“Taylor Jackson, it has been too long!”

“Hi, Jasmine.” Taylor greeted her friend with a smile, was enveloped in a lilac-scented hug and left in a dark room to strip. She did, then nestled herself under a luxuriously soft sheet, lying on her stomach, face haloed in a round sheepskin pillow with a hole in the middle. Her nose poked out, which left her feeling exposed and vulnerable. Something in the air, the cacophony of floral scents mingling with cocoa butter and antiseptic that marked the murky interior of the spa, made her feel like she was hallucinating.

Like her name, Jasmine Allôns was dusky and exotic. The woman bled sensuality, as if she were in a constant state of karmic sexuality—a living, breathing kama sutra pose. She made Taylor feel frumpy and prudish, things she certainly wasn’t. At least they were the same height. Taylor liked being able to look in Jasmine’s sloe eyes while she lied.

Now, Taylor, she chided herself. Jasmine didn’t need to lie any more.

Taylor was one of the few people who knew that Jasmine Allôns used to be called Jazz and spent her days and nights sliding up and down a silver pole for a living. Underage when she went to work for an unscrupulous club owner, Jazz became a headliner almost immediately. Taylor had busted Jasmine for solicitation when she was fifteen, turning her hard-earned dance lessons into a profit in the back seat of her car. Not a story that was terribly unknown in Nashville. Jasmine’s tale just had a different genesis.

Jasmine’s parents were immigrants who’d lost their downtown store in a racist firebombing. A block of businesses and their home went up in the conflagration too—they lived above their 2nd Avenue poster store—leaving them homeless and a vulnerable target of derision and hate. Jasmine’s Iranian mother had a degree in molecular biology from the American University in Baghdad, her Iraqi father was a former nuclear physicist who sought and received asylum during the first Iraq war in the early nineties. Which qualified them to open a poster store and drive a cab through the streets of Nashville, respectively. They were both taking the necessary classes to become American citizens when they lost the store. It was the last straw for an impressionable teenage girl who’d been uprooted time and again over the course of her tender years.

Jasmine had always been too radical for her parents’ taste. She hated that her parents weren’t allowed to follow their academic pursuits in their new country. She fought with them constantly. She forsook their surname and adopted Allôns; her new American friends accepted the name at face value, simply believing Jasmine when she claimed she was French. Foreign was foreign in the south, especially for people of European origin. Unless marked heavily by discernible accent or specific, predisposed-for-recognition features like head scarves for Muslims, not too many locals had the international experience to argue a nationality declaration.

When the store was gone and her family’s future uncertain, Jasmine had lashed out, ultimately committing the cardinal sin. She fell in love with a white boy. She left her parents to deal with their newfound problems and ran away with her brand-new boyfriend.

Of course, like her parents warned, the young man turned her on to things she shouldn’t have had access to—sex and drugs, mostly. It was an age-old story, a cliché of teenage want and wantonness. She became addicted to crack, started listening when her boyfriend said she could make some money to buy more drugs if she plied her wares on the street. Too smart to become a whore, she’d gotten an “interview” at a strip club, lied about her age and her drug problem, and was hired on as a featured dancer at the Deja Vu on Demonbreun Street. She shook what God gave her five nights a week and one weekend matinee mere blocks from her parents’ gutted life.

Jasmine’s quick and slippery slope ended when Taylor caught her blowing both a crack pipe and a patrol officer who knew better on his lunch break in the parking lot behind Deja Vu.

There was something about Jasmine’s eyes that haunted Taylor. She’d ended up vouching for the girl when it came time for her sentencing, managed to get her supervised probation. She helped Jasmine get back into school, got her a job washing dishes at a restaurant, and watched the girl get off the drugs. Applauded her when she graduated college with a degree in kinesiology. Jasmine was her success story. She didn’t have many.

Jazz used to make three thousand dollars a night bending herself around the stage in Lucite platform sandals. Now, Jasmine cost one hundred fifty dollars an hour as a massage therapist. She did Taylor for free.

And she had her slender finger on a spiderweb of silk back into her old life. Taylor knew Jasmine did very quiet volunteer work with girls she identified with, tried to get them out of the life, show them a better way. Jasmine’s parents, newly accepted as citizens, had a new home and a new vocation too, operating an off-the-books halfway house for the girls Jasmine thought would be receptive to a new life.

Taylor didn’t go to Jasmine for information often. She respected the changes the younger girl had made to her life, that she never played herself off as a victim. Taylor wasn’t fond of people who wouldn’t take responsibility for their actions. Jasmine did, and didn’t apologize for the mistakes she made.

On the verge of sleep and drowsy with memories, Taylor didn’t hear Jasmine come into the room. She jumped slightly when Jasmine ran her hand down her naked back, adjusting to being touched by a woman. There was nothing sexual in the grazing, just a masseuse getting in tune with her client’s rhythm, but it always took Taylor a moment to relax. Jasmine knew this, didn’t rush it. When Taylor’s shoulders slumped and her buttocks unclenched, Jasmine started in on the trapezoid muscles, digging her thumb pads deep into Taylor’s stiff neck. She sighed. God, that felt good.

After about fifteen minutes, Jasmine finally asked, “So?”

Taylor didn’t insult her by pretending she was just there for a rubdown. “I need some information.”

“What kind of information?”

“Your kind. I’m looking for a couple of girls. They showed up in a video at a crime scene. Homemade, good quality stuff.”

“Sex or just strip?”

