’s what he was doing when he zeroed in on the blonde and took off after her like a rocket.”
    “Okay, what blonde?” I found the voice to ask. “Who was she, Matty? Did you recognize her?”
    “Are you sure you want to hear—”
    “What blonde, for God’s sake!” I cut him off, screeching, feeling the heat in my face, not understanding any of this. Wanting just to stop everything and start the day over
    again. It couldn’t get any worse.
    Matty’s voice was a sad monotone as he reeled off, “She was obviously a stripper. All she had on was a thong.
    She had lots of hair, kinda Farrah Fawcett retro, if you know what I mean. I didn’t really see her face.”
    Of course, you didn’t, I wanted to scream. You were too busy eyeing her bare-naked bazoombas!
    “This may sound stupid, but they sort of stared at each other from across the room for a minute before she took off. He followed her backstage. I was pretty blitzed, but I do remember thinking he’d picked her out for me and was setting up my, er, private party.” Again, he finished the sentence with a whisper. “But he never came back. I tried to go after him, but a goon from the club stopped me. So I
    gave the barmaid a twenty to look for him. She was back in about ten minutes. Said she saw him vamoose with the blonde through a back door. Barmaid’s name was Lu, I think, but I don’t know anything else except that Malone had better turn up soon ’cuz he’s holding onto some important
    hardware for me while Eleanor and I get settled into the new place, though it’s not like I trust him much at the moment. Wish I knew more, but I don’t.”
    More?
    Like what he’d said wasn’t plenty.
    “Do