The Missing Party-Girl: A Rags-to-Riches Cozy Mystery Romance by Nhys Glover (read after .txt) 📗

As I’ve mentioned more than once, Georgie is an exquisitely beautiful woman. But tonight, or more correctly this morning, she looked anything but beautiful. Her hair was a rat’s nest. Her make-up was smeared all over her face. She reminded me of a clown caught in a storm. Her demure dress, which she wore when she had to walk home late at night on her own, was torn.

I asked her what happened. She told me a frightening story with details she previously never shared with us. It seems that The Den also offers prostitution on the side. Her boss had tried to get her involved in that aspect of the business a number of times, but Georgie had refused. Just as she’d refused Jeffer’s many blatant offers, and accompanying threats, to sleep with him.

Tonight, as she was leaving the club by the back entrance—which is how all the staff leave—a big burly chap was hiding in the shadows and attacked her. He said if she wasn’t willing to let him pay for what he wanted then he’d just take it instead.

When I asked her why no one stepped in to help her, she said she was late leaving after being waylaid by her boss, and everyone else had already gone.

I told her to report it to the police and go to the hospital. All she did was laugh at my naiveté.

She said something like, “Do you think the Old Bill will do anything about an attack on a woman like me? I may not be a prostitute, but as far as the plod are concerned I may as well be. I deserve whatever I get. And the hospital staff would be no different. I don’t need their condemnation right now. I’m feeling bad enough already.”

I asked her if he hurt her down there. She brushed my concerns away.

What truly horrified me was her next comment. “You learn to just give in when you know you can’t escape. It doesn’t hurt as much if you just give in and let it happen.”

From that I gathered it wasn’t the first time Georgie had been attacked. When I looked at her, my question written all over my face, she laughed a little.

“A wife can’t legally be raped by her husband. But believe me, it happens.”

By the time I helped her into a bath and clean clothes, it was impossible for me to go back to sleep. So, here I am recording it all.

Georgie had given me far too many ugly insights into her life tonight. For such a liberated woman, my friend is weighed down by so much awfulness that I can’t understand how she can project such lightness and confidence. Maybe it’s simply her consummate acting ability. Then again, maybe she has learned the hard way to lock away the awful parts of her life and focus on the good.

This new information added yet another suspect to the list. Could the rapist be her murderer? But then, if that was his aim, wouldn’t he have killed her that night? No, it was likely not this rapist. But how many others might have followed her home and waited their chance to have her? Maybe a rapist had killed her, not knowing she wouldn’t report him. He wouldn’t have known she didn’t bother reporting rapes.

Adie’s heart went out to Georgie. She could only imagine the terrible things she’d been forced to endure. For the first time, she considered Georgie’s early life. From what she understood, Georgie had come from very poor roots in the worst parts of London. Maybe she had learned from an early age not to struggle when there was no chance of escape.

Hadn’t Adie learned the same thing from her stepdaddy? Of course, he never got the chance to rape her, but she had learned fast enough that struggling made his touches all the rougher and more hurtful. If she just stayed stock still and withstood it, he didn’t physically hurt her.

Pushing those horrible memories away, Adie refocused on her work.

In mid-February, Georgie was mentioned again and far more positively.

16th February

I’m so excited I could bust! I just got my first role in a film. It’s called Thunderball, and it’s one of the James Bond films.

I saw Goldfinger last year. The opening credits showing images of the gilded, naked woman were both shocking and beautiful. Mummy wanted to walk right out of the theatre when she saw them, but I nagged her into staying. And it was wonderful! A horrible way to die, I grant you. Covered in gold paint so your skin can’t breathe. But it was still wonderful. And Sean Connery is so debonair and sophisticated. I know he’s old, almost as old as Daddy, but still…

And now I’m going to see him in real life. Up close and personal. I might get to be one of the girls who fawns all over him, dressed only in a brief swim suit. That will probably turn Daddy’s hair grey! Luckily, the film won’t come out until much later in the year.

I owe this chance to Georgie, who knew one of the producers of the new film. She knows everybody. Without her guiding my path I doubt I would ever have made it as far as I have. She has a part, as well. Of course she does. Why some producer hasn’t yet picked her out of the crowd to make her a star, I don’t know.

She’s so beautiful and so terribly talented. Her fiery red hair is natural. And it requires no curlers to give it those wild waves. Some nights I watch her sitting at her dressing table, brushing her long, fiery hair. It’s mesmerizing. It