I Can See You

by Karen Rose

“You betcha.” Callie nodded, comfortable with the scrutiny she’d received since gliding into Sal’s on ridiculously high heels. Her tiny dress would earn her significantly better tips were she to wear it next time she tended bar. Not that she needed any help.

  Clerking for the county prosecutor was Callie’s primary means of putting herself through law school, but she’d recently started picking up extra cash working at Sal’s on weekends, her tip jar consistently filled to the brim. That dress combined with Callie’s substantial cleavage would send her cup running over, so to speak.

  Hopefully Callie’s dress wouldn’t give their boss any ideas, Eve thought darkly. Because there’s no way in hell I’m wearing anything like that, tips or no.

  So to speak. Eve squashed the envy. Never pompous, Callie was a beautiful woman comfortable in her own skin, something that Eve had not been in a long time.

  Eve made her voice light. “Her date’s taking her to Chez León.”

  Jeff whistled. “Spendy.” Then he frowned. “Do we know this guy?”

  The “we” was understood—it included every cop that hung at Sal’s. Eighty percent of Sal’s customers were police, which made the bar one of the safest places in town. An ex-cop, Sal was one of their own, and by extension so was everyone on Sal’s payroll. It was like having a hundred big brothers. Which was pretty nice, Eve thought.

  “I don’t think so,” Callie demurred. Her date was a defense attorney, which earned him poor opinion among their cops. Callie agreed, which was precisely why she’d accepted the date. Callie’s constant challenge of her own worldview was something Eve had always admired. “But he’s late, so I’m trying to get Eve to take this little quiz.”

  “Is that that MSP rag with Jack Phelps on the cover?” Jeff asked, his lip curled.

  MSP was the women’s magazine that juggled Minneapolis–St. Paul gossip, culture, and local concerns. Their recent exposé on the homicide squad had made instant, if temporary, celebrities of Sal’s regulars. It was a decent piece, although it did make their cops into white knights, a fact that had embarrassed the hell out of the detectives.

  Jeff gave Eve a pitying look. “My wife made me take that damn quiz.”

  Eve’s lips twitched. “Did you pass?”

  “Of course. A man can’t stay happily married without knowing how to BS his way through one of those things.” With a parting wink, he carried the beer back to his waiting friends, all off-duty cops who made Sal’s their home away from home.

  Callie rolled her eyes when Jeff was gone. “If he spent half the time he’s here with his wife, he wouldn’t have had to BS his way through this ‘damn quiz,’ ” she muttered.

  “Don’t judge,” Eve murmured, dumping two shots of gin over ice. “Jeff’s wife works second shift at the hospital. When he’s on days, he hangs here, then takes her home.”

  Callie frowned. “What about their kids? Who’s watching them?”

  “No kids.” But not from lack of trying, Jeff had confided one night when the bar was empty and he’d had a little too much to drink. The stress had nearly torn his marriage apart. Eve understood his pain far more than Jeff had realized. Far more than she’d ever let anyone see. Even Callie. “I guess his house is kind of quiet.”

  Callie sighed. “What else should I know so I don’t put my foot in my mouth again?”

  Eve tried to think of something she could share without breaking a confidence. She wouldn’t tell Callie about the cop at Jeff’s table who was worried his wife was leaving him, or the policewoman at the end of the bar, just diagnosed with breast cancer.

  So many secrets, Eve thought. Listening, keeping their secrets, was a way she could help them while she worked on her master’s in counseling. If she ever made it through her damn thesis she’d be a therapist, trading one listening career for another.

  But I’ll miss this place. She’d miss Sal and his wife, Josie, who’d given her a chance to work, to support herself in the new life she’d started in Minneapolis. She’d miss Jeff and all the regulars, who’d become more like friends than customers.

  Some she’d miss more than others, she admitted. The one she’d miss most never came in on Sundays, but that didn’t stop her eyes from straying to the door every time the bell jingled. Watching Noah Webster come through the door still caught her breath, every time. Tall, dark. Powerful. Look, but don’t touch. Not anymore. Probably not ever again.

  She looked up to find Callie watching her carefully. Eve pointed to a couple who’d confided nothing, but whose behavior screamed volumes. “They’re having an affair.”

