“Too bad?” I said.
Skyla scowled at me. “It’s early yet. Let’s get a beer and talk up the regulars.”
I glanced at a couple of big-bellied, bearded men in the corner who had licked their lips the moment they laid eyes on us. “They don’t look like they’re in a talking mood.”
Skyla ignored me and flagged the bartender’s attention. He slid two brown bottles toward us, and Skyla paid him. I took a beer and settled onto a bar stool, hoping to make it through the evening unmolested. Turns out I wouldn’t be that lucky.
“Ladies, you wander in here by accident? This place don’t serve no fancy frou-frou drinks.” A man in a beat-up cowboy hat leaned on the bar next to us. His lip pooched out over a plug of tobacco. He caught me studying him and spat a stream of brown juice on the floor at my feet. I exercised every ounce of control I possessed to keep from stepping back and gagging.
“We’re good with beer.” I raised my bottle as evidence and tried to smile at him. The bland look he gave me said I needed to try harder, or maybe he would have preferred if I spat at him in return.
“Why don’t you two come an’ keep me and my buddies company.” He tilted his head toward a table where two men sat scratching and drinking beer. They all wore flannel shirts¸ boots, jeans, and trucker hats. Rednecks, it appeared, were not strictly relegated to the south. One man smiled at me and revealed a set of tobacco-stained teeth… at least the ones that hadn’t fallen out yet.
“Are y’all regulars in this place?” I asked. If we couldn’t find Adam Skoll, then maybe we could find someone who knew where he was.
“Sure,” he said, pointing across the room to his table. “That seat’s got a permanent imprint in the shape of my ass.”
I waggled my bottle and said, “You buy us another drink?”
“Sure, darlin’, and if you’re extra nice I might let you sit in my lap.”
I giggled to cover my revulsion. Skyla gritted her teeth but kept her objections to herself.
No one insisted on enforcing the sitting-in-laps provision, for which I was grateful. Skyla nursed her beer and grunted monosyllabic answers whenever anyone asked a question. I, however, flirted like a first-rate hooker. Or maybe a third-rate hooker. I lacked the experience and frame of reference to know for sure. But these men had low expectations—I had breasts and a vagina, and for them, that was enough.
“Yeah, we heard of that Skoll fella,” said Cowboy Hat when I mentioned the name. “Thought he was tough shit. Ain’t seen him around in a while. Heard he lit out of town after some trouble with the cops. Why you lookin’ for him?”
“He owes me money,” I said.
Cowboy Hat chuckled. “They usually do.” He rubbed the coarse whiskers sprouting on his upper lip and narrowed his eyes. “I might know somebody he used to run around with. I could get you in touch with him.”
I sprawled in my chair, trying my best to look bored and not too interested. “Oh yeah?”
“But I don’t give nothin’ useful away for free.”
I sat up and leaned toward him, seductive and giving him smoky bedroom eyes, or so I hoped. I lowered my voice and thickened my southern twang. “I don’t expect you to, honey, but I don’t pay for nothin’ if I don’t know how good it is.”
Cowboy Hat smiled like a pervert at a strip show. “Oh, it’s good. It’s real good.”
His buddies snickered as though they shared in some secret joke. Believe me, there was nothing secret about Cowboy Hat’s insinuations. When I met Mani in Heaven one day, he was so going to owe me for this.
I sighed and smacked my bottle on the table. “Meet me in the parking lot in a few, and I’ll see what kind of goods you have to offer.”
Cowboy Hat chuckled, rocked back in his chair, and tilted his beer over his mouth. I leaned toward Skyla and batted my eyelashes. “I gotta pee. Come with me.”
“Chicks,” mumbled a trucker-hat stooge. “Why they always gotta go to the bathroom together?”
Skyla followed me into the stinking, single-toilet ladies’ room. “You sure you can go through with this?” she said. “The crime scene photographer had all his teeth, at least. This guy is gross.”
I grunted in agreement. “He’s also totally full of crap, but I’ll give him a chance.” I handed Skyla my keys. “You go out the back and get the 4-Runner started. I’m going through the bar and catch his attention. Give me a few minutes with him and then pull up next to his truck. Be ready to run.”
