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Nodding her agreement, she replied, “I know, but it wasn’t as though heneverpaid attention to them. It was just that he spent most of his time chatting with me. And I’m a bartender, so it’s not unreasonable for people to sit and talk with me. You wouldn’t believe the things I’ve heard over the years.”
The last thing I wanted to do was say another thing that would make Sawyer think I was scolding her or like it was her fault that she was in this predicament. I just needed to understand the situation better, so I could decide how to proceed.
“Alright, so he came in and talked with you a lot. I’m assuming you weren’t aware that he was a detective, right?”
“Correct.”
“So, how did you find out?” I questioned her.
“Adriana,” she answered.
My eyes narrowed. “Your boss’s wife told you?”
Sawyer shook her head. “No. But the day I heard her inside the office talking to one of the other bartenders, the same day she threatened to have me killed, she’d essentially indicated that she’d seen Eric at the police station and recognized him from when he came in and would talk to me.”
Wonderful.
It was a wonder this guy managed to have a successful career if this was how he handled things.
“What was your relationship with your coworkers like?” I asked.
Sawyer looked away from me briefly, and I watched as the sadness moved through her features. Something about that look on her face didn’t feel right, and it wasn’t simply because I didn’t like to see her upset. This was more than that.
When she finally returned her attention to me, she said, “I didn’t become best friends with anyone I worked with, but I wouldn’t say it was hostile or anything like that. It was just… I don’t know, what it was. They were my coworkers, but I never gave any of them my life story or made plans to see them outside of work.”
Hearing that after seeing that look on her face, I started to wonder what Sawyer’s personal life had been like over the last twelve years. The truth was, she’d left Maryland in a hurry, and not once since I’d been around her had anyone but this guy, Eric, called her.
At this point, I didn’t need to say anything that was going to upset her more than she already was. If she’d been living a solitary life when she left Steel Ridge, I didn’t need to point it out and make her feel bad about it.
Apparently, I’d taken entirely too long focusing on that, and Sawyer began to fret. “Jesse?” she called.
“Yeah?”
“Do you think I need to be worried?” she asked.
Tipping my head to the side, I countered, “Are you telling me that you weren’t worried before?”
She shook her head. “Not like I am now. Eric found me. I realize he’s a detective, but if he found me, doesn’t that mean that Adriana or whoever she’s hired to carry out her orders can find me, too?”
I didn’t want to lie to her. “I don’t know her, so I can’t say for sure. I don’t know if this woman has the capability or resources to locate you. But if you’re asking me whether or not it’s possible, then the answer is yes.”
“Are you worried?”
“I can’t say I’m thrilled about knowing someone wants you dead, especially for no good reason,” I returned.
There was a moment of silence while she digested all of this. Then, she asked, “Are you going to call Eric back?”
“Yes.”
“Will you make sure he knows that there’s something else?”
Unsure of what she was referring to, I questioned her. “What do you mean?”
There was no hesitation when she answered, “Adriana indicated to Russ that she didn’t think the police knew everything that was going on. It’s more of the reason why she wanted to kill me. Her goal was to see to it that I didn’t have the opportunity to tell the police anything else that they were up to. I have no clue what it is, but there’s something, and I think it’s got to be big if she’s willing to go to these lengths.”
She was right.
Killing Sawyer as an act of revenge because it was believed that Sawyer was the reason the club owner went down for hiring underage girls was different than killing Sawyer because it was believed that she could shed light on some other illegal activity.