  Callie glanced over her shoulder. “How do you know?”

  “Hunch. They never socialize, are always checking their cells, but never answer. She twists her wedding ring and when the guy comes to the bar for their wine, he’s twitchy. So they’re either having an affair or planning a bank heist.” Callie chuckled and Eve’s lips quirked. “I suspect the former. They think nobody notices them.”

  Callie shook her head. “Why do people always think they’re invisible?”

  “They don’t see anyone but each other. They assume nobody sees them either.”

  Callie pointed to a young man who sat at a table alone, his expression grim. “Him?”

  “Tony Falcone.” Tony had shared his experience in the open, so Eve felt no guilt in repeating it. “He caught his first suicide victim last week. Shook him up.”

  “From the looks of him, he still is,” Callie said softly. “Poor kid.”

  “He couldn’t forget the woman’s eyes. She’d glued them open, then hung herself.”

  Callie flinched. “God. How do any of these cops sleep at night?”

  “They learn to deal.” She met Callie’s eyes. “Just like you did.”

  “Like we did,” Callie said quietly. “You a lot more so than me.”

  Yes, I dealt. But how well? Surgery could fix hands and minimize scars, but in the end one still had to be. It was easier here, surrounded by others who saw the darkness in the world. But when the noise was gone and the memories echoed in her mind…

  Uneasy, Eve mixed another drink. “We all do what we have to do. Some have addictions, some have hobbies. Some come here.” She shrugged. “Hell, I come here.”

  “To forget about life for a while,” Callie murmured, then shook off her mood. “I’ll take those out for you. It’s the least I can do since I’ve left you with the whole bar tonight.”

  Eve arched her right brow, one of the few facial features that still obeyed her command. “It’s going to Detective Phelps and his bimbo du jour.” Who were necking at a table next to the TV wall where everyone would see them. Eve didn’t have to wonder if the choice was deliberate. Jack Phelps liked everyone to know when he’d scored.

  Phelps should take a lesson from his way-too-serious partner. Eve stifled her sigh. Or perhaps Noah Webster should borrow just a smidge of Jack’s cheek. Jack hit on her every time he came to the bar, but in the year he’d been coming to Sal’s, Webster had never said more than “please” and “thank you” when she served his tonic water.

  He came in on Mondays with Phelps, who’d order a gin and tonic for them both. Phelps always got the gin, Webster always the tonic. Then Phelps would flirt with the women and Webster would nurse his water, green eyes alert, but unreadable.

  For a while she’d thought he’d come to watch her, but after weeks had gone by she’d given up on any such notion. Not that she’d reciprocate any move he made, so the question was moot. Although her mind still stubbornly wandered, imagining what she’d say if Noah ever uttered the lines that fell so meaninglessly from Jack’s lips.

  Of course, fantasy and reality were very different things. This fact Eve knew well.

  “We have to be fair here, Eve,” Callie said dryly. “Katie’s more than a bimbo du jour. She’s been with Phelps for three whole weeks. That could be a record for him.”

  Katie had come in with the other groupies after the MSP article had hit the stands and Jack had reeled her
in like a walleye. Or maybe it was the other way around. Either way, Katie would be gone soon and Jack would move to his next conquest. “So she’s more the flavor of the month. You gonna take these drinks or not?”

  “Not on your life. Katie doesn’t like me much. You’re on your own, pal.”

  “I thought so. I have to talk to Phelps anyway. That magazine you found is Sal’s copy. He wants Phelps to sign the cover so he can add it to the Hat wall.”

  Sal had covered one wall of his bar with TVs, but the others were covered in photos, most taken by Sal, all of cops. One wall he’d dedicated to his favorites—the homicide detectives known as the Hat Squad for the classic fedoras they wore. The wall had, in fact, inspired the MSP article. One day one of their staff writers had wandered in to Sal’s and been instantly charmed. To the public, the hats were an unofficial uniform, but to the detectives who proudly wore them, the hats were a badge of honor. Every member of the squad owned at least one fedora.

