LITMIR.BIZ

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shudder ripped through him as her image came to mind.

      God in heaven, he’d wanted to wrap her legs around his waist and pound himself inside her. Just stick it to her, man, for all he was worth. He could imagine her head thrown back, her mouth open and slack, her hazel eyes like glittering agates.

      Mr. Ready jumped to flagpole attention and Glenn reached a hand to take care of things, but then the import of the card wilted his desire like a bucket of cold water never could.

      Was Jessie alive?

      She had to be!

      “Mr. Stafford?” A light knock on the office door. Glenn instantly adjusted himself, stuffed the card back in his pocket, then pulled open the door. Amy, one of the newest employees who wasn’t yet eighteen, regarded him with her usual deer in the headlights look. “Mr. Pascal’s here but he’s talking to a policeman? He told me to come get you.”

      “I’ll be right there,” Glenn told her. Policeman…? McNally! Had to be. Damn the man. Did he have to come to their place of work?

      Glenn checked his appearance in the mirror by the door, sucked in his gut, promised himself he would cut down on the pasta intake. He headed out the door, walking steadily and with confidence toward the front of the restaurant even though he felt a quivering worry growing inside his gut.

      Sure enough, there was that cop. Older now. But Jesus, really better looking than before, the bastard. How was that possible? He’d been in his mid-twenties before, now he was in his mid-forties, and it looked like he hadn’t lost one goddamned hair off his head. And the hair was still dark brown, the temples only faintly silver. McNally gazed at Glenn through light hazel eyes that pierced like steel. He looked fit and hard and just as mean as he had twenty years earlier.

      Scott was smoothing his bald pate with one hand in a gesture that could mean anything between nervousness and amusement. He lifted an eyebrow at Glenn. In a gently mocking tone, he said, “Detective Sam McNally’s paying us a call.”

      “Probably not a social one,” Glenn said shortly, trying to temper his tension with a smile. He hoped he wasn’t gritting his teeth. “Let’s all go back to my office.”

      Amy and some of the other employees watched them head down the hall, wide-eyed. Glenn wanted to smack each of their avid little faces.

      Repositioning himself behind the desk, Glenn noticed his hands were shaking ever so slightly. Damn it all. He placed one over the other on his desk as Scott propped himself against the wall and McNally accepted one of the club chairs, sinking into it as if he were there for a very long stay.

      “I called you,” he said, looking at Glenn.

      “Yeah—I—I’ve kinda been buried.” Crap, what was the guy asking? “I couldn’t find time to meet with you.”

      Scott broke in, “We’ve both been busy. I just got back in town not half an hour ago. Glenn and I have another restaurant just outside of Lincoln City—Blue Ocean—which we’re just getting going.”

      “I’m not planning to waste your time,” McNally said. “You know about the remains found at St. Elizabeth’s, I’m sure. I believe they’re Jezebel Brentwood’s, and I want to run over your statements at the time of her disappearance once more.”

      “But you’re not sure they’re Jessie’s,” Scott stressed gently. “No corroborating DNA evidence yet.”

      Glenn felt his anxiety notch up. No corroborating DNA evidence yet. The card in his pocket felt as if it were on fire, burning up. Should he mention it? Let them know Jessie could very well be alive? And what did it mean? What did she want from him?

      True to his word, McNally didn’t waste time. He went over the sequence of events prior to Jessie’s disappearance, and Glenn was kind of surprised at how detailed his notes were. But then, McNally had put them through the wringer twenty years ago. The man knew more about what had happened than Glenn could ever remember.

      “I knew Jessie, we all did because of St. Elizabeth’s, but I was really into sports, didn’t much pay attention if it wasn’t anything to do with jocks,” Scott said when McNally finished and looked from one to the other of them, waiting for someone to speak up. “Jessie, she was good-lookin’, yeah, but really, she was just a girl who dated one of my friends. I didn’t really know her, and neither did Glenn. We said the same thing then, and nothing’s changed.”

      “That’s right,” Glenn said, suddenly glad for Pascal’s glib tongue.

      “Have you seen any of your group since?” McNally asked.

      Glenn’s heart clutched and he looked to Scott for guidance. There was no crime in it, for God’s sake, but he didn’t want to fall into some kind of trap by shooting off his mouth when he shouldn’t.

      “Mitch is a good friend,” Glenn blurted out.

      Scott threw him a dark look. He’d always objected to Glenn’s friendship with Mitch and sometimes, just because he could get a reaction, Glenn liked to remind Scott that he wasn’t the end-all be-all of good friends. Sometimes Scott Pascal wasn’t a friend at all.

      “We all met here at the restaurant a couple weeks ago,” Scott told the detective, and Glenn relaxed slightly. Of course. No reason to worry. Just tell the truth. Let his partner do the talking. But leave out the nursery rhyme…“We heard about the bones being discovered, so we got together.” Scott glossed over the meeting—just a bunch of concerned friends worried that tragedy had befallen one of their own.

      Glenn ignored his drink, the ice cubes melting, the aroma of bourbon in the air of the closed room.

      McNally was noncommittal. Did he buy it? Glenn couldn’t tell and it made him nervous. He eyed his drink, caught the slight shake of Scott’s head from the corner of his eye, and let the bourbon sit.

      McNally ran over a few more questions about Jessie and her relationship to all their friends. From Glenn’s point of view, it was all very banal and he had the suspicion that Mac was simply getting a feel of them. He couldn’t wait for the detective to leave so he could talk to Scott.

      Eventually Mac did just that. He’d written down some notes, chicken scratchings from what Glenn could tell, then flipped the small notebook shut and placed it in a pocket of his black leather jacket. Seeing that, Glenn wondered if the card in his own pocket was visible, outlined like some kind of scarlet letter. It was all he could do not to reach up and touch it.

      As Mac got up to leave Scott said, “You’ve mellowed out over the years.”

      McNally paused, giving Scott a long look. “Have I?”

      Scott met his gaze. “Maybe not.”

      A moment passed between them. Glenn’s pulse began a slow, hard beat through his veins. He managed to walk with Scott to show the detective out, but as soon as they were alone, they headed back to the office and Scott closed the door behind him.

      “What is it?” Scott asked tautly.

      “What do you mean?”

      “You’re white as a ghost. McNally scared you. What the hell’s going on?”

      “He didn’t scare me.”

      “If I saw it, he saw it,” Scott assured him. “Come on. Give.” He beckoned his fingers in an impatient c’mere gesture.

      “We’ve got goddamned problems, okay? The money’s just pouring out of this place. I don’t know where it’s going. Maybe someone’s stealing from us? One of the wait staff? Or they’re embezzling somehow?”

      “You keep everything locked up, don’t you?”

      “Of course. I’m not an idiot.” Glenn’s teeth ground together. Scott had a way of pissing him off and the cop…Oh, shit, he’d never been comfortable around cops, always thought they were after him.

      “Then we’re just short,” Scott was saying.

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