Page 48 of Girl, Reborn

‘Way I heard it, Dawson set up the barunder his cousin's name. Used it to launder campaign contributions, maybegrease a few palms. You know how politics is, especially in places like this.

Ella moved to her laptop so fast thekeyboard might have started smoking. ‘Moonshine, you say? That’s the name ofthe bar?’

‘Yeah. Dingy little place over onPinewood.’

She threw the details into the search box.Info on the bar popped up faster than a jack-in-the-box on speed.

BUSINESS NAME: MOONSHINE PUBLIC HOUSE.

OWNER: MALCOLM DAWSON

STATUS: NO LONGER IN OPERATION.

‘Looks like it closed down.’ Ella dug in alittle deeper. ‘A few months back by the looks of things.’

‘No kidding,’ said Tucker. ‘Guess thatshows how often I get out that way. It's on the edge of town, don't pass by itmuch.’

A closed-down bar. Disgraced politician.Creative bookkeeping. Thin, but it was all they had. Ella made a decisionfaster than a gunslinger at high noon.

‘Hawkins,’ she barked, standing so fasther chair nearly toppled. ‘Take a drive by Dawson's registered address. On theoff chance our boy's holed up there feeling homesick.’

Luca nodded and grabbed his jacket. ‘Allover it. What about you?’

Ella snatched up her gun and checked theclip. It was all in the muscle memory. ‘I'm gonna check out this bar. IfDawson's in town, that's as good a place as any to start looking.’

‘You need backup?’ asked the Sheriff.

‘Stay here,’ Ella said. ‘Fast track theautopsy and forensic reports for Ayers. See if there’s anything we can grabonto.’

‘Will do. Just be careful out there. Folks'round here, they got long memories and short tempers when it comes to Dawson.You start kicking over rocks, no telling what might crawl out.’

‘Trust us,’ Ella said and made for thedoor. As she strode out, she couldn't shake the feeling that she was walkinginto something bigger than a simple murder case. Something that smelt of oldsecrets and fresh blood.

One way or another, she was going to findGreg Dawson. And when she did, things were gonna get real interesting, realfast.

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

Moonshine Public House loomed before Ellalike a corpse at an open-casket funeral. Plywood sheets covered the windows, a‘CLOSED’ sign dangling crookedly from a rusty nail. The neon sign that oncebeckoned thirsty souls now hung dark and lifeless as a hanged man's eyes.

Ella stood in the deserted lot. This placereeked of secrets, the kind that festered in dark corners and ate away at atown's soul. She'd seen it before, in a hundred podunk burgs just like thisone. But something about Liberty Grove got under her skin like an itch shecouldn't scratch.

Her phone buzzed. Luca, checking in.

‘Dawson's house is a bust,’ histext read. ‘No car, no lights.’

Frustration bubbled up like acid reflux,but if Dawson wasn’t at home, it meant he had to be somewhere else. Maybe inthe building right in front of her.

She eyed the wooden fence surrounding thebar's back lot. Six feet of weathered planks between her and potential answers.In her Academy days, she'd have cleared it without breaking a sweat. Now, witha few more years and a helluva lot more cynicism under her belt, she approachedit with the wary respect of a woman who knew her limits.

One hand on the top, a quick boost, andshe was over. She landed with the grace of a cat burglar, her knees protestingonly slightly. That's when she saw it – a detail that set off everyfinely-honed instinct she'd cultivated over years of chasing humanity's worst.

Cigarette butts. A small mound of themhuddled near the back door like conspirators at a clandestine meeting. Fresh,too. The kind of litter that would've scattered to the four winds if they'dbeen there more than a day or two.

A familiar rush of adrenaline camesurging. She wasn't chasing ghosts after all. Someone had been here recentlyenough to leave their nicotine-stained calling card.

The back door hung askew with rusted andneglected hinges. It beckoned to her like a come-hither glance from a femmefatale in some pulp novel. Ella sized it up, weighing her options. Proceduredictated she call for backup, wait for the cavalry to arrive before stormingthe potential hideout of a deranged killer.

But the procedure could go to hell. Peoplewere dying, their lungs filling with water while bureaucrats twiddled theirthumbs. She didn't have time to dot every 'i' and cross every 't'.

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