AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Hey, let’s have a few at Lundeen’s first,” he said as Bailey joined him.
Her steps slowed. She would have rather stayed at the reunion than swallow anything poured at Lundeen’s . . . but here she was.
Inside, she followed Penske up to the scarred bar that spanned twenty feet beneath dim hanging lights in the shape of old-time lanterns. When he ordered himself an Irish whiskey, Bailey opted for a light beer.
“Oh, get your drink on,” he said, pointing to his whiskey and putting up two fingers for the bartender, who nodded his graying, ponytailed head.
“I don’t drink whiskey.”
“Should I have made it vodka? Give it a try.”
“I don’t even know why I’m standing here with you,” she sa
id.
“Because you were bored. It was boring. And now it’s time for the real reunion to begin. We didn’t hang out in high school. We gotta make up for that.”
“You were in the cool group.”
“You were one of the Five Firsts,” he said right back.
“Yeah, but only Amanda, Delta, and Zora were the ones you guys hung out with. Carmen and I were—”
“Lesbians,” Penske cut her off. “That’s what we all thought anyway.”
“Everybody knew Carmen had a serious thing for Tanner.”
“Maybe she was bi,” he allowed, “but you were definitely into girl on girl.”
“I don’t know why I’m still standing here.” Bailey shook her head and set her beer down on the counter.
“Don’t leave,” he begged. “Okay. You want me to believe all this time you’ve liked guys?”
“I’ve had boyfriends,” she told him hotly. A boyfriend. For a short time.
“Really, who?”
“No one you’d know.”
He snorted. “But you’re still obsessed with Carmen. Got that journal going.”
He made her sound half-crazy. “The journal is my way of dealing with her death.”
“Show it to me.”
“No.”
“Oh, come on, Bailey.”
She shook her head. “It’s mostly for me. Everyone says her death was an accident, and yes, she didn’t intend to die, but I have a lot of questions. I’ve talked to my dad about it.”
Penske had knocked back his whiskey, and now he looked hard at Bailey. There was a loud billiards game going on behind them that sounded like it could be turning into a raging fight. Bailey half-turned to check out the players, but she could feel Penske’s appraisal of her.
“What does your dad think? He’s a senior officer, right?”
“He thinks . . .” She wondered if she should be honest. Quin didn’t actually believe in the kind of suppositions, which he tended to label “conspiracies,” that Bailey had laid out over the years about Carmen’s death, but he was proud of her research.
“You’re a darn good investigator,” he’d told his daughter upon examining her notes on not only Carmen’s death but other crimes that, though she wasn’t a detective per se, she’d analyzed in depth and had offered up avenues of investigation that had led to solving them.