“What are you going to do?”
I wrinkled my nose. “I can be completely sure about what I’m not going to do. I might be willing to do a lot of things for Mani, but that asshole isn’t one of them.”
Skyla put her hand to my shoulder and stopped me before I pulled open the bathroom door. “You’re one tough bitch.”
I patted her hand. “Think of the stories we can tell our grandkids.”
Cowboy Hat opened the passenger door of his old truck and motioned for me to get in. If my daddy only knew… but thank God he didn’t. Climbing into trucks with strange men violated every self-protection instinct I possessed. I forced my shoulders to relax and hitched a foot onto the truck’s running board. Cowboy Hat put a helpful hand on my butt and heaved me in. I lost my balance and sprawled onto his vinyl bench seat. The truck’s heavy door shut with an ominous bang behind me. I almost lost my courage, but before I could talk myself out of going through with whatever was going to happen next, Cowboy Hat had scurried around and hopped into the driver’s seat. The bar’s neon Open sign flickered an eerie red light across his fiendish grin.
Cowboy Hat wasted no time reaching for me. “Let’s see the goods,” he said. I smacked his hand away from my breast, and he scowled. “Hey, what are you playing at?”
I swallowed the sour taste in the back of my throat and forced myself to smile. If Skyla could seduce a crime scene photographer to get the information she wanted, I could at least pretend to come on to this guy. “What’s the hurry?” I said.
Cowboy Hat narrowed his eyes. “Sure, sure, we can do this any way you like. I ain’t got nowhere else to be.”
I took a deep breath, steeled my nerves, and reached out to put my hand high on his thigh, near his crotch. His thin lips spread into a greedy smile. I scooted closer and leaned in, letting my breath ghost over his ear as I whispered, “Now, look. I said before that I don’t pay for information that isn’t any good. How do I know you aren’t yanking my chain?” I scooted my hand higher up his leg, careful not to get too close to the growing lump in his pants.
Cowboy Hat started to speak, but his voice cracked. He cleared his throat and tried again. “The guy you’re looking for, Skoll. He’s got a buddy he runs around with. They used to come to the bar together all the time. His name’s Harold Hati.”
A current of excitement tingled over my skin, raising the fine hairs on my arms and neck. Not because of Cowboy Hat, but because I now had a lead on Harold Hati, the person of interest even the police had failed to locate. His name coming up in connection with Adam Skoll couldn’t be a coincidence. I leaned closer and put my lips to the edge of Cowboy Hat’s jaw. His bristly beard poked at me, and he smelled like old chewing tobacco. “Where can I find him?”
He pulled away and shook his head. “I ain’t tellin’ you nothing ‘til you show some good faith. Panting in my ear ain’t gonna do it.”
“Oh?” I said and slid my fingers over so that they brushed the fly of his jeans.
He exhaled in a whoosh of breath. “Now, that’s more like it.”
Cold perspiration broke out on my forehead. The beer in my stomach swirled, threatening to come back up. I hated to come this far and put myself in this degrading position without getting something for my troubles, but if Cowboy Hat insisted on pushing things further, I doubted I had the commitment to follow through. “Where is he?” I asked again.
“Put your hands in my pants and I’ll tell you.”
I froze. I couldn’t do it. I didn’t have this in me—th
e ability to detach myself from this moment. There had to be another way. Cowboy Hat reached for my hand and guided it where he wanted it to go. His other hand unfastened the button in his waistband and tugged open his zipper. He yanked me forward by the wrist, and the action woke me from my trance.
“Is this what you want, baby?” I said, grabbing for his crotch. I locked my fingers around his most sensitive flesh and twisted. Cowboy Hat screeched, and his eyes rolled back in his head. “Tell me where he is, asshole. Harold Hati knows something about my brother’s murder, and I have to find him. Don’t think for a minute that your nuts hold any value compared to that.”
He swatted at me. “Let go of me, you crazy bitch!”
