Page 46 of Capitol Matters

“Don’t worry about it, kid. That’s my job.” A smile parted his ginger beard. “Don’t wanna put a guy out of work, do you?”

Vinton made a swiping grab at the mop. “Gimme that.”

The bartender moved out of his reach. “Next round’s on me,” he told Vinton, then seemed to reconsider. “Make that the next two. You clearly need it.”

Grumbling, Vinton made his way to the bar, where the bartender’s curly-haired sister waited to take his order.

I stayed on the floor while the gawkers dispersed, and the bartender walked forward and offered his hand. I took it and let him pull me up.

My stomach knotted with nerves as I stepped back, surveying the liquid pooling on the floor. “Sorry, Mister Nash,” I said.

“Mister?” His nose crinkled. “How ‘bout just Nash?”

I shrugged one shoulder, then nodded toward the mop he held. “I can help if you want.”

The bartender shook his head. “I’ve got it. That was a neat trick you pulled, though.” He chuckled.

Looking again at Donovan, I found him a snivelingmess huddled beneath the table. A long breath escaped me. “Yeah,” I muttered. “Real neat.”

Head resting on his crossed arms, Donovan stared through the martini glass at me. “What made you think of that?”

The memory clung on, a muddle of emotion I didn’t care to sort out. “I don’t know. It was kinda fun.”

“Until you got in trouble.” He took a sip of his drink and grimaced through a swallow. “You always got in trouble.”

The Ferris wheel of booze dispersed, sending bottles back to their shelves except for the one I called to my grasp. Old reliable whiskey. Import, judging by its warm, woody smell. I spotted an old fashioned glass in the drying rack further down the counter and reeled it through the air to land before me.

“I’m in trouble now, too,” I told Donovan, filling the glass with amber liquid. “With Holland for sure. Probably Grimm, too.”

Donovan was right in that our gang leader was neither seen nor heard these days, but I worried rumors would reach him. There were only a few degrees of separation between Holland, her father, and her father’s personal assistant.

“What for?” Donovan asked.

“Murder.”

Donovan’s eyes went wide. “You mean Avery’sguys? This morning? That was you?”

“Mmhmm,” I hummed through a mouthful of whiskey.

“Avery said the investigator did it.”

I sniffed and swallowed. “Hardly. She would’ve been dead if not for me. Then she got pissed about it. Like killing criminals is a bad thing.”

A mental fling sent the cocktail shaker to the sink basin, where it landed with a clatter.

“Nice of Avery to cover for me,” I said more to myself than my brother. “Surprised the rookies went along with it, though.”

“They didn’t even mention you were there.” Donovan leaned back on the barstool. “Well, that’s not true. Ripley said he saw you in the parking lot.”

My mouth twisted into a frown. “Fucker.”

Between unenthusiastic sips of his martini, Donovan nodded toward the shelves behind me. “Hey, what’s that?”

I turned to find the subject of his interest. A scrap of paper leaned against a green glass bottle. Grabbing it, I immediately noticed the pencil sketch on the front. It showed a man lying down with his eyes closed in sleep and one hand stuffed in the open fly of his pants. Not just any man. The fluffy undercut hair and the inmate ID number written on the breast pocket of his coveralls made it unmistakably me. And that made the artist undeniably…

“Clyde?” I yelped.

“Who?” Donovan asked.

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