  When a newly promoted detective solved his first case, he was presented with a fedora by his or her peers. It was tradition. Eve liked that. As years passed and more murders were solved, the detectives supplemented their own hat collections according to their personal style and the season—felt in the winter, sometimes straw in the summer.

  Eve had never seen Noah Webster wear anything but black felt. It suited him.

  “I was wondering why Sal moved the picture frames around,” Callie said, pointing to the large, new bare spot on the wall. “But not even Phelps’s head is that big.”

  Eve chuckled. “Sal’s done a collage. He got all the detectives whose pictures were in the article to sign the page from the magazine. Phelps’s cover is supposed to be at the center.” She sobered. “But Phelps won’t sign it, even though Sal all but begged him.”

  Callie’s brows shot up in surprise. “Why? Jack’s not going for humble now, is he?”

  Eve studied Jack, who was discreetly checking his cell phone for the third time in a half hour. He returned the unanswered phone to his pocket, and his lips to Katie’s pouting mouth. “Who knows why men like Jack Phelps do the things they do?”

  A bitter frown creased Callie’s brow. “Because they can. Poor Sal.”

  “I promised him I’d ask Phelps one more time.”

  Callie closed the magazine and Jack’s face stared up from the cover. He was a dead ringer for Paul Newman, down to his baby blues. And, Eve thought, he knew it. “You’re going to pander to that ego?” Callie huffed. “You hate Jack as much as I do.”

  Eve smiled. “But I love Sal. He’s given me so much and this means a lot to him. He found some old photos of himself wearing his hat before his accident.” Before he’d been forced to give up the career that had been his life. “He wanted to do a Hat Squad photo exposé of his own. For Sal, I can pander to Phelps’s ego for a few minutes.”

  Callie’s frown eased. “You have a good soul, Eve.”

  Embarrassed, Eve put the drinks on a tray. “Watch the bar for me.” But she hadn’t taken a step when the door opened, jingling the bell and letting in a gust of frigid air. Her eyes shot to the door before she reminded herself that it was Sunday.

  She started to turn back to the bar, then stopped. Because Sunday or no, there he was. Noah Webster. Filling the doorway like a photo in a frame.

  Suddenly, as always, all the oxygen was sucked from the room. He paused in the doorway and Eve couldn’t tear her eyes away. Dressed in black from his fedora to his shiny shoes, he looked, as always, as if he’d stepped straight from an old film noir. There was something edgy, almost thuggish in the way he carried himself, a coiled danger Eve didn’t want to find attractive. As if she’d ever had a choice.

  He was linebacker big, his shoulders nearly touching the sides of the door, so tall the top of his hat brushed the doorframe most men cleared with ease. Heavy stubble darkened his jaw and her fingers itched to touch. Look, but don’t touch. The mantra was ingrained.

  He closed the door and Eve dragged in a ragged breath. Normally she was prepared before he came through the door, defenses ready. Today he’d taken her by surprise.

  “I’d say that’s a yes,” Callie said softly.

  “Yes, what?” Eve asked, her gaze hungrily following Noah, who was striding across the bar toward Jack’s table. He was angry. She could feel it from where she stood.

  Apparently Jack did, too. Eve watched the briefest shiver of alarm pass through Jack’s eyes, followed by sly calculation, then wide-eyed surprise. He frowned at his cell phone and Eve remembered seeing him check it, three times. SOB. His partner needed him and here he’d sat, showing off his sexual prowess with his bimbo du jour.

  “Yes to number six,” Callie murmured. “Do you believe in love at first sight?”

  Eve jerked her eyes to Callie and saw she’d flipped the magazine open to that damn quiz again. “Will you cut it out? The answer is no. N-O.”

  “Lust then. Can’t say that I blame you. He’s a lot more potent in person, all burly and broody.” She turned to the article and the picture of Webster. “Doesn’t do him justice.”

  Eve refused to look. It didn’t matter. She’d seen that picture hundreds of times. At home. In private. That Callie had seen her reaction to Noah’s entrance in public was bad enough. But who else had seen? And worse, pitied her adolescent fascination with a man who’d never said more than please or thank you?

