I choked out a laugh. “Terribly.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” he said a little cautiously, “but you don’t seem like the real-estate type either.”
“Really?” He was cocky, but endearing, and maybe it was the second vodka tonic, but his smile was growing on me. “What’s my type then?”
Julian studied me as he polished a glass. “Cold beer and takeout pizza. Barefoot, jeans, and a loose-fitting faded T.”
I felt the blood race to my cheeks, surprised by how on the mark he was, and by the fact that I didn’t mind his candor. Or the way he was looking at me. I drained the last of my vodka tonic as I considered the differences between Theresa and me, wondering if Steven had ever been into takeout pizza, or if his tastes had always run top-shelf and I’d just been too ignorant to see it.
“Too bad you’re not interested in family law. The world could use a few honest divorce lawyers, too.” I laid the twenty on the counter and slid down from my stool. I had to pee, and the restrooms were probably at the back of the bar, near the booths Julian had mentioned. I could check them out on my way. Just for curiosity’s sake.
“Hey,” Julian said, cupping a hand over mine before I turned away. “My shift ends in an hour. If you want to wait around, we could grab something to eat after.”
A honey-colored curl hung low over his eye, and his smile felt perfectly uneven. I won’t lie and say I didn’t grant myself a few seconds to think about it. “Thanks.” I slid the twenty across the bar toward him. I needed to get home to my kids before my sister sent every patrol car in the city out to track me down. And the last thing I needed was for them to find me rolling in pepperoni in the back of my minivan with a cougar-hunting coed. “I’m not really dressed for pizza.”
He sank his teeth into his lower lip, suppressing a grin.
I thanked him and pointed to the back of the bar, letting him know that, as tempting as it was, my plans for the night hadn’t changed. And then I set off to find the ladies’ room. And maybe Harris Mickler.
* * *
The booths behind the bar were private, with black leather seats and high wooden backs and warm, dim lighting, making me look like the world’s biggest creep for trying to see into each one as I hobbled by in a pair of heels I hadn’t worn in years. A blister had formed where the tight strap dug into the joint below my right toe, and the two vodka tonics I’d just sucked down on an empty stomach weren’t making navigation any easier. I felt myself listing slightly as I slunk down the narrow aisle between the booths toward the sign for the restrooms. A phone chimed as I approached the last one.
“Would you excuse me,” a man said. “I have to take this call.” The man slid out without looking up from his phone, nearly knocking me over as he stalked toward the bar. “This is Harris,” he said in a low voice into his phone as he brushed past me.
Harris. I rested a hand on the back of the nearest booth for balance as I turned to catch another glimpse. The couple sitting beside me looked at me curiously, so I bent over my heel and made a show of adjusting my strap while a woman eased out of Harris Mickler’s booth. Her high heels clicked down the hall and disappeared into the ladies’ room. I lingered for a moment, attempting to listen to Harris’s conversation a few feet away, but it was over quickly and he pocketed his phone. Flagging the nearest bartender, he ordered two glasses of champagne and returned to his seat. I rushed for the bathroom, surprised to find my heart racing as I slipped into an empty stall.
What was I doing? This was ridiculous. I was ridiculous. So Harris Mickler was stepping out on his wife. So what? Plenty of men had done it before. Including my own husband. As much as I hated him for it, I could never imagine killing him. Not even for fifty thousand dollars. Yet here I was, spying on a man I’d never even met.
I relieved my bladder as quickly as I could, washed my hands, and opened my purse to reapply my lipstick, pausing at the sight of Patricia Mickler’s note crumpled in the bottom of my handbag. I should flush it right now. I should shred it and wash it down the sink.
The lock on the stall behind me snapped open and I quickly shut my purse.
Harris Mickler’s date bent over her smartphone, her long blond hair hanging like a curtain around her face, over the shoulders of her dove-gray suit. I smeared on a fresh coat of lipstick, watching her in the mirror as she dialed and pressed the phone to her ear. A stunning diamond ring glittered on the fourth finger of her left hand, flanked by a diamond-encrusted wedding band.
