Page 138 of Tell Me Something True

But when he tried to pick up the twenties, Miles kept his fingertips on them.

“You’re sure?”

“Are you sure you have enough cash to keep asking questions?” the kid countered.

Mouth thin, Miles pulled out a fifty.

Walsh slid the money off the bar then added it to the shared tip jar. “She didn’t come with him. He’s just another guy shooting his shot.”

When Walsh moved farther down the bar, Miles followed him.

“What do you mean?” he asked. “Just another guy shooting his shot?”

“Jesus. How old are you?”

“I know what the saying means,” Miles ground out, although every time he spoke to either Walsh or Verity, he felt fucking ancient. “I want specifics as to what it means in this case.”

Bending over the sink attached to the wall, Walsh washed his hands. Straightened and dried them on a paper towel. “It means if you want a chance with her, you need to get off your ass. Because she’s here almost every night. And while she always comes in alone, she isn’t often left alone.”

Miles frowned, his gaze snapping to her, but this far away—and with Black’s big body between them—all he could see was a flash of her golden hair.

“She’s here every night?” he asked Walsh.

“Just about.”

He thought about what Tabitha had told him about her past. Of her childhood and being abandoned by her mother in a motel.

If anyone had reason to try and numb their pain with alcohol, it was her.

“Is she…” He stopped, something about his thought, his question, not adding up, but he had to ask it anyway. Had to know if she needed his help. “She’s here, drinking, almost every night?”

“I thought you two had a history,” Walsh said mockingly, before turning to the cooler and pulling out a bottle of Bud Light, passing Greer who set the tray back on the bar, then took off again.

“We do,” Miles told him, following him down the bar as the kid delivered the beer to a middle-aged white man in a Grateful Dead T-shirt. “We do,” he repeated, low and firm, when Walsh set out two shot glasses.

He poured Jack into them. “She doesn’t drink, She comes in most nights. Eats dinner. Talks to Hayden and Greer when it’s slow. And gets hit on by at least two guys a night. Guys who aren’t too chickenshit to go after what they want.”

Miles ignored that comment. “She comes here—almost every night—to eat dinner?”

“What’s wrong with the food here?”

Jesus. Why couldn’t dealing with this kid ever be easy? “Nothing’s wrong with it. I’ve eaten here plenty of times myself. Just not every night.”

“Maybe she hates to cook.”

“She doesn’t.”

Miles and Walsh both startled, then turned to find Greer was back behind the bar at Walsh’s side, having snuck up on them both like a silent, sunny, heavily tattooed ninja.

“Excuse me?” Miles asked.

Straightening from getting her bottle of water out from under the bar, she glanced between him and Walsh. “You two are talking about Tabitha, right?” Walsh nodded. “That’s what I thought. She doesn’t hate to cook. I mean, she might hate cooking, but if you’re trying to figure out why she’s here so often, that’s not it. It has nothing to do with cooking or the quality of food here.”

And she took a long drink, then twisted the cap back on and put the bottle back under the bar. Put a stack of cups onto her tray while Walsh added the pitcher of beer.

Miles bit back his impatience. Dealing with Greer—who was only a year older than Verity—wasn’t any easier than dealing with Walsh. “What does it have to do with, then?”

Before Greer could reply, Walsh snorted. “The assistant police chief wouldn’t get it.”

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