by Lori Wilde
“There’s no need, if you’d just give over control of the letter.” Carol Ann’s jaw clenched. Once her aunt got a scenario in her head she tended to become entrenched. She glanced around at the group. “Y’all back me up on this.”
“Back you up on what?” Zoey asked, rushing through the door with her book bag slung over her shoulder.
“Carol Ann is pressuring Natalie to answer Shot Through the Heart or give the letter over to one of us,” Lace filled her in.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” Carol Ann sniffed. “I’m the one who has to keep this whole show on track. Natalie’s being stubborn.”
“Take a chill pill, Aunt Carol Ann, how many times has Natalie not done what you’ve asked her to?” Zoey tumbled into her chair.
“That’s not the issue. I—”
“She always does what everyone wants her to do. For godsakes, let her do this one thing in her own time, okay?” Zoey said.
Wow, Zoey was taking up for her? Unbelievable. She smiled across the table at her sister and silently mouthed, Thank you.
“How does everyone else feel about this?” Carol Ann asked. “Is this acceptable to you all? Can we all just decide when we’ll get around to answering the letters? Is this the precedent you want to set?”
“Take the stick out of your behind, Carol Ann,” Delia said. “The world’s not going to end if Shot Through the Heart has to wait another week for her letter.”
“Fine.” Carol Ann pressed her lips into a firm straight line and glared at Natalie. “But I really don’t understand what the problem is.”
“Don’t you get it?” Zoey asked.
“Get what?” Carol Ann’s tone was snippy.
“Natalie’s fallen in love at first sight and she’s wrestling with her beliefs and working it out through her answer to Shot Through the Heart.” Her sister ratted her out.
Carol Ann’s face transformed. “My gosh.” She splayed a hand to her throat. “My goodness. Natalie, why didn’t you just say so?”
“Because it’s not true,” she lied, and felt her eyelid twitch.
“Of course, you can have another week.” Carol Ann nodded. “I’ll put a little blurb in the newspaper saying that Cupid had to put on his thinking cap for this one.”
Oh God.
Natalie groaned and dropped her head to the table. She might have gotten a reprieve on answering the letter, but now the entire town was going to be buzzing with the news that Millie Greenwood’s great-granddaughter had finally been struck by Cupid’s arrow.
Later that day, while going to the bar to stand in for the day-shift bartender who needed to run some errands, Dade noticed the back door to the Cupid’s Rest standing ajar.
Shaking his head, he went over to push it closed. It immediately popped back open. Forcefully, he shoved the door shut, jiggled the latch until it caught with an anemic click. The lock was a joke. Even if it was locked, the most bumbling thief could break in with a credit card and two minutes to spare.
“Natalie,” he muttered. “You gotta get this thing fixed.” Hell, you should fix it for her, Vega. Clearly, she doesn’t understand how vulnerable she is.
Dade got on his Harley and took off for Chantilly’s. He resented having to go to work at the bar when he wanted to be off looking for Red. He told himself this was the best way to find out about Red, talk to the regular customers where his buddy used to work, but still he ached to spring into action. Do something besides wait around for clues to appear. After his encounter with the Mexican woman, Dade had a renewed sense of urgency, and he was determined to find a lead to Red’s whereabouts.
At noon, Milo Birch, who perpetually occupied the last stool at the end of the bar closest to the front door, showed up. Milo was a weathered string bean with sharp features and a habit of wriggling his nose. If you stuck whiskers and a tail on him, he’d look like a desert rat, shifty-eyed and sneaky.
Dade didn’t trust him any farther than he could throw him, but he promised to be the best source of information about Red. When Milo was liquored up, his lips loosened like a hooker’s knees. Luckily for Dade, Milo was liquored up seventy percent of the time.
“Bud?” Dade asked as Milo settled into the seat.
Milo sniggered for no particular reason and nodded.
While Dade was trying to figure out how to bring Red’s name up in conversation, Lars Bakke walked in. Bakke didn’t take a seat at the bar, but instead chose a small nearby table and sat with his back to the wall.