“Hey, babe,” the woman cooed into her phone as I tucked my lipstick back into my purse.
Maybe she was one of Harris’s colleagues from work, I told myself. Maybe they’d just closed a huge deal and had come to celebrate.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” she said. “I have a client meeting. It’s running later than I thought. There are leftovers in the fridge, and Katie’s allergy medicine is on the counter. Do you mind putting the kids to bed for me?”
Okay, so Harris was definitely cheating. With a married woman.
Big deal. He may have deserved a raging case of gonorrhea, and if he was beating his wife he definitely deserved to be in jail, but nothing I’d seen so far suggested Harris Mickler deserved to die. I adjusted my wig-scarf in the mirror and checked the time on my phone. It was early. I could still charge a few cartons of Chinese takeout to Steven’s account, bring dinner home for Georgia, and forget this ever—
Harris Mickler’s date leaned against the counter and raised her voice. “It’s an important client, Marty! What do you want me to do?”
I slipped out of the bathroom and the door drifted closed, muting their heated argument. I hurried down the corridor back into the bar just as Harris Mickler’s waiter set two bubbling champagne flutes before him. I caught the flash of Harris’s crisp white shirtsleeve as he tucked a folded bill into the waiter’s hand. When the waiter turned, something slid from Harris’s palm into one of the glasses. The white pill glowed against the golden bubbles, fizzing as it wafted to the bottom of the flute.
Head down, I walked fast past Harris’s booth and slipped into an empty space at the bar. The angle was too sharp to see Harris Mickler’s face, but near enough to see his arm as he swirled the glass. I hardly noticed the bartender step in front of me to take my order. I was out of cash anyway, and I craned my head to see over his shoulder as Harris switched the position of the champagne flutes.
The bartender leaned into my field of vision. Julian smiled when our eyes caught. I tried to catch discreet glimpses of the restroom door down the hall. The woman would be coming back any second. What should I do? Tell Julian? Ask him to swoop in on their table? Track down the woman in the bathroom and tell her what I had seen Harris do? Any of those would make me a witness. I’d have to wait around for the police to come and take a statement. They’d ask me who I was and what I was doing here. I’d have to explain why I was wearing a wig and a stolen dress and calling myself Theresa. I’d have to explain why I was the subject of a police manhunt, because I had failed to pick my children up from my sister’s house.
Georgia, I thought.
Georgia was a cop. If Georgia had been there, what would she do? Every scenario that came to mind involved a service weapon or handcuffs, or some knowledge of jujitsu. I had none of the above.
“Change of plans?” Julian asked with a curious tilt of his head.
“Maybe,” slipped out before I could take it back.
His grin widened a little. “Want a drink while you wait?”
This was the part of the story where the heroine had to think on her feet. What would the heroine of my story do? Definitely not call the police while she had a promissory note for a hit job hidden in her purse.
“Bloody Mary?” I asked.
He raised a brow at my beverage choice but didn’t argue. I watched the bathroom door while he poured tomato and vodka over ice and dropped a plume of celery in the glass.
“Thanks,” I said, plucking it from his hand before it hit the counter. “I’ll be righ
t back.” I picked my way quickly back toward the dark hall to the restrooms and flung open the door, relieved to find Harris’s date leaning in front of the mirror, touching up her rouge.
I took a deep breath and prayed the woman didn’t have a concealed carry permit. Then I pretended to stumble, flinging the contents of my glass and drenching the back of her suit in tomato juice.
Her spine went rigid as the icy liquid soaked through the pale gray skirt.
“Oh, oh no! I am so, so sorry!” I set my empty glass in the sink and snatched a wad of paper towels from the dispenser.
She swatted away my clumsy attempts to wipe the mess, twisting with a look of disgust to see the damage in the mirror. “It’s all over me!”
It could be a lot worse.
She swiped at her back, unable to reach the worst of the stain behind her. “Club soda,” I said, backing toward the door. “We need lots of club soda. You stay here. Don’t move. I know exactly what to do.” I pried the door open just wide enough to sneak through.
Harris’s head snapped up as I exited the bathroom. His smile fell away when I stopped in front of his booth. My heart hammered. It was now or never.
