“I look terrible in this outfit,” I told Cezar on Saturday. “It’s really unflattering.” I stared at myself in the reflection of my car window, horrified at what a catering uniform did to my frame. “It’s so boxy.”

Black pants, a white shirt, and a men’s black vest combined to make me look like a redheaded child pretending to be a waiter in her father’s clothes. I looked twelve. And pasty. White washes me out.

“This is what you’re worried about?” Cezar asked. “Look at me. I’m doomed to eternity in a pair of freaking swim trunks. What I wouldn’t give for an expensive suit right now.”

He had a point. “Yeah, you got a raw deal on that, I will admit.” I took a deep breath and put my cross-body bag over my shoulder and locked my car. I had parked down the street from the brick building that housed this mythical man-place. “I wonder if you’ll get cold come winter?”

“I hope not. I’ll be walking around with tight nipples all the time.” He shot me a grin.

There was a visual. “Okay, let’s do this, because I feel like I’m going to vomit. I am not exactly a rule breaker, you know. I like structure.” The thought of breaking and entering (which technically this would be, right?) was horrifying.

“Don’t overthink it. Just in and out. No big deal. Like my wedding night.”

Really? I shuddered. “That was inappropriate,” I chastised him.

“You are such a priss. It’s surprising, given that they always say redheads are feisty. You are not feisty.”

“I think feisty is a synonym for bitch. I don’t think that I’m a priss just because I want to follow the rules.” I wasn’t sure why I was defending my abhorrence of illegal activity to a dead criminal. I decided it was best to just stop speaking.

Cezar pointed to a rusted door next to the dumpster. “You can go in through there.”

“Here goes nothing.” I pulled gently on the door, afraid it would make noise. It didn’t move at all. I glanced around, feeling like there were eyes on me. There were. Cezar’s. Rolling back into his head.

“You can pull a little harder, kid. Don’t act like you’re sneaking around. You have to move with confidence. Like you’re supposed to be there.”

Sure. Easy. Not. But I straightened my back and pulled open the door, channeling my inner caterer. Fortunately, my fear of immediately encountering a person who knew I wasn’t supposed to be there wasn’t realized. I was in an empty hallway, filled with boxes and an industrial mop and bucket. The door slammed shut behind me, causing me to jump. “Oh geez.” I gave a sigh of relief when no one came storming around a corner, guns blazing. “Where to?” I asked, whispering.

Cezar pointed. “Straight, then to the right. I’ll go first and make sure no one is in the locker room.” He started down the hall while I dutifully waited.

But as a couple of seconds passed and the wait drew out, I started to fidget. Where the heck was he? I was about to go after him when I heard footsteps. Cezar didn’t make that sound when he walked. First of all, ghosts make no noise when they moved. Second of all, this was the sharp tap of dress shoes, not Cezar’s flip-flops. Freaking out, I yanked open the nearest door and stepped inside. It was the sauna.

Six pairs of male eyes met mine, mostly curious.

Oh no. It was so humid I couldn’t drag a breath and I tried to stammer an apology as I felt behind me for the doorknob. That was a whole lot of nakedness going on in one space. A few had towels wrapped around them, but two guys were just flat out naked. Legs spread. They ranged in age and size and levels of attractiveness, but I couldn’t allow my gaze to stay anywhere in particular. I just kept darting my eyes from one guy to the next as I said in a breathy voice, “I’m so sorry. My apologies. I’m new and I think I’m lost.”

I found the doorknob and turned it as one guy, who looked like he spent more than his fair share of time in the gym with a broad chest and ripped abs and biceps, gave me a grin. “Likely story.”

I was blushing. My eyes went to the floor. Cezar’s phrase “meat sweats” popped into my head. Yeah. This was not good. I turned and got out of there. But I came face-to-face with a guy who was six-five on a short day, had a nose that was broken at least once, and a scowl on his rugged features. He was wearing black dress pants and a white shirt and vest. We looked like we were colleagues at an eighties wedding reception.

