Page 113 of Simon Says

“Punch line?”

“Yeah.” Anticipating Simon’s reaction, Barber said, “See, I asked Dakota if she was in love with you.”

More silence.

Barber grinned to himself. “Hey, you still there, Sublime?”

With dry impatience, Simon asked, “What did she say?”

“It was more how she reacted than what she said.” Barber embellished things enough to try a saint. “I swear, man, she looked like someone goosed her with a cattle prod. Her eyes went huge and she gagged a little. Or maybe she was choking. Hard to tell.”

“You don’t value your teeth much, do you?”

Barber laughed. “It was an interesting reaction, if you want the truth. So now I’m wondering how you’d react if asked the same.”

“It’s none of your damned business.”

“Is that a yes or no? Because if it’s a no, then Dakota is fair game again and—”

“Don’t even think it.”

Well. That reaction spoke volumes. Barber worked up a convincing chuckle. “All right, dude. Calm down before you hurt yourself. I was just making sure.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“Yeah, right now, no one else is appealing much to me.” Before Simon could out-and-out challenge him, Barber added, “Give her a call. Convince her that she shouldn’t talk to Marvin. The guy’s a nut-job. Any acknowledgment from her will just encourage him because he’ll know he’s getting to her.”

“I’ll call her as soon as we hang up. But I have another question for you first.”

Barber reached the floor where he’d perform. The band was set up and ready to go, waiting on him. Already the bar began to fill, so he hung near the perimeter, out of the chaos. Soon, the noise level would make conversation impossible. “I’m all ears.”

“Since you know Dakota so well, have you ever met Barnaby Jailer?”

Barber forgot about the band. “Why?” What could Dakota’s stepfather have to do with anything?

“He’s my father.”

Falling back against the wall, Barber said, “No fucking way.”

“So you do know him?” When Barber didn’t immediately answer, Simon said, “He bailed on my mother when I was just a little kid. We haven’t heard anything from him since. But now he’s hired Dakota to find me and bring me to him for a meeting.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know and I don’t care. I want nothing to do with him. But somehow, he’s twisting Dakota to get her to cooperate and, more than any other reason, that makes me not trust him.”

That rotten son of a bitch. Yeah, he knew Barnaby. Or knew of him. All of it straight from Dakota. All of it bad.

Barber had no idea what Dakota might have told Simon about her stepfather, and until he knew, he wouldn’t say too much.

But one question clamored in his brain. “If that’s true, then someone needs to visit him to find out what hold he has over her. And it’s not going to be Dakota.”

“After what’s happened,” Simon said, taking the edge off Barber’s temper, “I agree. I don’t want Dakota anywhere near him. I thought about seeing him myself, but she told me to forget about it. She went from wanting me to see him, to insisting that I not.”

“That might just be because she cares about you now.”

“Maybe. But the more I’ve thought on it, the more I wonder if Barnaby could be involved with her tumble down the stairs, or your incident in the parking lot.”

“You’re ruling out Marvin now?”

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