  Her face heated, making it worse. She knew the scar on her cheek, almost invisible under her makeup, was now blazing white against her scarlet face. Out of habit, she turned her face away, reaching for his bottle of tonic water. Then she put it back. From the look of their conversation, Webster had come to fetch Jack. He wouldn’t be staying.

  She busied her hands, pouring coffee into two Styrofoam cups, adding spoonfuls of sugar. “Can you just put that damn magazine away?”

  “Eve, I only could see it because I’m your best friend. Nobody else noticed a thing.”

  Eve’s laugh was bitter. “You’re just saying that to make me feel better.”

  Callie smiled wryly. “Did it work?”

  “No.” Eve lifted her eyes, saw Jack Phelps putting on his coat. “But on the upside, Phelps is leaving. I won’t have to ask him to sign that damn cover for Sal.”

  “Unfortunately, he’ll be back.”

  As will his partner. Next time I’ll be ready. And next time I won’t even look. Eve snapped lids on the coffee cups. “Do me a favor. Take these to them. It’s cold tonight.”

  “Thank you.” Noah took the cup of coffee from Sal’s new weekend bartender. The men had been talking about her. Curvy and blonde, she was quite a package.

  But she wasn’t the woman he’d been coming to see for months. The one he thought about long before walking into Sal’s every week, and long after leaving. That would be the tall, willowy brunette quietly standing behind the bar, dark eyes wide. Watching me.

  Watching everyone. Eve Wilson reminded him of a doe, head always up. Always aware. He wondered what had happened to make her that way. There was a fragility, a vulnerability her eyes didn’t always mask. Whatever had happened, it had been bad.

  Which hadn’t taken a detective to figure out. Up until six months ago, she’d borne a visible mark of past violence, a scar on her cheek. Rumor had it that a surgeon had worked magic with his knife, because now it was barely visible. Rumor also had it that the black leather choker she wore around her neck covered another scar, much worse.

  Noah had lost count of the number of times he’d been a mouse click away from finding out what had put that wary guard behind the façade of calm. But he hadn’t. He wanted to believe he respected her privacy, but knew he didn’t want to know. Because once he knew, it would change… everything. The knowledge rattled him.

  Conversely, very little seemed to rattle Eve, even the clumsy advances of drunken customers. More than once in the last year Noah had been tempted to come to her aid, but she always managed—either on her own or with the help of one of th
e other cops.

  The men took care of her. They liked her. They lusted after Callie, but liked Eve, which left Noah grimly reassured. He would’ve had a much harder time sitting with his damned tonic water week after week had it been the other way around, because long before he walked in every week and long after he left, he wanted her. But he had only to look at the mugs of beer and glasses of liquor surrounding him to know he couldn’t have everything that he wanted. Some things, like Eve, were best left untouched.

  However difficult she was to rattle, Eve had been startled tonight. Her dark doe eyes had widened. Flared to life. And for that undefended split second, his heart stumbled, the hunger in her eyes stroking the ego he’d tried so hard to ignore. But he’d come to get Jack. And it didn’t matter anyway. That Eve was interested didn’t negate any of the reasons he’d vowed to keep his distance. If anything, it underscored them.

  He pulled his eyes back to Callie, who still stood in front of him, studying him. “Eve thought you might want something to keep you warm when you went back out,” she said, shivering in a skimpy black dress that left little to the imagination.

  “Tell her I appreciate it. You should get away from the door. You’ll catch cold.”

  Callie’s smile was self-deprecating. “The things we women do for fashion.”

  Looking over his shoulder, Noah watched Callie take the other cup she held to Jack. She spared his partner no conversation, simply leaving the cup on the table. Jack wouldn’t have heard her anyway. He was soothing Katie, who was pouting because he had to leave. Noah bit back what he really wanted to say, about both Katie’s pout and Jack’s idiotic song and dance about no cell phone reception in the bar.

  Noah pulled out his own phone. Just as he’d thought, strong reception. He wasn’t sure if Jack believed his own excuses, thought Noah was stupid enough to believe them, or just didn’t care if anyone believed him or not. Regardless, Noah was going to have to report him soon. Jack had missed too much work.

  The thought of turning in his own partner made him sick. When Jack focused, he was a damn good cop. If he could just keep his fly zipped, there would be no issue.