Except for the fact that he had a gun in his waistband. I swallowed hard and tried to find something to say. “Hi, I’m Nikki,” I said, blurting out the first name that popped into my head. “Are you who I’m supposed to be looking for? I can’t find the kitchen and I’m already five minutes late.”

His frown didn’t alter. He said something in another language. Russian, maybe. I wasn’t sure if his lack of English was a good thing or a bad thing. Because if he was threatening to kill me, I had no warning.

But he just pointed down the hallway, so like a little lamb blithely trotting off to slaughter, I dutifully went, cursing myself. This was stupid. He could be showing me to a torture chamber. He could shoot me in the back of the head right now. Which would suck. He didn’t though. He seemed to be following me, but I was too afraid to turn around and look. Mentally cursing Cezar and his obvious abandonment of me, I rounded the corner and found the kitchen. It wasn’t exactly enormous or glamorous, just efficient. There were a couple of guys in there cooking over an open flame and two young guys in their early twenties dressed like waiters.

I beelined for them. Surely one of them spoke English. “Hey, guys!” I sounded insanely chipper. Like Minnie Mouse on steroids.

The one who had been lifting a plate let it go slack and the steak slid toward the countertop as he gaped at me. Then he realized what he had done and tried to right the plate, saving the steak but pouring juices all over his hand and the counter. “Shit.”

Yay, he spoke English. “Here let me help you.” I moved over and wiped the countertop with a paper towel I grabbed from next to the sink. I saw the stack of clean plates and got him a new one. I handed it to him with a smile.

His eyes widened. “Thanks,” he murmured.

Oh no. He thought I was cute. Seriously? The only guy to find me attractive in this ugly fake uniform was all of twenty years old and weighed less than me. He was so skinny he looked like a stick figure in his clothes. But if he had a crush, he would help me, and that was great. I just had to be careful. “You’re welcome. I’m Nikki.”

“I’m Tony.”

“I’m new, obviously. What should I do?” I glanced around. “You look like you have your hands full.”

“Here, you can serve with me.” He handed me a plate full of food. “I’ll show you around. But like, I’m shocked they have a girl here though. This is men only.”

He sounded like he thought that was a good thing. But maybe I was just being overly sensitive. In my opinion, they could open it exclusively to women on their own night and no one would go. That’s what a spa was for. I mean, wine and paint night is officially open to both sexes, and yet I’ve never seen a man at one. I was pretty sure none of my female friends wanted to sweat together in an unmarked building with zero décor and staff armed with weaponry.

Ryan had mentioned my acting abilities were less than stellar but I put in a valiant effort. “Yeah, I know, I think they sent me thinking I was a guy because of my name.” I shrugged, trying to giggle and pretend to be younger than I was. “Whatever.” I capped it off with a bright smile.

Tony’s cheeks turned pink. He opened his mouth to say something, but one of the cooks yelled, “Tony, quit yapping and get your ass out there!”

He startled. “Right.” He gestured for me to follow him.

I grabbed a plate and dutifully fell in line, feeling like the most obvious fraud ever. I was not cut out for subterfuge. Yet somehow I had been thrust into this role in recent months and I was going to have to figure out how to own it, or spend my life surrounded by crying, yelling, lamenting dead people harassing the crap out of me.

The dining area looked a little light on the décor, but otherwise fairly normal. There were tables with men around them, drinking from open bottles of vodka on each table. Old school bottle service. Just pour your own booze. Pure vodka on the rocks, leave the mixers for the frat boys. The average age of the patrons was somewhere around fifty-five. There were a few younger guys in their thirties, but most were over forty. Some looked like they’d been drinking since the second world war. They were wizened and bald, eyes blinking behind glasses with thick bifocal lenses.

Every last one of them stared at me. The reaction to my presence fell into one of three categories: irritation, attraction, or suspicion. I could have sworn I saw chairs shift back toward walls, like they were convinced I had been sent to seduce them from an enemy. This wasn’t going to be easy and strolling in here had been a huge tactical error. Everyone had seen my face. Everyone was aware of my presence and found it odd. Someone was going to enquire to the owners or management or whoever was in charge of this joint as to why the heck I was there.

