“What happened tonight?” I asked, staying on track.
“Was working. One of my bartenders saw you. I came to check it out. You know the rest.”
My brows lowered. “How’d the bartender know me?”
Rye was a dive but not a dump. The walls were lined with framed photos and signatures to the point of running out of room. If not for the woman zip-tied to a filing cabinet, I would’ve thought it was one of the coolest bars I’d been to. I wasn’t the only one who thought so because the place was packed with a variety of people. Bikers. Partiers. The polo shirt bros. Even some people in suits.
Matthews and I shouldn’t have stuck out.
“Harlow is best friends with Piper,” he explained.
I thought about my impromptu pop-in at the kitchen hidden in the depths of a custom garage. I’d wanted to see how she was doing, but then my focus had mostly been on the cookies she’d sent me off with. I vaguely remembered one of her friends being there. “Redhead?”
He lifted his chin.
“How is Miss Skye?”
“Not Miss Skye anymore. Mrs. Hyde.”
That wasn’t a shock. For a brief second, I’d almost suspected her man was her stalker because I’d never seen someone so obsessed. It would’ve sucked to have to arrest my mentor’s son—the same mentor that’d gotten me the case to begin with. But it’d quickly become glaringly obvious that Jake would rather throw himself in front of oncoming traffic than cause her even a moment of fear or pain.
“Good for her.” And I meant it, too. That kind of love was rare.
“Better for him,” he tossed back, cluing me in that nothing had changed between the couple. “They’ve got a new building. Her bakery has a storefront now.”
My stomach and taste buds perked up at that, and I was tempted to go visit. I wasn’t sure if seeing me would retraumatize Piper or Jake, though, so I decided against it.
Even if my stomach and taste buds hated me for it.
Pushing fantasies of chewy cookies away, I tapped my pen on my notepad. “Do you have any idea who would orchestrate something like this?”
His nostrils flared.
“What were you just thinking?” I asked.
I anticipated an evasive answer, but he grumbled, “That it’s a long list.”
“You have a lot of enemies, Mr. Walker?”
“Every business owner does. Punks I’ve kicked out. Assholes I’ve fired. Other bar owners who want what I’ve built.”
Daisy’s throwaway comment landed at the forefront of my brain. “And women you’ve had security remove from the back room?”
That time it wasn’t just his nostrils flaring. It was his eyes, too, as they flashed with surprise. “Never had that happen. If they’re bounced, it’s before we get to that part.”
“That can’t go over well.”
He lifted a shoulder in a lazy shrug. “Hell hath no fury.”
Like a woman scorned.
Yeah, that saying was not inaccurate or exaggerated.
Still, something about it twisted in my stomach. “Are you in the habit of getting women drunk and taking them back there?”
His dark eyes—an interesting shade of blue with hints of green—narrowed at the insinuation, but rather than getting pissy, he chuckled. The slight curve of his mouth was enough to deepen those dimples in his cheeks. “Don’t need ’em drunk. If I see someone I want to spend a little time with and that feeling seems reciprocated, I switch her to water till I can take a break.”
It was none of my business, and the frequency of his…breakslikely had no bearing on the wild-goose-chase investigation. But I couldn’t stop myself from asking, “Does that happen often?”
