It was fair. Grasping three mug handles in each fist,
Eve clenched her teeth against the pain that speared through her right hand.
But until last year that hand couldn’t hold a coffee cup, so a little pain
seemed a small price to pay for mobility. And independence.
She lifted the mugs into the waiting hands of one of
her most regular regulars, quirking the responsive side of her mouth in the
three-cornered smile that, after years of practice, appeared normal. “Normal”
was right up there with mobility and independence.
“You’ve been buying all night, Jeff,” she said,
surreptitiously flexing her fingers, “and haven’t had a drop yourself.” Which
was so not normal. “You lose a bet?”
Officer Jeff Betz was a big guy with a sweet grin.
“Don’t tell my wife. She’ll kill me.”
Eve nodded sagely. “Bartenders never tell. It’s part
of the oath.”
He met her eyes, gratitude in his. “I know,” he said,
then turned to Callie. “Hot date?”
“You betcha.” Callie nodded, comfortable with the
scrutiny she’d received since gliding into Sal’s on ridiculously high heels.
Her tiny dress would earn her significantly better tips were she to wear it
next time she tended bar. Not that she needed any help.
Clerking for the county prosecutor was Callie’s
primary means of putting herself through law school, but she’d recently started
picking up extra cash working at Sal’s on weekends, her tip jar consistently
filled to the brim. That dress combined with Callie’s substantial cleavage
would send her cup running over, so to speak.
Hopefully Callie’s dress wouldn’t give their boss any
ideas, Eve thought darkly.
Because there’s no way in hell I’m wearing
anything like that, tips or no.
So to speak. Eve squashed the envy. Never pompous,
Callie was a beautiful woman comfortable in her own skin, something that Eve
had not been in a long time.
Eve made her voice light. “Her date’s taking her to
Chez León.”
Jeff whistled. “Spendy.” Then he frowned. “Do we know
this guy?”
The “we” was understood—it included every cop that
hung at Sal’s. Eighty percent of Sal’s customers were police, which made the
bar one of the safest places in town. An ex-cop, Sal was one of their own, and
by extension so was everyone on Sal’s payroll. It was like having a hundred big
brothers. Which was pretty nice, Eve thought.
“I don’t think so,” Callie demurred. Her date was a
defense attorney, which earned him poor opinion among their cops. Callie
agreed, which was precisely why she’d accepted the date. Callie’s constant
challenge of her own worldview was something Eve had always admired. “But he’s
late, so I’m trying to get Eve to take this little quiz.”
“Is that that
MSP
rag with Jack Phelps on the
cover?” Jeff asked, his lip curled.
MSP
was the
women’s magazine that juggled Minneapolis–St. Paul gossip, culture, and local
concerns. Their recent exposé on the homicide squad had made instant, if
temporary, celebrities of Sal’s regulars. It was a decent piece, although it
did make their cops into white knights, a fact that had embarrassed the hell
out of the detectives.
Jeff gave Eve a pitying look. “My wife made me take
that damn quiz.”
Eve’s lips twitched. “Did you pass?”
“Of course. A man can’t stay happily married without
knowing how to BS his way through one of those things.” With a parting wink, he
carried the beer back to his waiting friends, all off-duty cops who made Sal’s
their home away from home.
Callie rolled her eyes when Jeff was gone. “If he
spent half the time he’s here with his wife, he wouldn’t have had to BS his way
through this ‘damn quiz,’ ” she muttered.
“Don’t judge,” Eve murmured, dumping two shots of gin
over ice. “Jeff’s wife works second shift at the hospital. When he’s on days,
he hangs here, then takes her home.”
Callie frowned. “What about their kids? Who’s watching
them?”
“No kids.” But not from lack of trying, Jeff had
confided one night when the bar was empty and he’d had a little too much to
drink. The stress had nearly torn his marriage apart. Eve understood his pain
far more than Jeff had realized. Far more than she’d ever let anyone see. Even
Callie. “I guess his house is kind of quiet.”
Callie sighed. “What else should I know so I don’t put
my foot in my mouth again?”
