Page 121 of Love Me Steadfast
I see what he’s getting at now. For a second I was imagining Morgan’s dealer in here looking for an easy score.
“We picked him up on Saturday, by the way,” he says, like he’s reading my mind.
“When Everett showed up with her guitar, I wondered.” Hopefully it means he and Everett can reclaim the other instruments too.
Zach rubs his chin with his thumb. “There’s probably twenty grand worth of liquor in that bar, and there’s some kitchen equipment worth even more than that. If someone was looking for stuff they could flip for cash, boosting the office hard drive doesn’t fit.”
“What’s the reason then?”
“Are you sure there’s nothing else missing?”
Frustrated, I force my brain to complete another mental inventory. “There’s barely anything in there now. I got rid of the shelves and junk.” My mind snags on a detail I overlooked. “Shit.”
He raises an eyebrow.
I take off for the office, squeezing past a guy dusting the doorknob with black powder to the desk.
There’s no fingerprint powder on the binders lined up against the wall, so I hold back from touching them. But I don’t need to. “I think a couple of these are missing.”
Zach steps around his crew, slipping on a pair of nitrile gloves. “Which ones?”
“They’re organized by fiscal year.”
“Some kind of record keeping system?”
“From what I can tell. I haven’t had a chance to dig into themyet.” Most of my free time since taking over the club has been spent with Charlotte.
Zach opens the closest binder and flips through its contents. I peer over his shoulder. There are printed pages with each artist’s information, plus different types of marketing materials, and what looks like the original demos tucked into protective plastic sleeves. If The Limelight had a scrapbook of its music venue history, these binders would be it.
“Damn,” Zach says. “It’s pretty clear where Ray’s passion is….or was.” He trades the current book for the next one and flips through it. “Did Ray keep digital copies of this stuff?”
“There’s some kind of booking software. Charlotte’s showing me how to use it today.”
He’s still focused on the pages leafing past his fingers, but he flashes me a side-eye. Meaning he’s for sure cataloguing this tidbit for later.
“What’s special about the years missing?” he asks just as an idea floats to the surface of my thoughts.
I slip back into the hallway. Each of the pictures Ray hung out here has a narrow gold plate at the bottom of the frame with the year the musician or band performed at The Limelight.
“Shit,” I whisper.
Zach joins me, a keen look in his eye. “What?”
“The book that corresponds to the year Dagney Cole played here is missing.”
“Huh,” he replies, hands on his hips.
I skim the other plaques, but they go back decades and not every musician who played here has a spot on Ray’s wall.
“Nic Salazar,” Zach says, nodding at frame of a younger Nic, crooning into a microphone, his sloppy signature splashed across the photo. “I remember that night. Boxcar’s first gig. I was on duty, and you got in that fight at the diner.”
“Those punks deserved it,” I say with a huff just asmovement at the end of the hallway catches my attention. Charlotte stands just outside the door, her eyes wary.
“What’s going on?” she asks as I usher her inside.
“There was a break-in last night.”
“Oh no.” She glances inside the office, then at Zach standing behind me.
