Stripped by Brian Freeman

because of her tall, lean physique. But Serena had lived through a much less glamorous side of the city in her early days, arriving in the dead of night from Phoenix with her girlfriend Deidre when she was sixteen.
    There were about a thousand roads to ruin for young girls coming to Vegas. Stripping, hooking, gambling, drinking, stealing, fighting, doing drugs, filming porno, or just winding up in the wrong man’s bed. All of them led to the same end, turning pretty young flowers into garbage floating amid the green algae of a swamp.
    Like Deidre. Her best friend, her savior, the girl she owed her life to, the girl who said she needed Serena more than anything in the world. Dead.
    Sometimes it amazed Serena that she hadn’t died, too. She had chosen a back-office job in one of the casinos when she could have made ten times that in the strip clubs, looking the way she did. She had stayed in school, first studying to get her GED, then working nights and weekends to get a degree in criminal justice at UNLV. It took her ten years to make it that far. When Deidre died, the guilt sent Serena spinning into an alcoholic stupor that cost her two years of her life and almost everything she had worked for.
    Eventually, she climbed back, dried out, and went back to college.
    She wasn’t sure where the determination came from. Maybe it was because, when she escaped from Phoenix with Deidre, she had made a promise to herself that what she had gone through at home would not destroy the rest of her life.
    But Cordy was right. Las Vegas didn’t make it easy.
    “I can make you laugh,” Serena told him.
    “No way. I’m in mourning. I’m wearing black.”
    Serena glanced at him. Cordy wore a black silk shirt with two buttons undone, tapered black dress pants, and buffed leather shoes—but that had nothing to do with Lavender. Cordy was a creature of style, a small but slick package. Serena herself liked to be casual, not fancy, wearing jeans, T-shirts, and weathered cowboy boots on most days.
    When she dressed up, she knew, she could pop men’s eyes out. She remembered meeting Stride for the first time at the airport in Duluth, when she flew in as part of the investigation of a girl’s murder in Vegas. On a whim, she had worn one of her hot outfits, baby blue leather pants, silver belt, midriff-baring T-shirt, black leather raincoat. That was the only time she had seen Jonny at a loss for words.
    “Twenty bucks,” Serena said.
    “You’re on. I ain’t laughing today.”
    “Sawhill put Jonny on the street with Amanda,” she told him.
    Cordy laughed despite himself. “Oh, mama! Amanda? You know, her breasts are even bigger than yours.”
    “News flash, Cordy. She’s got equipment bigger than yours, too. Or so I hear.”
    “It gives me the creeps just thinking about it.” He added, “Hey, how do you know that Amanda’s boyfriend is a couch potato?”
    “I’m afraid to ask.”
    “ ’Cause he likes to turn on the TV!” Cordy laughed until he snorted.
    Serena shook her head. “Just keep that kind of crap between us,
muchacho
. “Jonny seems to like her. And hand over twenty bucks.”
    “Uh-huh. Speaking of which, there’s a pool going on Stride. Most people think he’ll crash and burn in a couple of months.”
    “Jonny’s as tough as they come,” Serena said.
    “Yeah, but this is Vegas.”
    Serena didn’t want to argue. Not because she thought Cordy was right, but because she could think of a lot of reasons why Stride might walk away that had nothing to do with the job.
    “I suppose there’s a pool on me, too,” she said. “On whether Jonny and I will make it.”
    “The odds on you are about as long as keno,” Cordy said. “Most of the guys, they still think you’re Barbed Wire.”
    Serena winced, but only because Cordy’s words struck a nerve. Her reputation on the force—well deserved—was as the cool beauty, smart and unapproachable. Barbed Wire. She was the girl who cut men off at the knees,