Buried In Buttercream

Ethan. With a bloodhound like her after him, he doesn’t stand a chance.”

Chapter 21
    “ M ore driving. More desert. Oh, goody gum drops,” Savannah complained as they headed out of Vegas and once again, into the wild, open countryside.
    “You’ve gotta leave town,” Dirk said, “if you’re going to find a whorehouse. Contrary to popular opinion, there aren’t any in the city. Not officially anyway.”
    “I don’t think most sex workers would approve of your terminology.”
    “Oh, sorry. How about den of iniquity? House of ill repute?”
    “I think the appropriate term is brothel.”
    “Huh. I didn’t think you were the type who worried a whole lot about hookers getting offended.”
    Savannah fixed her eyes on the road straight ahead and looked a bit grim as she said, “You and I, we’ve had a lot of contact with that world. How many gals, and guys, too, did we bust in our careers?”
    “Way too many.”
    “That’s for sure. I had a front-row view to how much misery it causes in this world. To the prostitutes themselves, their johns, and the johns’ families. I’ve seen the horrible results of the diseases that are spread, and the dangerous situations these girls put themselves in to make a buck. The abusive pimps. The drug-addiction angle. There’s a heap of better ways to make a living that don’t get a body beaten or killed.”
    “So, you wouldn’t legalize it?”
    “Not on your life.”
    “Me either.”
    Savannah thought for a few moments, remembering. Wishing she could forget.
    “My father was into prostitutes,” she said.
    No sooner were the words out of her mouth than she caught her breath, shocked by her own candor. She had never shared that with anyone before.
    “He was?”
    She ventured a glance at Dirk. He seemed a little surprised, but mostly sad.
    She nodded.
    “I’m sorry to hear that, Van. Very sorry. I had no idea.”
    She took a deep breath. “As you know, he was a trucker. Those truck stop cuties would wave it in his face, and he’d go for it every time. Unless you believe my mother’s version of the story, and then they didn’t even have to wave it. He’d go after it. In fact, she said that’s why he became a trucker in the first place. So he could be away from home for days on end and do whatever he wanted with anybody he wanted.”
    Dirk reached over and laid a hand on her shoulder. “That must have been awful for you.”
    “It was. And I remember lying in bed, crying, when I was little, after hearing them screaming and fighting about it. And I wanted to just get up out of that bed and go to those truck stops and tell those girls to leave my daddy alone. That he belonged to us kids and my mommy. That we needed him more than they did.”
    He ran his fingers gently through the back of her hair and massaged the nape of her neck. “I’m so sorry, Van.”
    “So, I’d have to say, no, I don’t like prostitution very much.”
    “I don’t suppose you do. And I can’t blame you.”
    “But we’re on our way to interview some, so I’m going to put my prejudices in my back pocket, and you’re going to watch your terminology. Because no matter what they do for a living, we’re going to treat them with respect.”
    “Understood.”
    They traveled on in companionable silence for a while, until Dirk said, “Savannah, you don’t ever have to worry about me doing something like that.”
    “I know.”
    “I want to make sure you know. I’d never be unfaithful to you. I’ll never break your heart.”
    “I know.”
    She turned her head, nuzzling her cheek into the palm of his big, warm hand.
    “If for no other reason,” he said, “I wouldn’t do it because of that little girl in Georgia. I can’t stand the thought of her crying in her bed over crap she shouldn’t have even known about till she was a whole lot older.”
    The road ahead got very blurry. Savannah blinked her eyes several times and sniffed.
    “Thank you, Dirk.”
    “You’re welcome, baby.”

    “Wow, how romantic,” Savannah said as she and Dirk pulled over to the side of the road and parked in front of what looked like a miniature, abandoned trailer park out in the middle of nowhere.
    For as far as the eye could see in any direction, the dilapidated mobile homes were the only structures, the only signs of humanity. An island of faded, rusting metal, baking in the desert sun.
    Savannah thought she’d never seen such a lonely setting in all her life.
    “I don’t think romance is