It was a seat that Dade himself would have taken in a similar situation. He always sat with his back to the wall if he could arrange things that way. When you had the wall at your back, no one could creep up on you. He’d met Lars in passing at the Cupid’s Rest, but he hadn’t really had much of a conversation with him. It was time to rectify that.
Dade slapped a bar towel over his shoulder. “What’ll you have?”
“Jack straight up.”
Dade poured up a jigger of Jack Daniel’s, set it in front of Lars. “Kinda stout for high noon.”
“You’re pretty ugly to be my mother.” Lars smoothly poured the whiskey down his throat, and didn’t even wince.
Milo sniggered again.
“Something eating you?” Dade asked Lars.
Lars swiped a hand over his mouth. He was damn fit for a man his age. No belly paunch like the majority of older guys. “Problem with my boat.”
“Boat?”
“He’s havin’ a cherry of a sailboat handcrafted in Mexico,” Milo supplied, pronouncing Mexico the way the natives said it, May-he-co. “Gonna sail around the world. Show him the pictures, Lars.”
Lars shook his head. “Not in the mood to talk about it.”
“You want another?” Dade nodded at the jigger.
“Beer. Whatever you’ve got on tap.”
“Got it.”
Just then, Jasper came in through the back door. “What’s up?” he asked rhetorically.
“Lars’s got a glitch with his boat.” Milo took a big swallow of beer, leaving a foam mustache on his upper lip. He snaked out a tongue and licked it off.
“That right?” Jasper asked. “What kinda glitch?”
“He don’t wanna talk about it.” Milo played with a Chantilly’s coaster.
Dade poured Lars’s beer. “I slept in the hammock out back yesterday,” he said casually. “And in the middle of the night a Mexican woman showed up on the deck.”
“Hey,” said Jasper, sounding jealous. “How come nothing like that happens to me when I sleep in the hammock?”
Milo snorted. “ ’Cause you don’t look like him.”
Lars met Dade’s eyes when he settled the beer in front of him. “What did she want?”
“Whaddya think she wanted?” Milo made a lewd gesture.
“Actually,” Dade said in a measured, nonchalant tone. “She was looking for the guy whose place I took. Red, right?”
“Hmm,” Jasper said. “I didn’t know Red had a girlfriend.”
“I don’t think she was his girlfriend. She said he was supposed to help her with something.”
“What was that?” Lars asked.
“I can guess.” Milo made another lewd gesture.
Everyone ignored him.
Dade shrugged. “I don’t know. She wouldn’t elaborate, but she seemed pretty scared.”
“No tellin’ what Red was up to,” Milo said. “He was pretty tight-lipped.”
“I’m going to my office.” Jasper jerked his head in that direction. “Got some calls to make.”
Dade’s ears pricked up. What kind of calls was Jasper making? Did it have anything to do with Red?
“Red was something of a character,” Lars said. “Of course, most people who come to Cupid tend to be colorful in one way or another. He wore a braided bracelet with a spent bullet casing threaded over it.”
“I ’member that ratty old bracelet.” Milo scratched his chin. “Red said it was a souvenir from the gun he used to shoot a Taliba
nny.”
“Personally,” Lars said, “the story sounded far-fetched to me.”
Milo kept scratching on down to his neck. “Yeah, but why would he have worn that bracelet it if weren’t true? He never took it off.”
Dade tensed at the mention of the bracelet. He had to be careful here, couldn’t tip his hand. He didn’t know whom he could trust, but obviously Red had trusted Lars and Milo enough to tell them the story of the bracelet.
“You don’t say?” Dade murmured mildly, as if he wasn’t the least bit interested.
Lars lifted his big head. In his youth he must have been one strong son of a bitch. Even now, he was broad and powerful and could give a younger man a run for his money.
“Arm wrestle?” Lars asked.
“What?”
Lars eyed Dade’s biceps. “Ever arm wrestle?”
“Sure. When I was a kid.”
“Red and I used to arm wrestle.”
“Who won?” Dade asked.
Lars shrugged. “Sometimes him, sometimes me.”
“Really? You won?”