I tightened my grip, twisted again, and swallowed the bile trying to rise in my throat. I dug my nails in, and Cowboy Hat sang a high-pitched note just as a pair of headlights illuminated the back window of his truck. I prayed the lights belonged to Skyla, come to my aid. “My friend is out there. She wants the info just as badly as I do. You think I’m crazy? That girl is insane. Think of what the two of us could do to you. Thelma and Louise ain’t got nothin’ on us.”
Wheezy and panting, Cowboy Hat spat out the last of what he knew. I released his balls and leapt for the passenger-side door, anxious to escape before he recovered enough to retaliate. I twisted the handle and nearly fell out onto the ground. Cowboy Hat hurled a string of nasty insults at me as I bounded over to the 4-Runner and threw myself into the passenger seat. “Let’s ditch this hole,” I said.
“Happy to oblige.” Skyla spun gravel as we beat a hasty retreat. “What happened?” she asked, checking the rearview for signs of pursuit. I turned around and looked out the 4-Runner’s back glass. Cowboy Hat stood outside his truck, pants around his hips, one hand cradling his crotch, the other shaking in a fist as he yelled, but he showed little inclination of doing much more than that.
Never underestimate a girl who has a bigger, stronger brother. We learn how to fight at an early age, and we always fight dirty. Honestly, though, Cowboy Hat had let his guard down, and only for that reason did my attack succeed. Confronting him had been a risk, and if my plan had failed… I hated to think what might have happened. Probably something much worse than a set of sore testicles.
“I was right,” I said. “He didn’t know much.”
“So all of that for nothing?”
I shrugged. “He gave me a name and told me the guy’s last known location, but I’ve already heard of him, and he’s just as long gone as Adam Skoll.”
“What’s his name? I can ask some locals. We might get another lead.”
“Nobody knows where he is, Skyla. Even Detective Vanderleigh tried to track him down, but he couldn’t find anything.”
Skyla stiffened. Her voice was flat when she said, “What was the name, Solina?”
I sighed. “Harold Hati.”
Skyla swore under her breath. “Just what I was afraid you would say. He was a no-good son of a bitch. I should have known when he left that we hadn’t heard the last of him.”
Chapter Ten
After Skyla’s reaction to hearing Hati’s name, I explained how I had gotten Cowboy Hat to tell me Hati’s possible whereabouts. He said Hati had taken off with Adam Skoll on a commercial fishing trawler based in Siqiniq, but he didn’t know the boat’s name. Skyla responded by saying there were many commercial fishing outfits in Siqiniq, and with luck, we might find the right one. She had also said, in a deeply sarcastic tone, that with luck, we might also find a needle in a barn full of haystacks.
I dropped Skyla off at Thorin’s store. She threw a leg over her motorcycle and started the engine; it growled, low and sexy.
“Wow, that’s hot,” I said.
Skyla winked at me. “You ought to take it for a spin sometime. Give Val some competition.”
Thank God for the darkness that covered my blush. “Drive safe,” I said.
“Call me tomorrow. We’ll see what we can find out about fishing crews in the area.”
Skyla revved the motorcycle’s engine a couple of times, flicked her fingers in a brief wave, and shot off into the dark.
“Miss Mundy, I said I would give you a job. I didn’t take you for the commercial fishing type.” Aleksander Thorin appeared at my window, and his sudden arrival startled me and stole my breath. I coughed and struggled for air while he watched, as cool and composed as usual.
“Stalker much?” I said, still gasping for breath. “You nearly gave me a heart attack.”
Thorin frowned. “I assure you that wasn’t my intention.”
“Well, clear your throat or scuffle your feet next time. Give a girl a clue before you walk up and scare the bejeezus out of her.”
“If I could slip up on you, so could anyone else. You should be more careful.”
“I don’t think you’re trying to threaten me, but it’s kind of hard to tell.”
If sharks could laugh, then they probably sounded a lot like Thorin when he chuckled at me. “If I was threatening you, you would know it.”
“You might have a point, Mr. Thorin, but I sure don’t like the way you’re going about making it. What are you doing here anyway?”
Thorin gestured to the building behind us. “This is my store.”
