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The man was talented, Mark thought.
Vince Monroe had started playing just a few minutes after Mark and Colleen had been seated. He had an amazing mix of numbers at his disposal, throwing in a few classic pieces here and there as he kept up a light banter throughout his performance.
Naturally, he played a number of Billy Joel pieces. But he had piano versions of numbers by classic rock bands, country-western bands, and he even did a damned decent job with his own arrangement of a rap number.
“We are just watching a performance,” Colleen said softly.
“But a good one.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “I wouldn’t have a problem in the least coming back here on my own time—and my own dime.”
“Well, my steak is also excellent.”
“My chicken is...hmm. It’s chicken! But it’s good,” she told him.
He grinned. “Glad to hear it. But I told you to try the steak. They’re known for their steaks. It says so—right on the menu.”
“Ah, but you didn’t get the little sweet potato tot things with your steak, as I did with the chicken. And they are to die for!” She winced. “I can’t believe I used that expression.”
“May I?” he asked. He didn’t wait for an answer; he reached across the table with his fork to steal a sweet potato tot.
She laughed, so it was okay.
He winced inwardly. Here, at the club, with them teasing over food and laughing together, he could almost forget they were working.
He never forgot he was working.
And he hadn’t now—not really, but he’d always admitted how attractive she could be. And tonight, her hair was down, she was smiling more often... They’d learned to be...
Partners?
Well, no, he thought dryly. He didn’t feel quite the same way about Ragnar. Ragnar was the best, but he didn’t have fiery red hair with constant glints of gold, or a voice that teased and slipped into the mind and conscious thought like a whisper of air that circled around and around...
He had to stop. This wasn’t right.
Or, he taunted himself, maybe it is just right.
“Not to worry,” she told him. “Hey, partners, right? My potato tots are your potato tots.”
“I will remember that,” he assured her. “Being a fan of potato tots. And John Lennon,” he added, nodding toward the stage.
“He’s good. His stage presence would suggest an easygoing personality. Then again, that may just be stage presence. Maybe he has a temper.”
“Maybe Dierdre’s parents just don’t consider a musician a person with a ‘real’ job.”
“That’s more than possible too,” Colleen agreed. “And while I had thought a prejudice against long hair went out long ago, they may see him as a...belated hippie or the like.” She leaned closer to him. “Do we try to talk to him tonight? Even if we pretend we’re just a couple out for the night? Compliment his music or something?”
“I don’t like pretense like that. Although, yes, we use it when we need to—that’s how we got into Carver’s house. But we’re going to want to talk to this man again in a more professional setting, so I’m not sure a cover story is necessary.”
She was close to him. The music was permeating the room, but she still had to come close in order to speak quietly.
He realized she had been out all day, and yet, she still smelled subtly of perfume.
Back away.
Remember they hadn’t started off so well.
His fault, of course.
“There’s something I need to say,” he told her.
“We’re going to tell him about Dierdre and ask if he knows of anyone who would do such a thing?”
“Well, that, yes, but I meant, there’s something I need to say to you.”
“Oh?”
“I’m sorry.”
She gave him a quizzical look, half smiled and half frowned.
“It’s really okay that you take my potato tots.”
He laughed softly. “No. It’s just... I wasn’t a good partner, especially not a good senior partner when we met. It was just that.”
“It’s okay. I know where you’d been on this case, and you and Red and Ragnar do have an incredible way of working together.”
“Thank you. But you have an extraordinary talent—one I don’t have. We all started out somewhere, sometime. And I should have been more supportive.”
“Like I said,” she told him quietly, “I know you found the last dead girl. And the same day we started together, you and Red and Ragnar had managed to find Sally alive. I honestly understand. This is a tough case. And throwing a new person in...”
She paused and shrugged.
He thought the silence between them that followed should have been awkward.
It wasn’t.
It was oddly comfortable. Almost...intimate.
Then their server swept around to pick up their plates. And they noted that onstage, Vince Monroe had risen, thanking the audience for their attention and applause.
“Hey, I’ll take a cruise around and see if anyone has any requests!” he said, bowing and stepping from the stage.
The restaurant tables were arranged in a semicircle around the stage in rows, each on a step up.
They were seated in the fifth row, the last row, but almost directly in front of the stage.