“A time or two.” Lars grinned, showing a row of straight teeth. “Just because I’m an old coot doesn’t mean I don’t still have some life left in me.”
“I can see that.”
Lars rested his elbow on the table. “You want to have a go?”
“I don’t want to shame you, old man.”
“Scared I’ll beat you?”
Dade laughed.
Lars nodded toward his arm that he planted on the table and raised his hand. “Show me your stuff.”
“I’m on the job.”
“The bar is empty.”
“Hey!” Milo protested. “I’m here.”
Lars flicked him a look that said, You don’t count.
Affronted, Milo blew a raspberry.
“Jasper,” Lars called out.
Jasper poked his head out of his office. “What is it?”
“You mind if I arm wrestle your bartender?”
“Only if I can get in on the action.” Jasper bounced into the bar faster than Dade had ever seen him move, pulling a wad of twenties from his wallet. “A hundred on Dade.”
“You sure you want to make that bet?” Lars asked.
“Look at him.” Jasper waved a hand at Dade.
“Hey!” Milo hiccupped. “I want in on it too. I’ll back Lars.”
“You got a hundred bucks?” Jasper asked.
“Yep.”
“Then pay your bar tab.”
“How about this,” Milo negotiated, staggering over to the table where Lars sat. “If Dade wins, I pay my bar tab. If Lars wins, you erase my debt.”
Jasper stroked his grizzled jaw, considered Milo’s proposition. “You got it.”
Milo pulled up a chair, turned it around, and straddled the seat with the back against his belly. “Ringside seats. Let’s go.”
Dade tossed the polishing towel on the bar. This was ridiculous. “I’m gonna smoke you, Grandpa,” he told Lars. “You sure you want to be humiliated in front of your friends?”
“Your confidence is commendable,” Lars said. “But there is no real freedom without the freedom to fail.”
“Huh?” Dade blinked.
Jasper waved a hand. “Never mind. He loves quoting Eric Hoffer. It doesn’t make any sense to anyone but Lars.”
“Just remember,” Dade pointed out to Lars, “you asked for it.”
“You’ve met your match, old man. This one is cockier than Red,” Jasper said. “More muscles too.”
Dade took the chair across from Lars and locked eyes with his opponent. He was doing this for only one reason, to fit in with this bunch and hopefully get them more willing to open up about Red. He planted his elbow adjacent to Lars’s and they clasped palms.
“Ready?” Jasper asked.
Milo hiccupped again.
Dade narrowed his eyes.
Lars squeezed Dade’s hand.
“Ready,” they agreed in unison.
“Go!” Jasper signaled with a bandana he pulled from his pocket and flung it like he was dropping the flag at a NASCAR race.
Lars’s grip was steel, hard and unyielding.
Unluckily for the old man, in the SEALs, Dade’s nickname had been Titanium. He pushed back.
Lars grunted, dug in.
Dade set his jaw. This wasn’t going to be a slam-dunk. The old man was amazingly strong.
Lars’s eyes glistened in the muted lighting. “You’re stronger than Red.”
“I warned you.”
“I’m not scared.”
They sat locked in the struggle for a few minutes. Dade’s muscles flexed as hard as they did when he lifted weights, while his mind whirled, working on how to broach the topic of Red’s disappearance without looking obvious. Finally, he just decided to take the bull by the horns. He was tired of pussyfooting.
“Any speculation on what might have happened to Red?” he ask casually, as if just making conversation, which was kind of hard to do locked in a steel-trap grip with Lars.
“No telling,” Milo slurred. “Red was an odd duck. Sometimes likable as hell, sometimes nutty as Pearl’s pecan fruitcake.”
“I think he just left.” Jasper leaned one shoulder against the wall. “Some people ain’t long-term folks, you know?”
Like me. He wasn’t long-term. Never had been. Never would be.
Dade raised his chin. “But he left without a vehicle? In the desert? Natalie told me he didn’t drive.”
“Probably hitchhiked,” Jasper surmised. “Truckers around here will pick people up even though they’re not supposed to. They know how dangerous it is to be out in the desert on foot for too long, especially in the summer.”