Eve tried to think of something she could share
without breaking a confidence. She wouldn’t tell Callie about the cop at Jeff’s
table who was worried his wife was leaving him, or the policewoman at the end
of the bar, just diagnosed with breast cancer.
So many secrets
,
Eve thought. Listening, keeping their secrets, was a way she could help them
while she worked on her master’s in counseling. If she ever made it through her
damn thesis she’d be a therapist, trading one listening career for another.
But I’ll miss this place
. She’d miss Sal and his wife, Josie, who’d given her
a chance to work, to support herself in the new life she’d started in
Minneapolis. She’d miss Jeff and all the regulars, who’d become more like
friends than customers.
Some she’d miss more than others, she admitted. The
one she’d miss most never came in on Sundays, but that didn’t stop her eyes
from straying to the door every time the bell jingled. Watching Noah Webster
come through the door still caught her breath, every time. Tall, dark.
Powerful.
Look, but don’t touch
. Not anymore. Probably not ever again.
She looked up to find Callie watching her carefully.
Eve pointed to a couple who’d confided nothing, but whose behavior screamed
volumes. “They’re having an affair.”
Callie glanced over her shoulder. “How do you know?”
“Hunch. They never socialize, are always checking
their cells, but never answer. She twists her wedding ring and when the guy
comes to the bar for their wine, he’s twitchy. So they’re either having an
affair or planning a bank heist.” Callie chuckled and Eve’s lips quirked. “I
suspect the former. They think nobody notices them.”
Callie shook her head. “Why do people always think
they’re invisible?”
“They don’t see anyone but each other. They assume
nobody sees them either.”
Callie pointed to a young man who sat at a table
alone, his expression grim. “Him?”
“Tony Falcone.” Tony had shared his experience in the
open, so Eve felt no guilt in repeating it. “He caught his first suicide victim
last week. Shook him up.”
“From the looks of him, he still is,” Callie said
softly. “Poor kid.”
“He couldn’t forget the woman’s eyes. She’d glued them
open, then hung herself.”
Callie flinched. “God. How do any of these cops sleep
at night?”
“They learn to deal.” She met Callie’s eyes. “Just
like you did.”
“Like
we
did,” Callie said quietly. “You a lot
more so than me.”
Yes, I dealt.
But how well? Surgery could fix hands and minimize scars, but in the end one
still had to
be
. It was easier here, surrounded by others who saw the
darkness in the world. But when the noise was gone and the memories echoed in
her mind…
Uneasy, Eve mixed another drink. “We all do what we
have to do. Some have addictions, some have hobbies. Some come here.” She
shrugged. “Hell, I come here.”
“To forget about life for a while,” Callie murmured,
then shook off her mood. “I’ll take those out for you. It’s the least I can do
since I’ve left you with the whole bar tonight.”
Eve arched her right brow, one of the few facial
features that still obeyed her command. “It’s going to Detective Phelps and his
bimbo
du jour
.” Who were necking at a table next to the TV wall where
everyone would see them. Eve didn’t have to wonder if the choice was
deliberate. Jack Phelps liked everyone to know when he’d scored.
Phelps should take a lesson from his way-too-serious
partner. Eve stifled her sigh. Or perhaps Noah Webster should borrow just a
smidge of Jack’s cheek. Jack hit on her every time he came to the bar, but in
the year he’d been coming to Sal’s, Webster had never said more than “please”
and “thank you” when she served his tonic water.
He came in on Mondays with Phelps, who’d order a gin
and tonic for them both. Phelps always got the gin, Webster always the tonic.
Then Phelps would flirt with the women and Webster would nurse his water, green
eyes alert, but unreadable.
For a while she’d thought he’d come to watch her, but
after weeks had gone by she’d given up on any such notion. Not that she’d
reciprocate any move he made, so the question was moot. Although her mind still
stubbornly wandered, imagining what she’d say if Noah ever uttered the lines
that fell so meaninglessly from Jack’s lips.
Of course, fantasy and reality were very different
things. This fact Eve knew well.
“We have to be fair here, Eve,” Callie said dryly.
“Katie’s more than a bimbo
du jour
. She’s been with Phelps for three
whole weeks. That could be a record for him.”
Katie had come in with the other groupies after the
MSP
article had hit the stands and Jack had reeled her in like a walleye. Or maybe
it was the other way around. Either way, Katie would be gone soon and Jack
would move to his next conquest. “So she’s more the flavor of the month. You
gonna take these drinks or not?”
“Not on your life. Katie doesn’t like me much. You’re
on your own, pal.”
“I thought so. I have to talk to Phelps anyway. That
magazine you found is Sal’s copy. He wants Phelps to sign the cover so he can
add it to the Hat wall.”
Sal had covered one wall of his bar with TVs, but the
others were covered in photos, most taken by Sal, all of cops. One wall he’d
dedicated to his favorites—the homicide detectives known as the Hat Squad for
the classic fedoras they wore. The wall had, in fact, inspired the
MSP
article. One day one of their staff writers had wandered in to Sal’s and been
instantly charmed. To the public, the hats were an unofficial uniform, but to
the detectives who proudly wore them, the hats were a badge of honor. Every
member of the squad owned at least one fedora.
When a newly promoted detective solved his first case,
he was presented with a fedora by his or her peers. It was tradition. Eve liked
that. As years passed and more murders were solved, the detectives supplemented
their own hat collections according to their personal style and the season—felt
in the winter, sometimes straw in the summer.
Eve had never seen Noah Webster wear anything but
black felt. It suited him.
“I was wondering why Sal moved the picture frames
around,” Callie said, pointing to the large, new bare spot on the wall. “But
not even Phelps’s head is that big.”
Eve chuckled. “Sal’s done a collage. He got all the
detectives whose pictures were in the article to sign the page from the
magazine. Phelps’s cover is supposed to be at the center.” She sobered. “But
Phelps won’t sign it, even though Sal all but begged him.”
Callie’s brows shot up in surprise. “Why? Jack’s not
going for humble now, is he?”
Eve studied Jack, who was discreetly checking his cell
phone for the third time in a half hour. He returned the unanswered phone to
his pocket, and his lips to Katie’s pouting mouth. “Who knows why men like Jack
Phelps do the things they do?”
A bitter frown creased Callie’s brow. “Because they
can. Poor Sal.”
“I promised him I’d ask Phelps one more time.”
Callie closed the magazine and Jack’s face stared up
from the cover. He was a dead ringer for Paul Newman, down to his baby blues.
And, Eve thought, he knew it. “You’re going to pander to that ego?” Callie
huffed. “You hate Jack as much as I do.”
Eve smiled. “But I love Sal. He’s given me so much and
this means a lot to him. He found some old photos of himself wearing his hat
before his accident.” Before he’d been forced to give up the career that had
been his life. “He wanted to do a Hat Squad photo exposé of his own. For Sal, I
can pander to Phelps’s ego for a few minutes.”
Callie’s frown eased. “You have a good soul, Eve.”
Embarrassed, Eve put the drinks on a tray. “Watch the
bar for me.” But she hadn’t taken a step when the door opened, jingling the
bell and letting in a gust of frigid air. Her eyes shot to the door before she
reminded herself that it was Sunday.
She started to turn back to the bar, then stopped.
Because Sunday or no, there he was. Noah Webster. Filling the doorway like a
photo in a frame.
Suddenly, as always, all the oxygen was sucked from
the room. He paused in the doorway and Eve couldn’t tear her eyes away. Dressed
in black from his fedora to his shiny shoes, he looked, as always, as if he’d
stepped straight from an old
film noir
. There was something edgy, almost
thuggish in the way he carried himself, a coiled danger Eve didn’t want to find
attractive. As if she’d ever had a choice.
He was linebacker big, his shoulders nearly touching
the sides of the door, so tall the top of his hat brushed the doorframe most
men cleared with ease. Heavy stubble darkened his jaw and her fingers itched to
touch.
Look, but don’t touch
. The mantra was ingrained.