Page 5 of Keeping Secrets

It wasn’t the first time that Travis had killed a man.

The first time had been a freak accident, a bar fight started by a stranger. Travis had pushed him away, and the man had flown backwards, cracked his skull on the bar, and that was that.

He had been so young, and the judge had taken pity on him. Time served and community service. But he didn’t expect to get so lucky a second time.

Needing to be busy, needing something to occupy his hands, Travis walked a mile to the Bottlenose.

It used to be that he only went in at dinnertime, when the bar opened. These days, he was there from opening until close, finding ways to keep busy. Which was easier than it should have been, because Scot was dropping the ball more and more lately.

Travis had been taking on more responsibility, so grateful for the distraction that it almost eclipsed his worry for his friend and employer.

Travis walked into the quiet restaurant. The air was warm with the smell of bacon and waffles, and he felt a rare bite of hunger in his stomach. His appetite had been a mess ever since that night, but he ate three meals a day… or at least two, mechanically, trying to keep his strength up.

Scot needed him.

He walked through the Bottlenose, to Scot’s office in the back. He wasn’t surprised to see him there so early. Scot was there in his restaurant bar from morning until midnight; he had been like that from the time that Travis had started working there as a teenager, washing dishes in the kitchen.

Scot had bailed him out after he was arrested for manslaughter. He was the one who spoke up for him in court and kept him on even after he became a convicted felon. Travis loved him like a father.

But he could still be a royal pain sometimes.

"Good morning," Travis said. Scot nodded in greeting without looking up from his book keeping. "How are you feeling today?"

"I’m fine," Scot said irritably.

"Need a hand with anything?"

Scot gave him a long, level look. "Don’t fuss over me like I’m an old man. Get out of my office."

Travis responded with a mock salute, which softened Scot’s expression into something resembling a smile.

He went into the kitchen and asked them to whip up some breakfast for him. He didn't much care what. Then he went behind the bar and busied himself with emptying the dishwasher and shelving pint glasses.

When his breakfast came out, an omelet loaded with local veggies and sharp cheddar cheese, he ate without really tasting it.

The knife. The shirt. The recording.

He had gotten rid of all three.

But where was the girl?

He scraped his plate clean and passed it back to the kitchen. The beer taps glistened with a beckoning shine, but he turned away from them and filled a pint glass with seltzer and lime.

The demons of his past could haunt his sleep all they liked; he would not become a day drinking bartender. He refused.

He never drank on the job, rarely even drank after the job these days.

He had tried that the first week after Adam’s death, hoping that enough whiskey would drown out the nightmares.

It had only made them worse.

And so he had stopped before he couldn’t.

The trouble with trying to keep busy at the Bottlenose in the daytime was that there wasn’t nearly enough work or enough people to keep his thoughts from spiraling. Thoughtless chores like drying glasses were no help to him.

Well, it was less excruciating than being completely alone with his thoughts. But only slightly.

When two uniforms came through the front door, he froze in shock.