Page 48 of Hunting Pretty

Black speckled antique mirrors duplicated the dazzling effect. And there wasn’t even a single blue glare of a phone screen to interrupt it.

It wasn’t like there was a sign forbidding cell phones, but the students and faculty that came here seemed to know without being told: it was only fun when you couldn’t be held accountable for it later. Like in court.

Inside it was always midnight.

Empty bottles of wine rolled along the floor. Undergraduate girls with burgundy lips walked their fingers along the wool-clad thighs of guys too old for them.

And the old dungeon air was thick with a sweetness that smelled of sex.

“Maybe we should have come earlier,” Lisa shouted over the din. She swatted away a hand that lurched toward her from a hazy corner booth. “We could try again tomorrow.”

I shook my head. According to Aisling, this was the last place that Liath had been before she disappeared. I wasn’t turning back without getting answers.

With a renewed determination, I grabbed Lisa by the elbow and pulled her through the crowd.

The bar was the length of the room and the mirrors behind it as tall as the ceiling. We squeezed our way intotwo recently vacated barstools and I caught the bartender’s eye with a discreet flash of Ebony’s black Amex.

The bartender, all hypnotic blue eyes and rugged jawline, smiled as he slid two cocktail napkins in front of us.

“Pick your poison,” he said seductively, leaning in close enough that his musk slithered beneath my nose.

“I was hoping to order something off the menu,” I told him.

His eyes flashed and he licked his lower lip. “My kind of customer.”

In the mirror behind the bar, I saw Lisa roll her eyes. She wasn’t one to play the seduction card.

“I need something from you,” I said, lowering my voice and chewing on my bottom lip. “I need itrealbad.”

The bartender’s grin turned hungry as he leaned forward conspiratorially. “My number?”

“Information.” I showed him a photo of Liath from my phone. “Do you remember seeing her in here?”

The change in the bartender was immediate. Gone was his charming smile and his eyes flashed with something, but it disappeared before I could identify it. Annoyance? Anger?

Fear?

He pushed himself from the bartop he’d been leaning on like it was on fire. “Busy bar. We get all sorts of girls in here.”

My skin prickled.

He knew something.

I leaned in closer. “Do you remember if—”

“I haven’t seen the missing girl, okay? If you’d like a cocktail, please let me know. Otherwise…” Without another word, he moved on to other customers down the bar without looking back.

Lisa sighed when I looked over at her. “Ava, it is a pretty busy bar and it—”

“He knowsexactlywho Liath is.”

“How do you—”

“He called her the ‘missing girl.’ I never told him she was missing.”

Realization dawned on Lisa’s face. “So she was here.”

I nodded. “She was here.”

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