Page 42 of Texas Hold Em'
With one hand, I seized the front of his shirt and hauled him right up against the bar. He wheezed in pain as his gut hit the edge and knocked the air out of him. I gave him a rough shake and tightened my hold on the collar of his shirt, nearly choking him.
“Listen,” I growled, “I need to find that girl. She’s in trouble, and an asshole like you isn’t going to stand in my way. Do you fucking understand?”
He nodded weakly.
“Tell me who came in with her.” I loosened my hold on his shirt so he could speak.
“Caroline Bates,” he managed.
Fuck me.“Did they leave together?” I asked.
“Yes, after fifteen minutes of talking. The girl you’re looking for followed Caroline out the back door into the parking lot. When I went out there to take some garbage out, they were gone. That was about twenty minutes later.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“She was waiting for her.”
“Come again?”
The bartender clawed at my hand, but I didn’t let him go. “Your girl. She was waiting for Caroline.”
“Why?”
“How the fuck should I know?”
I searched his eyes for a trace of a lie but saw nothing but genuine fear, so I released him—after plucking my two twenty-dollar bills from his front pocket. He staggered back and smoothed out his shirt while the drunkard watched us both with wide eyes.
I held up the two twenties. “If you hadn’t been such a pain in my ass, I might have let you keep them.”
The bartender rubbed at his neck and I pushed away from the bar.
What the hell was Carrie up to?
On my way out, I handed the drunkard one of the twenties and told him to make it count. He thanked me with a wobbly nod while the bartender glared daggers at my back. I returned the other twenty to my wallet.
Outside, I breathed in the fresh early morning air as the horizon turned a lighter shade of blue.
What was Carrie playing at? Whose loyalty did she hold? Had she been playing me all this time and I’d been too blind to see it because I was thinking with my cock, not my head?
CHAPTER 18
CARRIE
The cigar left me a little nauseated, but I played it off because I had no other choice.
Bates watched me with fierce calculation in his one good eye. His lips folded around his cigar, exposing a row of crooked bottom teeth, and he took rapid puffs one after the other, sending little plumes of smoke up around his bald head.
Eventually, one of us would have to start talking.
I’d done a great deal of study on interviews and how to maintain the upper hand and an edge. Being a woman in a law enforcement role wasn’t easy. Whenever I came face to face with men who thought they were smarter than me, stronger than me, and deserving of a get-out-of-jail-free card, I referenced back to all the things I’d learned about interviews and interrogations.
Sometimes it was best to lean back and let him do the talking.
Other times, I had to seize the opportunity when it presented itself and make sure he knew I could play his little charade, too.
Bates was the latter type of man.
“So are we going to do this, or did I just waste all my time trying to get here?” I asked.