“Harris? Harris Mickler? Is that you?”
He blanched, casting anxious glances at the tables around us. “Uh, no. I’m not—” His eyes flicked back to the bathroom door. “I’m sorry,” he said, his expression caught between confusion and annoyance. “Do I know you?”
“Harris!” I said, swatting his arm. “We met at that party … you know, that Christmas thing a few years ago.” Smooth, Finlay. Real smooth. I’d have kicked myself if I didn’t think I’d fall over doing it. “Well, get up and give me a hug, you big, dumb idiot!” I grabbed his hand, practically dragging him out of the booth and throwing my arms around him as if we’d known each other since high school. He stood stiff, hands limp at his sides as I hugged him with one arm. The other reached around him for the nearest champagne flute, but it was too far away to grasp. Harris gently pushed me back by the shoulders, mumbling that I must be mistaken. I held him tighter and leaned into him, determined to reach it.
Still too far.
“Hey!” he exclaimed as his back connected with the table. “What are you—?”
I slid my hand over his ass. He shut up, his squinty eyes widening with surprise as I gave it a squeeze. Oh, god. What was I doing?
“Right,” he said with a sudden curiosity as the fingers of my other hand closed around the champagne flute. “Of course, I remember.” Something hard began to press into my stomach, and I was pretty sure it wasn’t his belt buckle. What a creep. Quickly, I slid the flute across the table until their positions were reversed. Then I dropped down into the empty side of the booth, eager to put a barrier between us as I reached for the closest drink.
“Mind if I join you?”
Harris maneuvered himself uncomfortably into the bench and eased himself down, his eyes glued anxiously to the bathroom door behind us. “Um … I don’t know if—” I tipped the flute to my lips and drank half of it down in one swill. It wasn’t strong enough to wash away the ickiness of what I’d just done, but the shocked expression on Harris’s face took the edge off.
I dangled the glass from my fingers. “You weren’t waiting for anyone, were you?” I sat up, clasping a hand to my chest. “Oh, no! I hope it wasn’t that poor woman in the bathroom. She was on the phone arguing with someone. It must have been her husband. She was really upset. I saw her leave through the back door.”
Harris’s face fell. He scowled as he reached for his glass and drained it, staring absently in the direction of the emergency exit at the end of the restroom corridor.
Oh, crap, I thought to myself as his Adam’s apple bobbed with his final swallow. How long did these things take to work? I set my flute down. My lipstick marked a distinct red shape on the side of the glass, and my fingerprints dotted the stem. If he passed out here and a hospital did a toxicology screen, this would look very, very bad for me.
“Hey, Harris,” I said, casting anxious glances into the booths around us. I leaned over the table and whispered, “What do you say we get out of here? Go somewhere more … private.” I jerked my chin toward the door he’d been staring at, relieved when a perverse smile spread over his face. I had parked behind the Dumpsters out back, as far from the front doors and windows as I could. His address was written on Patricia’s note in my purse. If we could get him to my van, I could take him home to sleep it off. Then I could burn the note and forget the whole thing had ever happened.
Harris flagged down the waiter with a raised finger. “Check, please.”
He worked his tie loose as we waited, a sheen of perspiration shining along his hairline and a frown pulling at his cheeks. “So remind me, how do we know each other?”
“Oh, uh…” I dug back through my memories of his social media profile, but my mind was frozen with fear. I couldn’t remember the name of a single group he’d belonged to. “We were in that … you know … we did that special thing,” I said, with a dismissive wave of my hand, “with that Northern Virginia … finance group.” I lowered my voice to a conspiratorial whisper, hoping he’d fill in the blanks. “The one whose name I can’t—”
“You work for Feliks?” He darted anxious glances around the room.
“Yes!” I said, clapping my hands together. “That’s exactly how we know each other. I work for Feliks,” I repeated absently, eyes glued to the door to the ladies’ room, hoping like hell Harris’s date didn’t come out.
“Oh,” he said, rubbing his breastbone as if he had heartburn. He looked a little queasy. “What exactly is it you do for Feliks?”
