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CHAPTERTWENTY-ONE
Madelyn
Iparked down the street from the bar, grateful that Dexter had mentioned its name when he’d contacted me to let me know about tonight’s plans. That meant I’d been able to look up the address.
For a few minutes, I just studied the outside of the building from down the street. It was a plain if scruffy brick building, distinguished by the bright orange door and the silver lettering that stood out against the large black sign overhead. No one came in or out while I watched, but that wasn’t surprising. My internet search had also told me that the place didn’t open until five o’clock, a couple of hours from now.
The guys had planned on scoping the place out like regular customers, but I couldn’t help thinking I’d be more likely to find evidence of illegal dealings while the clientele wasn’t around. Maybe if they hadn’t felt obligated to bring me along, they’d have broken in like they had the house the other day. But even the three of them going in together made it more likely they’d get caught.
I couldn’t pick locks, but if I could spot something from the outside or even find my way in and dig up a clue, no one would be able to claim I couldn’t hold my own alongside them. I’d have done something they hadn’t managed to, all on my own.
My heart thumped at a brisk beat, but I willed my nerves to settle down. This was no big deal. Logan and the others pulled crap like this all the time. It could be just an ordinary bar—the only thing we knew about it was that the manager had used Melinda Hughes as some kind of front address. Which, okay, suggested he might not be totally on the up-and-up, but it didn’t necessarily make him outright dangerous.
And there shouldn’t be much of anyone around the place this long before opening anyway.
Gathering my courage, I stepped out of the car. Figuring it was better to do this with as little baggage as possible, I left my purse behind and simply stuffed my phone in my pocket in case I needed to take on Dexter’s role as evidence photographer. Then I ambled down the street toward the bar at as casual a pace as I could manage.
I passed a café where patrons were chattering to each other behind the front window and a couple of shops with a few customers browsing inside. No one stirred around the bar. The front door would obviously be locked, and I’d look strange if anyone saw me trying it. I simply meandered on by the front of the building, eyeing the window surreptitiously.
The main room was cast in shadows, but I made out several square tables, all dark wood, and a wide wooden bar counter toward the back of the space. There was no one inside at the moment. Perfect.
A narrow lane on the far side of the bar led around behind the building. I ducked down it and picked up my pace, the back of my neck prickling. Thankfully, I had the foresight to set my feet quietly, because I was just a few steps down when I heard the scrape of something moving around the back.
I slowed down again and crept the rest of the way to the corner of the wall. There, I peeked around the building.
The lane connected to a wider alley that ran down the middle of the block past the backs of all the buildings. A truck was parked outside the bar, the back end open, boxes stacked inside it. Several of them had logos I recognized—they were cases of alcohol. Well, there wasn’t anything particularly suspicious about a bar getting a booze delivery.
More interesting to me was the door that’d been propped open with a wedge underneath it. A guy who didn’t look much older than me strode out and grabbed another case. A rhythmic hiss of music carried from the headphones he wore, which must have been blaring. He carried the case inside, leaving the door wide open.
My mouth went dry. This was my chance. I could get inside and poke around, as long as that one employee didn’t catch me. I should be able to manage that, right? The guy definitely wasn’t in a position to hear anything outside his headphones. As long as he didn’t see me, I was golden.
I couldn’t let the opportunity pass me by when luck was working in my favor.
I darted toward the back door, listening carefully for the seeping music. There was no sound in the dark hall on the other side. I slipped inside, my heart racing, and caught the sound of footsteps coming from a doorway to my right. I dashed in the opposite direction, to a door a little farther down on the left.
It was a kitchen, dim and dingy with a greasy smell lingering in the air. I didn’t think this place served up fine cuisine.
Moving as quietly and quickly as I could, I slunk through the cramped space. I peeked into the cupboards and drawers, scanned the countertops and beneath the cabinets, and studied every object that came into view. Ihadto find some piece of evidence to bring back to Logan, whether it proved that the bar had nothing to do with the case or that the culprits worked here. The thought of his sneering dismissal brought a rush of anger back to the surface.
He was going to see that I wasn’t some helpless kitten in need of protection, incapable of understanding whatever the hell he’d been through in the last few years. That I was just as resilient as he was, and putting me down wasn’t going to stop me from getting what I wanted.
Unfortunately, the kitchen offered nothing remotely useful one way or the other. I paused with a grimace and poked my head into the hallway.
The guy was just stepping outside again. The moment he’d passed out of view, I hustled across the hall to another doorway just before the main room.
It proved to be a storage room, about the size of a janitor’s closet—and true to form, it mostly held cleaning supplies. I shifted the various objects on the shelves around, finding rolls of receipt paper for the cash register, blank order slips, and a box of pens as well, but none of that was any help.
The manager must have some kind of office, right? A private area where he handled any business to do with the bar. Where was that?
I slipped out into the main bar room. The place was packed with tables, barely enough room for neighboring chairs to be pulled out at the same time. The ones near the front were all the square four-seaters I’d seen from the window; a few eight-person round tables stood closer to the back, near the bar.
The bar itself ran in an L-shape with the long end next to me along the back wall and a smaller bit jutting out at the far side, holding the cash register. Just beyond the register, I spotted another door. A tarnished brass plaque mounted on it said simply MANAGER. Bingo.
I checked the back of the bar on my way to the office, giving the shelves beneath the counter and along the wall a quick skim. Everything looked like standard bar equipment, as far as I could tell. A clipboard had been tucked away on one shelf, but all I found on the one sheet that had writing on it was a list of drink ingredients, maybe something custom a patron had asked for.
As I set it down and straightened up, my gaze caught on a folded paper left on one of the circular tables near the end of the bar. That must be something an employee had left there, right, since everything from last night’s customers would have been cleaned up? I dashed over to check it out.
To my dismay, I found only a crude doodle of a guy waving his gigantic dick. Rolling my eyes, I set it down—just as a click rang through the room with the turning of the knob on the manager’s office door.
