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I slid out of the booth and headed to the bar to place my order. There were more people than I would have expected for a Monday night. A few men were milling around the pool tables in the back, and some older men were hanging out at the bar. A group of young women occupied the table closest to the pool tables, their gazes drifting toward the men.
The bartender walked up to me, and his mouth ticked up in a smirk. “What can I get you?”
“I’ll take another Jack and Coke.”
He kept his gaze on me, forcing me to really look at him. Something about him rang familiar, but he was too old to be one of my former classmates. I guessed him to be in his mid-forties, but he definitely wasn’t rocking a dad bod. The muscles of his arms filled out the sleeves of his T-shirt and his dark hair was thick and several inches long. A tattoo peeked out of the top of his collar. There were crow’s feet around his eyes and his face was covered with stubble, giving him an I can’t decide whether to shave or commit to a beard look. But his dark brown eyes unnerved me, like he could see right through me.
A shiver ran up my spine. I was in Jackson Creek to hide and lick my wounds. Not to be seen.
“Anything else?” he asked. “We serve food.”
“Nope,” I said with a false brightness, which thankfully sounded more genuine than it had with Louise. “Just the drink.”
“Haven’t seen you in here before,” he said as he grabbed a glass and filled it with ice.
I didn’t answer. Surely he didn’t know all of his customers. If the place was this busy on a Monday night, it had to be crazy on the weekends.
He finished making the drink and set it down in front of me. “You want it on a tab?”
“Sure.”
I headed back to the table, Louise’s eyes on me the entire walk back.
As I slipped into my seat, she flashed a glance at the bar, then back to me. “I see you met James Malcolm.”
I squinted at her. “Why does that name sound familiar?”
“Because he’s the James Malcolm. The one who helped bust that international drug ring.”
My jaw dropped, but I quickly recovered. “What?”
Amusement danced in her eyes. “I admit that I had ulterior motives for asking you to meet me here. Malcolm owns this place.”
James Malcolm had made national news three years ago for his role in a sting operation in Fenton County, about a hundred miles southwest of here, that had brought down an international crime organization. No one knew exactly what had gone down, but the FBI had made a deal with him and then rescinded it. Malcolm had been in federal prison for months before all charges were dropped and he was released.
“What the hell is he doing here?” I asked, still in shock. I’d thought I was the most notorious person around these parts.
“Good question. He moved here soon after he was released from prison and opened this place.”
“But why here?” I repeated. I couldn’t fathom it. I knew the Arkansas state police had suspected he’d had ties to Arkansas organized crime syndicates as well, but nothing had ever stuck.
“I know,” she said with a laugh, glancing over at the bar. “Seems like an odd choice, doesn’t it? The sheriff thinks he’s up to no good, but Malcolm’s as slippery as they come. He can’t find any evidence of wrongdoing.”
I took a long sip of my drink, relishing the burn as it slid down my throat. This was my second drink in about a half hour—my third in an hour, if I counted the one I’d knocked back before leaving my garage apartment—and I was finally finding the sweet relief only alcohol seemed to give me these days. “You can’t be dirty that long and suddenly go clean.”
“Seems to me it can happen in reverse,” she said, her gaze on me.
My face heated. Was she talking about me? After college, I’d gone straight to the police academy, then paid my dues as a beat cop until I worked my way up to detective six years ago. My record with the Little Rock police force had been spotless—exemplary—until it wasn’t.
“Not you, Harper,” she said bitterly. “Your partner. Among others.”
Keith Kemper. Asshole. Bastard. He’d turned his back on me after the shooting. Tried to get me to take the fall.
The pain of his betrayal was the worst of all. Especially since we’d shared more than a working relationship.
“I don’t want to talk about any of that,” I said with a shake of my head, then took another long drink.
Over the last four months, the life I’d painstakingly built for myself had been turned upside down. The rapidity and finality of it had shaken me to my core.