My knee bobbed under the table. “Oh, you know, this and that.” Harris shook cobwebs from his head, his gaze growing glassy and unfocused. I kicked him under the table. “Stay awake, Harris,” I said cheerily. I craned my neck, searching for the waiter. How long did it take to bring a damn check?
“That was some pretty strong champagne,” he said, his head loose on his neck. “I’m feeling … a little funny.” His speech had slowed, the edges smearing together into a drunken slur. He blinked, his eyelids growing heavy. “What’s your name again?”
“Theresa.”
“Right, Theresa,” he said as the waiter finally appeared, balancing a tray of drinks as he slid the black leather bill folder onto the table and quickly disappeared again. Harris’s chin sank lower, and I was grateful the waiter hadn’t stopped to chat.
“Let’s go, Harris.” I stood up, checking to make sure no one was watching as I pulled him to his feet. The Lush was packed, too many bodies crammed together for anyone to notice, and Julian was busy pouring drinks behind the bar. Harris leaned against me as I grabbed his wallet from his back pocket, fished out a hundred-dollar bill, and left it on the table to cover the tab. Wrapping his arm around my shoulder, I steered him clumsily through the back hallway toward the illuminated EXIT sign, flinging the door open wide enough for both of us to pass through.
By the time we reached the parking lot, Harris was noticeably heavier. My heels wavered under me as his head slumped toward my shoulder. Heaving him higher, I aimed us toward the dumpster, making a slow, wavering line toward the shadow of my van behind it. The employee lot was dark and quiet, and I propped Harris against the side panel, holding him in place with my body to keep him from falling over while I fished my car keys from my bag. His hands roved over me, sloppy and restless. One of them groped around under my dress, and I recoiled when his wet tongue slipped inside my ear.
“Oh, Harris.” I leaned away from it, my tone laced heavily with sarcasm as he pawed me. “You’re a naughty one, aren’t you?” I fumbled with my key fob and the sliding door rolled open, nearly knocking Harris to the ground. I held him steady as he plopped down on the floor in front of Zach’s car seat, apple juice and Goldfish cracker goo sticking to the backside of his expensive suit as I pushed him backward with promises of the good time waiting for him if he climbed inside and
laid down on the floor like a good boy. He growled in my ear as I nudged him in, slurring about all the things he’d do to me if I crawled inside with him, most of which made me cringe and arguably would have justified accepting Patricia’s offer. Then, finally, he slumped into a deep sleep.
* * *
I stuffed Harris’s feet inside the van and shut the sliding door behind them. Dogs barked somewhere close, and I peered around the dumpster into the bright parking lot on the other side, praying no one had seen what I’d done. A couple walked arm in arm into the bar. A group of women huddled smoking out front but didn’t look my way. The dogs’ barks faded into the background.
I dug in my bag for my cell phone as I raced around to the driver’s-side door. I should call Patricia first. Make sure she was home. Then I’d explain the conversation she overheard in Panera and set this whole misunderstanding straight.
“Theresa!” I stiffened as a cool voice cut across the parking lot.
I spun to see Julian crossing the lot toward me, wearing an easy smile and spinning his car keys around his finger. The top two buttons of his dress shirt were unfastened, his sleeves rolled to his elbows as if he’d just signed off for the night.
“I was hoping you hadn’t left.” He leaned against the side of my van, and I silently thanked god for the darkness. And Dodge, for tinted rear windows in minivans.
“I am so … so sorry,” I stammered, pressing my fingers to my forehead and struggling through a rushed apology. “I totally wasn’t intending to ghost on you. And I didn’t mean to leave without paying for that last drink. I just—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he said gently, easing upright and taking a half step back, his hands raised. “You don’t need to apologize. You don’t owe me anything.”
“But the Bloody Mary—”
“Was more than covered by your tip,” he said, keeping a comfortable distance between us. “I just wanted to make sure you’re okay to drive home. I can call you a cab,” he added, making it clear this wasn’t a come-on, “if you need a lift.”
Finlay Donovan Is Killing It Page 5
