AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Now, normally, I’d be telling this woman to fuck off. But Allie is an informant of mine. She’s the day shift bartender here at The Bluefish, and I need her eyes and ears when I’m working a case.
“Working. You know how it is.” I wave my hand around absently at the packed bar surrounding us.
She nods almost immediately. “Yeah, I damn sure do. What brings you in tonight?”
That’s when I spot him. He’s two booths down from us, leaning across the booth and talking to someone. The light above his head is swinging, as if he’d hit it with his hands while talking.
Allie follows my gaze, turning to see what’s caught my attention. “Ahh, the Stanner boy, hmm? What you want with him?”
My ears perk up like a cat that’s heard the jingle of its favorite toy.
“What you know about him?” I ask, leaning forward as I hope something she can tell me will give me a solid idea of how to get my hands on the fucker.
She sighs, eyes vacantly looking behind me at a spot on the wall. She takes a long drag of her cigarette, eyes darting back to mine. “Real piece of work, that one. He’s been in more than a few scuffles in here, and when he comes to, he always says he didn’t remember what happened. Real Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde type shit if you ask me,” she finishes, staunching her cigarette in the glass tray in between us on the table.
I look up to where Emery has sat back enough for me to see he’s sitting with someone I know. Mr. Smith from Rochester sits across from him in the booth. The IGA owner had been all too forthcoming with information when I’d been in his presence. But it seems Mr. Stanner has a solid network of snitches in place in his hometown.
“What did he get into fights over?” I ask, finally realizing how silent I’d become.
She shrugs. “No one knew. Not even the people he put in the hospital. One of them said he smiled at Stanner as he walked past, and then the next thing he knew, me and Big Ed were loading him onto a stretcher out front.”
Big Ed was the owner here at The Bluefish, known for his kind demeanor but also for his size.
“What do you want with him?” Allie asks again, eyeing me warily. She’s worried about me; and probably thinks I’ll get my ass handed to me if I square up with Stanner in her bar. But she’s never seen me in action.
“I think he hurt my friend,” I tell her.
She sighs again, grabbing her lighter from inside her bra. “Well, dug his own grave then, didn’t he?”
“No, but he will.”
CHAPTERFOURTEEN
Emery
The haggard old man slides into a booth, and I look around, assessing who’s watching us in this shithole bar. No one seems wise to my presence. He clinks his glass down on the table, sighing as he rests his big body back on the booth’s cushion.
“So, what’s this about?” I ask, eyeing him warily. I’d received an odd phone call earlier after I’d gotten Conner’s text, one telling me to meet a man here for our “check-in.”
The man sighs. “I knew dealing with his son would be different. I hope you will not make any trouble.”
My brows furrow in confusion. The man looks familiar. Somehow, I know him, but my brain can’t place how I do.
“Trouble? You called me here!” I grumble, looking around and finding a female staring at me from across the room. She’s in a booth with a man who has his head bent down in the shadows. None of his features are clear because of the broken lights above him, almost as if he designed the moment that way.
She inclines her head, popping her cigarette out of her mouth and between two fingers daintily. Turning back, I shake a sinking feeling out of my spine as I try to focus on the problem at hand.
“Listen, either tell me what this is about, or I’m out of here,” I tell the man.
He rolls his eyes in exasperation with me. “I’m supposed to check in and give your father information every six months. Usually there’s nothing to report, but this time there is.”
“Check in?” I ask absently. Not really meaning to speak aloud.
“Mmm, about a week ago a man came into my store asking about the fire,” he carries on.
My heart races in my chest, battering my ribs so fiercely I know there’ll be internal bruising later. My mind is a flurry of thoughts.
The fire.