Dade shifted his gaze to Lars. “You got a theory.”
For a long moment, Lars said nothing. He was biting down on his lower lip and sweat was trickling down his temple. The veins in his arm bulged. “Me?” He grunted. “I think he’s off on a vision quest.”
“Vision quest, huh?” Dade put a bit more muscle into it and Lars’s arm trembled on a downward trajectory. “What makes you say that?”
“Red’s enamored of Indian culture, especially charmed with the concept of vision quest. He was also fascinated with the Marfa Lights. Went out there a lot. Red was searching for something.”
“Something like what?”
“Spiritually.”
That was a load of horseshit. Red wasn’t given to metaphysical claptrap. Then again, it had been two years since he’d seen his buddy. A guy could change a lot in a short amount of time. “Seems an odd concept for an ex-Navy SEAL.”
“He was looking for his place in the world. He was a troubled guy.”
Had Red gone off to find his place in the world? But no. There was that Mayday message. He wouldn’t have sent it if he wasn’t in some kind of trouble. But what?
Lars was chuffing out his breath in short, ragged pants. The sweat was flowing down his head now as he struggled against Dade’s hand.
Dade could have taken him down right then if he wanted, but he’d finally gotten the conversation rolling about Red and he wanted to take it as far as he safely could, so he eased off on the pressure just a hair.
Lars pounced on the opportunity and came charging back, the momentum momentarily giving the older man the upper hand.
Milo hopped up, threw the bandana on the floor. “Wipe off my debt, mother effer,” he crowed.
“It ain’t over till it’s over,” Jasper said dryly.
“Let’s say you’re right.” Dade stared into Lars’s eyes. “How long would a vision quest normally last?”
“Two, three weeks,” Lars mumbled, his fingers squeezing tighter.
“How long has Red been gone?”
“Took off over a week ago,” Jasper supplied.
“Stop talkin’ to him.” Milo jumped up and down like a flea with ADD. “He’s concentratin’.”
Everyone ignored Milo.
“Isn’t an
yone around here worried about Red?” Dade asked.
Jasper straightened, shrugged. “He’s gone off before. I was close to letting him go because of it, but he was such a damn good bouncer. A lot like you. Never had to raise his voice. Just talked real nice and deadly and people always backed down.”
“Yep. Red once told me in a smiling whisper that if I didn’t calm down he was going to rip my head off and shove it up my ass,” Milo supplied.
Lars grunted and gave a hard shove, trying to go in for the kill. “I doubt he’ll be back.”
“No?” Dade stiffened his biceps, holding in place. Ain’t gonna happen, old man. “What makes you think that?”
“Feeling I get.” Sweat pooled at Lars’s lip. “Why do you care so much?”
“Just curious after that Mexican woman visited me in the night.”
“Most guys wouldn’t be complainin’ about finding a pretty señorita in their hammock,” Milo said.
“Is that the only reason you want to know?” Lars asked, the loose skin under his chin wobbling.
Dade arched an eyebrow. “Why else would I be asking?”
“You tell me.”
“What?” Jasper chortled. “You think Dade is a cop or sumpthin’?”
“Why would a cop be looking for Red?” Dade asked.
Lars and Jasper exchanged a look that Dade couldn’t decipher. “Is there something I should know about my predecessor?”
“Nothing,” Jasper said. “Just show up, do your job, don’t ask too many questions, and all will be well.”
Was that a warning? Or was he reading more into the conversation than was truly intended? One thing was clear, if he had any hope of finding Red, he was going to have to confide in someone. The subtle approach wasn’t cutting it. He looked from Milo to Jasper and then back to Lars. He wasn’t about to trust these guys.
Who could he trust in this town?
Natalie.
If he dared to trust anyone, it was Natalie.
“How long you fellas gonna go at this?” Milo whined. “I’m gettin’ bored and Judge Judy is about to come on. Gotta get my fix of Judge Judy. She’s hot for an old gal.”
“We’re finished,” Dade said, and while he stared Lars squarely in the eyes, he slammed the other man’s hand down onto the table.
