Free Empire of Lies by Andrew Klavan Page A

yeah," Anne said. "I don't blame her mom for being worried."
    I set my beer bottle on the bar. "All right. Well..."
    Adorably, Anne gave me a regretful little wave. I reached out and squeezed her hand. I wanted to feel the heat of her one last time. The future Mrs. Zucabatoni.
    Then back I went across the cavelike club, through the firelike light, along the cluster of thrashing dancers and their thrashing shadows on the fake-rock walls. By the time I reached Serena, she was giving her buddies hell about something, yelling at them, bent forward, her little fists clutched at her sides, her face pinched and ugly with rage. The boy who'd tried to take her arm was calling something back at her, but moving away with his friends at the same time, pushing with them out onto the dance floor.
    "That's not what you said, Ray!" I heard Serena yell as I drew near her.
    She was small, I could see now, small and slender, without much in the way of a figure. She was wearing a sparkly pink minidress that left her shoulders bare and her legs bare to high on the thigh. The outfit would've looked cute and sexy on her if she hadn't been such a mess otherwise. But her mouth was hanging
open and her eyes were filmy, her hair was slovenly, and there were mascara stains over the sparkles on her cheeks.
    I touched her naked shoulder. She spun around to me, belligerent, loaded like a blunderbuss, ready to go off.
    Then—very suddenly—everything about her changed. One look at me, and her face went pale, her eyes went clear with what I was sure was terror. Her mouth opened and closed as if she'd been caught red-handed at something and were trying to come up with an excuse. For a second, I thought she might start to cry or try to run away, screaming for help.
    "Serena!" I shouted over the Morse code music and the thumping sideman and a new singer yearning like the last. "Your mother sent me to find you."
    I saw her try to understand me—then she understood me. I saw the color come back into her face as her small body sagged with relief. Whatever she was afraid of, apparently I wasn't it. As suddenly as she'd become frightened, she turned pugnacious again. She yanked away from me violently as if I'd been trying to drag her off somewhere.
    "Ah..." she mumbled drunkenly. "...the fuck ... fuck..."
    I felt angry. At Lauren mostly. For letting her daughter come to this. Ugly drunk, foulmouthed, here in a club with a bunch of guys. I felt angry and, right after that, I felt guilty. Because maybe she was my daughter, too; maybe I'd let her come to this, too.
    Well, that's why I was here. To get her out, to take her home. To try to, anyway. I moved in close, towering over her.
    "Listen," I said, "we're leaving now."
    She pulled that insolent and somehow pathetic pose teenagers have, rearing up openmouthed as if to look down on me, daring me to try to follow through on my threats. At the same time I could see
in her eyes as plain as day how desperate she was to have someone take control of her.
    "I'm serious," I said. "You either come with me or I call the police."
    "The fuck..." she said, but her eyes went fearful again. The cops—that's what she was afraid of. She had thought I was a cop at first—that's why she'd looked so scared.
    I pressed my advantage. "You're underage and drunk. I'm going to give you to the count of three, and then I'm calling the cops."
    She fumbled with a tiny pink purse hanging from her shoulder on a long golden chain. "I'm ... not underage. I have a license—"
    I moved in even closer, crowding her hard. "I'm your mother's friend, Serena. I know how old you are. Let's go."
    "Serena."
    I turned. It was the kid, the boy who'd come in with her, who'd tried to take her elbow and reason with her. A reedy dark-skinned kid, of Indian extraction, maybe, or Pakistani, his face already shiny with sweat from the dance.
    "You all right?" he asked her. He glared at me.
    I smiled. Good for him. He was young, but he had some man in him. I cocked