Page 35 of Texas Hold Em'
After he handed me my beer, I turned in my stool to get a better look at the place.
On the opposite side of the bar, near the only window in the place, was a pool table. Three men and a middle-aged woman stood around it, leaning on their pool cues. Two of the men were looking in my direction while the third leaned over the table to take his shot.
Most of the eyes in the place wandered toward me. Without a doubt, I was not the kind of customer they were used to seeing.
Perhaps I should have thought this through a bit more.
No, I thought sternly.You can handle yourself, and this is better than sitting around waiting. Someone here will be connected to Bates. Finish your beer and sit tight.
It was easier said than done.
The strangers in the bar didn’t waste energy trying to conceal the fact that they were talking about me. Groups in booths bowed together and cast wary glances in my direction. Solitary men pulled out phones and looked over their shoulders at me while they spoke in hushed tones. Women scowled through smudged-mascara eyes.
Still, I waited.
When a hush fell over the bar, my back was turned to the door. I had ordered a second beer a couple minutes prior, and I knew as I heard the muted thud of high heels across the thin carpet that the person I was waiting for had arrived.
My plan worked.
Caroline Bates sat two stools down from me. As per usual, she wore all black, and tonight or this morning, whatever time it was, she looked particularly menacing. She sported her usual slicked-back ponytail and red lips. Her red nails clicked on the bar as she drummed her fingers, and the bartender fixed her a martini without her having to speak a word.
“What are you doing here, little mouse?” Caroline purred and leaned back in her stool as she took her first sip of her martini. The bartender watched with wide, fearful eyes. I wondered if he’d madeher this drink a hundred times over and feared her wrath if he fucked it up. She seemed to enjoy it because she sipped it again before fishing out the tiny plastic sword and plucking one of the three olives off between her perfect white teeth.
“I got tired of waiting for your father to reach out,” I said.
“You think your time is as important as his?”
“I think not wasting his or my time is important,” I said.
Caroline smirked. “You play with words like I play with little girls who think they’re tougher than they are. Like your friend, Suzie.”
I knew Caroline was trying to get under my skin by referencing how she’d crashed her car into Suzie’s truck one night. After the crash, Caroline promptly, and for lack of a better word, kicked the shit out of Suzie on the sidewalk and left her there.
Just because she could.
I decided to shift gears on her and change the subject. “How’s your martini?”
Caroline’s lips formed a smile as she pressed them to the rim of the glass. “About as satisfactory as it could be in a place like this.”
The bartender winced.
Caroline tipped her head back and drank the rest of her martini like an animal. “Finish your beer and come with me.”
My heart skipped a beat.
Had this really worked? I half expected Caroline or her father to come find me tonight, but I didn’t expect them to want to talk—or do something else. What if she wanted to kill me and officially get me out of the way?
I drained my beer and reminded myself that I had a knife in my purse and a gun strapped to my inner thigh. If things went bad, I had resources—enough to get the hell out of Dodge if I needed to.
Caroline moved languidly through the bar, but she didn’t go to the main entrance. Instead, she took a dimly lit hallway that broke off into men’s and women’s washrooms as well as a storage room. I followed her as the darkness thickened, and we eventually reached a metal door with an exit sign over our heads. She pushed out into the night, and I found myself in a nearly empty parking lot. To our right was anoverflowing garbage and recycling unit. It looked like this place didn’t bother to use the recycling, and everything went in the trash.
Around the side of the garbage was a pearl white Range Rover.
Caroline stalked toward it like a bird of prey. With my head on a swivel, I brought up the rear. As we got close to the SUV, two men got out of the front seats. One opened a back door, presumably for me, while Caroline stopped in front of the driver’s door. She accepted a pair of black leather gloves from one of the men while I stood at the back door.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
He merely gestured for me to get in.