“I know that, but why are you lurking around outside in the dark?”
“My store, my business. I should ask the same thing of you.”
I smiled a saccharine smile. “I’m not lurking. I was dropping Skyla back at her bike. We went out together. Girls’ night.”
“And you made plans to go fishing? How feminine of you.”
“Women’s lib, ever hear of it?”
Thorin snorted and changed the subject. “I saw that you finished the stockroom. Give me your hours, and I’ll cut you a check.”
“Keep your money. Think of it as a gesture of…” I was going to say friendship, but Thorin didn’t strike me as the type to need a buddy. “Goodwill.”
Thorin started to say something, but my phone rang. I checked the caller I.D. “It’s Val.”
Thorin motioned toward the phone. “Well, then, by all means.”
“Hello?” I said, trying to sound chipper despite the unsettling company.
“Solina? Where the hell are you?” Urgency and worry permeated Val’s tone. “Tell me you’re all right.”
“I’m fine,” I said. Thorin stiffened and leaned closer to the truck. “What’s going on?”
“Where are you?” Val asked again.
“I’m at the store. I just dropped Skyla off. We went out.”
“Are you by yourself?”
I looked at Thorin, who returned my stare and raised an eyebrow. “No, actually. Thorin is here.”
“Good. Stay with him until I get there.”
“What’s going on?” The breathless feeling Thorin had given me a few moments ago returned. “Is something wrong?”
“Stay there, Solina. I’ll tell you everything when I get there.”
“No, Val, tell me now.” Too late. He had hung up.
“Is there a problem?” Thorin asked.
“Apparently. He wouldn’t tell me what it was about. He said to stay here and wait for him.”
Thorin nodded. “Come on then. Let’s wait for him inside.” He led me behind the store and punched in a code to unlock the doors and disarm the security. I expected him to take me to his office or the break room, but he showed me to a set of stairs leading to an apartment over the store. The steps ended at a landing that opened into a kitchen.
The absence of knickknacks and clutter gave the place a sterile feeling and suggested no one lived there full-time. “Is this your place?”
“No,” Thorin said. “It was storage space when I bought the store. I had it refurbished into an apartment.”
“But if no one lives here…” I said, not understanding the point of such a space.
Thorin pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes, giving the impression he would have preferred I sit silently an
d not ask questions. “I use it on occasion. When I need to stay late or be here early to meet a group. Sometimes I rent it to clients when hotels are booked up with tourists, or when unexpected weather changes travel plans at the last minute. Empty apartments have a way of coming in handy.”
“So, I guess that means you don’t live nearby?”
Thorin grimaced at me before turning to the cabinets. “Would you care for coffee?”
Not a fan of personal questions, I see. “Sure, if you don’t mind.”
“If I minded, I wouldn’t have offered.”
A smarmy response burned on my tongue, but I held it back. At best it would start a petty verbal battle. At worst, Thorin would dismiss me as childish. Not that Thorin’s opinion of me mattered, but he was decent enough to let me hang out in his store after hours and make coffee for me, so maybe he had earned a little of my deference in return.
I sat at the small kitchen table and watched Thorin pull things from the cabinet, fill the water pot, and measure the coffee. Even in those simple and mundane tasks, strength and elegance graced his movements. As much as he irked me, Thorin’s allure was undeniable. How did a tiny town like Siqiniq collect such a high concentration of attractive men?
“Sugar?” Thorin asked, interrupting my thoughts.
“Huh?” I said, misunderstanding. Before she died, my grandmother had always called me “sugar,” a common term of affection in my neck of the woods.
“For your coffee,” Thorin said. “How many scoops?”
“Oh, uh, two.” I turned away to hide my blush. “Two’s good.”
“There’s only canned milk. I don’t keep the refrigerator stocked unless someone’s staying here.”
“That’s fine.”
Thorin brought me a cup of hot, sweet coffee, and I wrapped my hands around it, appreciating its warmth. He settled into a chair next to me, and an electric hum filled the air. Or maybe I imagined it. “Are you from Alaska?” I asked, in an inane attempt to fill the silence.
Midnight Burning Page 7