“Sex. Bisexual group sex as well as hetero. They didn’t exactly seem like they were doing it against their will. But they’re young. Couldn’t be more than eighteen, maybe younger.”

“You gonna bust them?” Ah, Jasmine, always the protector.

“No. Just talk. I need to get some answers, see if they know the brains behind the operation. I’ve got a suspect who’s going to go to trial for murder, and I’m not sure he did it.”

There was silence for a few moments, then Jasmine said, “Flip.” She raised one edge of the sheet and Taylor, groaning, scootched over onto her back. Once she was settled, Jasmine silently started working on her right hip flexor, kneading the muscle into submission.

Taylor waited. Jasmine knew something already. Even in the dark, waves of intensity came off her body, as readable as smoke signals.

They didn’t speak again until Jasmine got seated at the head of the table, stuck both hands under Taylor’s shoulder blades and started sliding her fingers into the muscles along the back of Taylor’s neck.

“This is about Todd Wolff, isn’t it?”

Taylor nearly jumped off the table, and Jasmine laughed. “Relax. I think I can help. For what it’s worth, as far as I know, he’s harmless.”

“I hardly think a man who tapes himself having sex with women other than his wife is harmless.”

“And his wife being dead may controvert that impression, but he is. From what I know, he pays well, doesn’t ask for anything kinky. All the models are at least sixteen. It’s not parochial sex, but it isn’t the weird shit.”

“Home use only?”

“There I can’t help you. I don’t know. But I can get you a face-to-face with one of the girls I know who may have done some modeling for him.”

“That’s what the kids are calling it these days?”

“Oh, Taylor, where have you been?” Jasmine was finishing up now, and patted Taylor on the shoulder to indicate she was through. Taylor sat up, wound the sheet around her torso and cracked her neck with an audible pop.

“What do you mean, where have I been?”

Jasmine slipped the lights up a notch. The gloom in the room went away, replaced by a soft, relaxing glow. The bulb was coated in freesia aromatherapy oil, and the warmth helped the scent disperse throughout the small room. Jasmine pulled her stool from the head of the table and sat, facing Taylor. Her deep black eyes did a ballet of sadness.

“Sex is in, Taylor. These girls are doing film because they want to, not because they’re being exploited. It’s a status symbol now.”

“A status symbol?”

“Yeah. Used to be when you were coming up, having sex with your boyfriend was something only the slutty girls did.”

“Well, the slutty girls were the ones who didn’t care if people knew they were having sex. The rest of us just kept our mouths shut.”

Jasmine smiled. “Now, these high-schoolers are made fun of if they don’t have at least three or four partners. You’ve heard of ‘friends with benefits’? Kids who have sex but don’t date? This is the next step. I’ve heard of a club, a secret society that’s making the rounds of the private schools. Home movies. They get points for every act—man, woman, oral, anal. The goal is to sell the tape, get it on the Internet. One even made its way to a legitimate commercial distributor, but got yanked when they found out the actors were underage. There’s enough of a draw for good amateur porn in the industry to support these foolish actions. Sad, but true.

“And these stupid kids, they see Paris Hilton’s sex tape and think they’ll get famous if they can score a slot on YouTube. They don’t realize how pervasive this industry can be. How dangerous the life can be. I’d be willing to bet most of them don’t realize that their parents could probably buy their tapes off the Internet.”

Visions of the scenes from Selectnet.com crowded her mind. Taylor shook her head, unable to imagine an underage girl doing this actively and willingly. “I had no idea. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“No offense, but it’s just not my problem. I need to focus on the girls who actually need help, not worry about some little brat who’s driving Daddy’s BMW out on Friday night to go blow Todd Wolff so she can get into the club.”

“Jesus.” Taylor felt sick to her stomach. Kids were so fucking stupid sometimes.

“Yeah, well. I don’t think he’s going to be much help with this. Let me get the number of the girl I think will talk to you. She’s been ostracized from the pack, is quite busy turning her life around. She might be willing to tell you some back-story. I can’t promise anything.”

“Thank you, Jasmine. I appreciate it more than you know.”

Jasmine left her, and Taylor dressed quickly. As she pulled on her boots, Jasmine came back in and handed her a slip of paper with a phone number and a name. Thalia Abbott.

“Treat this as fruit of the poisonous tree?”

Jasmine laughed. “You can use my name. She’s a good kid. Got back on the right track, is trying to help get other girls out of it.”

“How old is she?”

“Seventeen.”

“God, I had no idea,” Taylor repeated. It took a lot to shock her. This qualified.

“Well, now you do. I’ve got another client. Will you be okay?”

“Yeah. Thanks again, Jasmine.”

“You’re welcome.”

Taylor hugged her briefly. She dressed, then stepped out into the hallway. She looked at her watch. The day was bleeding away from her. She still needed to get to the cabin, check and see if there were cameras in the vents stealing nudie shots of her renters. She was hungry, the few bites of pizza hadn’t satisfied her. She missed Baldwin. She was covered in slick massage butter, her hair sticking out in all directions. Man, she was a mess.

Out in the parking lot, she got into the truck and stuck the key in the slot. She could slip on a baseball cap and grab a bite at Jonathan’s, call the cabin, see if the girls would mind her coming by. They didn’t have a choice; she was their landlord and had a key, and contractually could go over any time she wished, but she tried to respect some boundaries.

She flipped open her cell phone and caught Sam, who agreed to meet her for a drink and a quick bite. She flipped the ignition and started west, knowing that she was close.