Time to beat a retreat. I put the two plates I was carrying down where Tony showed me, and smiled. “Is there anything else I can get you?”

Four men stared at me. One was sucking on an olive between his thick lips. “It depends on what you’re offering.”

Not what he was implying. “Steak sauce?”

He gave a grunt. “No, thanks.”

When no one else spoke, I realized they weren’t going to say yay or nay and they were just waiting for me to leave. So I did. Tony was already gone, which actually was a good thing. Instead of returning to the kitchen, I went in the opposite direction, hoping to find the locker room and Cezar. After discovering a broom closet and a storage room, I eventually pushed a swinging door and realized I was in the locker room and Cezar was waiting on a bench for me.

“Where have you been?” he asked, sounding irritated.

“I was waiting for you to come back and give me directions,” I whispered, equally irritated. “Now what am I even looking for? Everyone is super suspicious of me being here.”

He pointed. “Number twelve. That’s Big Eddie’s locker. See if the key is in his pants pocket.”

“Isn’t the locker, you know, locked?” I moved quickly across the room, surprised at how many piles of towels and clothes were actually just sitting around on benches. I would be afraid someone would steal my pants as a joke.

“Nah. He has his gun with him and Eddie figures no one is stupid enough to steal from him. Besides, this place has a code of honor, you know. Don’t be a dick.”

That said to me that there was no way Eddie had the key in his pocket, but I wasn’t going to point that out to Cezar.

“That’s good.” I carefully opened the locker, terrified of the creaking noise it might make. Darting my gaze behind my shoulder repeatedly I started shifting through Eddie’s pile of clothes. I found the pockets of his dress pants and reached into each one, digging around. I came out with nothing but lint and a couple quarters.

“Now what?” I asked Cezar as I closed the locker.

He looked morose. “Go through all these pockets, and see what we get.”

I shot him a look. “Forget it. I’m not a petty thief. By the way, where did all this money come from? You never told me exactly.”

“Armored car robbery.”

Well, that was great. “Cezar!” I whispered fiercely in my approximation of a “mom voice.” “That is not cool. You aren’t entitled to that money if you stole it, and neither are your sons.”

“Finders keepers. Or in this case, we went out of our way to find it and remove it, then keep it. My youngest son helped me. He deserves his cut. And my older boy is a good, hard worker. He has a wife, kids, and a good job that is squeaky clean. I know he’s strapped for cash. What’s the harm at this point?”

My moral compass was spinning in circles. I wanted to argue further with him, but I didn’t want to be in this locker room a second more. If I was caught I wasn’t sure what the outcome would be. “That’s very self-serving logic.”

He made a mocking face. “Meh, meh, meh, meh, mehhh,” he said, imitating my words.

Nice. I started for the door. “I’m out of here. There’s nothing more to be seen.” I certainly had already seen more than I wanted to, especially in the sauna.

But when I opened the door to the hallway I heard voices coming from the kitchen. “Who?” a gruff male voice said, raised in anger. “Nikki? No, that’s not right. The caterer knows not to send female waitresses. Where did she go?”

Oh no. Not good. I couldn’t hear the response but I decided this might be a good opportunity to get the heck out of there. So I started down the hall. But when I heard footsteps I panicked and yanked open the nearest door. I realized a second too late it was the walk-in freezer when cold air blasted me in the face. I reached back to stop it from closing, but the door had already clicked shut behind me. The light was off and I was afraid to move and trip over a side of beef.

Reaching into the pocket of my black pants, I took out my phone and swiped the flashlight on. I shone it around the freezer and stifled a scream. That was no side of beef on the floor. That was a whole pig. Which admittedly, I’ve seen before, on a spit at a pig roast, but in the eerie glow of my phone light, his eyes stared coldly and blankly up at me. The skin was pale, stiff, and I had a sudden compelling aversion to pork. This was not cute.

