Consumed (Firefighters #1)(28)

Motivating herself, she went across to the year-round porch that overlooked her small fenced-in backyard. She’d set up an office in the space as a way to ground herself in her new reality, thinking that she’d need a home base as an investigator. A trip to OfficeMax had yielded a laptop and a scanner/copier, as well as a low-end desk and a cheapie black chair with rollers under the base.

As she parked it in front of the setup, she opened the laptop, but didn’t turn it on.

She’d also bought herself some pens, document clips, a small pack of folders. Three legal pads and a ream of paper.

Looking around at everything, she decided it had been a waste of $400, just the vocabulary of an office instead of—

Anne frowned and focused on the laptop. Then she pushed herself back and regarded the desk. The scanner/copier.

The laptop again.

Office supplies. Bog-standard . . . office supplies. Like the ones that had been in her warehouse fire.

With a burst of energy, she got to her feet, flashed into the kitchen, and grabbed her bag.

She was in such a hurry to leave the house, she forgot to lock up.





chapter




13



The Timeout Sports Bar & Grill was a venerable establishment, with a founding date of 1981. Back then, when everyone had been calling 867-5309 because some chick had Bette Davis eyes and every little thing she did was magic, it had been cutting-edge with its video games in one corner, the pool tables in the back, and the pictures of Larry Bird, Bobby Orr, and the “Miracle on Ice” team fresh and unfaded.

Thirty-seven years later? The original posters were still up, but Nomar and Dustin, Tom Brady and Cam Neely were flashing smiles along with the old greats, and the video games had been replaced by a booth section and more flat-screen TVs than a Best Buy’s showroom. The pool tables were still there, however, and Carl’s old lady, Terri, who ran the place after his death, would let you light up in the back as long as you popped a window and ashed in your longneck, not on her floor.

As with the evolving heroes in the frames, so, too, the clientele was a new generation of the same that had gone before. The firemen, cops, and detectives who were now sitting at the tables, playing pool, or hanging around the bar were the sons and nephews, the daughters and nieces, of the ones who had been there in the eighties, the nineties, the aughties.

“I bring you another one.”

Danny glanced up at the waitress as she put a fresh Bud down in front of him. Josefina had worked there for a year now, and with her long black hair and her deep brown eyes, she was something to look at, for sure.

“You know me too well,” he said.

“Sí, Dannyboy. I know you.”

As the woman winked and headed back to the bar, Moose cursed. “Do you mind.”

Danny took a pull and sat forward in his hard chair. “’Bout what.”

“Why do you have to get every female in this place?”

“I haven’t gone out with her.”

“Yet.”

“Nah.” He eyed the dark-haired woman as she took an order from another table. “Chavez would kill me. He’s in love with her.”

“Reallllllly.” Moose sat forward, too, his bulk turning the sizable six-top into a Post-it note. “Amy wants her?”

“I don’t know. Whatever.”

“Come on, man. Tell me.”

“I don’t know nothing.” