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She’d only been standing on the sidewalk for a moment when she was surprised to see Ethan coming around the corner of the building, out of the alleyway that ran between the bar and the cookie shop. She waved at him and he stopped, giving her a weak smile.
“Hey, Lucy,” he said, glancing over his shoulder. “It’s good to see you.”
“It’s good to see you, too.”
He kept nervously looking over his shoulder, and she wasn’t sure what to make of it. They’d barely even started a conversation, and he’d hardly looked at her, instead concentrating on the alley behind him.
“So…uh…what are you doing here?” he asked. “You don’t strike me as a campus bar person.”
“You’re right, I’m not,” she laughed. “Zack and I came to see if anyone still worked here from when we were back in high school.”
Ethan’s expression immediately turned into a scowl, his brows pulled down, and his lips pressed into a thin line.
“Is this about Sarah? Because if it is, you both need to just drop this. You’re not helping anybody, and you’re just opening old wounds.”
Lucy and Ethan hadn’t been all that close in high school. They’d had several mutual friends, but they didn’t hang out much together. He’d been a jock, and she’d been a bookworm.
“I don’t think that’s going to happen,” she replied. “Sarah’s disappearance might have had something to do with Zack’s mom. He’s not going to let that go.”
Ethan looked over his shoulder again, his feet shuffling on the sidewalk as if he wanted to break into a run.
“It doesn’t have anything to do with Lily Winslow.”
This was one of the most bizarre conversations that Lucy had been a part of in recent memory.
“Are you looking for someone? You keep looking over your shoulder.”
And you seem nervous, but I won’t mention that.
“Uh, yeah. I was supposed to meet someone here at the bar.”
“In the alley? Did you come out of the backdoor of the bar?”
Ethan’s gaze darted around, the corner of his mouth jerking up on one side.
“I was making a phone call.”
Was this the definition of a tell? Is that what she was witnessing? And why would Ethan lie to her anyway?
“Listen, I need to go,” Ethan said before she could reply. He reached out and gave her an awkward hug. How strange. She and Ethan had never hugged before. “Tell Zack I said hi.”
Before she could say anything, he had jogged down the block and crossed at the light. She was still confused when Zack joined her on the sidewalk.
“What are you looking at?”
“Ethan,” she replied. “We just had the craziest interaction. He came out of the alleyway between the buildings. He asked what I was doing here, and I told him. He said that we should drop it, and I said that we wouldn’t. Then he said that he was meeting someone here, and then about ten seconds later he said he had to go. Then he gave me a hug. That’s weird, right? It’s not just me?”
“That is weird,” Zack agreed. “What did he say when you told him we weren’t going to drop it?”
“That was strange, too,” Lucy explained. “He said to drop it, and I said that we wouldn’t because Sarah’s disappearance might be linked to your mother’s. Then he said that it wasn’t. He seemed sure about it, too. Then he said he was meeting someone right before he practically ran out of here. I have to tell you, he seemed really nervous the entire time, constantly looking over his shoulder. I was starting to get paranoid just because he was.”
“I think Ethan and I need to have another talk,” Zack replied. “In the meantime, I think we should go see Ed Farrow. I have a few questions for him.”
Lucy could only hope that they might finally get some answers.
18
The meeting with Ed Farrow was a gigantic bust. He’d blown Zack off immediately, saying that he didn’t remember back that far. When Zack had tried to ask about underage kids getting into the bar, Farrow almost exploded, telling him to get the hell out of his restaurant and to not come back or he’d call the cops.