I clapped my hand over my mouth, cursing myself for opening this door. I should have just run down the hallway and bolted out the back into the parking lot. Fingers already starting to go numb from the chill, I reached for the door handle, having a sudden fear that I was locked in. Most freezers had a safety feature so you couldn’t get locked in, but that didn’t mean they had that here.

Fortunately, it did open, but a peek out showed there were men moving around. One was Tony, which would have worked, if he weren’t with the guy who had the gun in his waistband. There were also a couple of guys headed toward the sauna in towels, including a body that looked particularly familiar and appealing.

I closed the door, heart racing. That was Marner. I knew those pecs anywhere. He had been smiling and laughing with two other guys, a drink in his hand. Damn it. He would kill me if he saw me here. I’d be joining this pig on the floor. I waited, counting in my head, trying desperately to listen to hear the sauna door open and close, but the hum of the coolant in the freezer made it impossible to hear through the thick walls. When I got to twenty, I opened the door again, putting my eye up to the sliver of an opening. Cezar was standing there, staring at me. His eye was ridiculously close.

I jumped back. “Geez!” I whispered.

“Why are you in the freezer?”

“I’m trapped in here. The boss man is suspicious of me.”

“I’ll tell you when the coast is clear.” Cezar held up a key. “Look what I got.”

Stunned, I was amazed at both his ghostly ability to hold physical objects and the ease with which he had found the key. “Where did you get that?”

“I had the wrong locker. Eddie is twenty-two, not twelve. But I found him in the dining room, actually, and slid my hand in his pocket. That’s something I never want to repeat, but hey, I got the key.”

“Awesome.” I had mixed feelings, because if it weren’t for Cezar’s inability to go anywhere other than his house without me, I wouldn’t have to be involved. He was perfectly capable of handling the situation, which was fine by me. I didn’t want to be a party to shifting ill-gotten gains. “Can I leave now? This freezer is freezing.”

“Well, no shit.” Cezar rolled his eyes at me.

There really was no need to have attitude with me. I just stared him down.

He glanced right and left. “You’re clear.”

I pulled the door open wider and slipped into the hallway. I was creeping down it stealthily on tiptoes, like the awkward intruder I was, when the door to the sauna opened and a man stepped out. He made eye contact with me.

It just so happened to be my boyfriend. I came to a stop, freaking out, not sure how to react. “Oh hi, honey,” I said, giving a nervous laugh. “Fancy meeting you here.”

Marner rubbed his jaw. “Bailey, what are you doing?”

Jake was dewy and sweaty. His hair curled on his forehead and there was a sheen on his chest that made me very, very distracted. My cheeks heated both from embarrassment at being busted and something else entirely. “The owner asked me to stage this place,” I said, in the world’s most absurd lie. There was nothing here to stage, unless they wanted the steak knives rearranged.

His eyebrows shot up. “Dressed like a waiter?”

“This is waiter-chic. It’s a new trend in fashion.” I winced. Marner knew me well enough to know I would never wear a vest. Ever.

“I…” He seemed at an actual loss for words. Like I had shocked him to the point that he was pretty sure he was dating an alien. “Were you worried this was a strip club or something? I would never lie to you about something like that.”

Great. He thought I was spying on him, jealous that he might be at a true “gentleman’s club.” Because that wasn’t totally psycho girlfriend crazy, or anything.

“No! Of course not. I can explain all of this. Cezar Wozniak asked me to come here.”

Cezar reprimanded me. “What the hell, kid? Don’t tell the cop what we’re doing! What’s the matter with you?”

“Cezar Wozniak?” Marner sounded bewildered. “What is going on, baby, seriously?”

That gruff angry voice was moving toward us down the hallway. Cezar was railing against me. Marner looked like he was trying to solve the world’s most insane sudoku and I was about to find myself in some serious trouble. So I gave Marner a quick kiss, whispered, “I’ll tell you everything at home,” then did the only thing I could.

I reached around him and pulled the fire alarm.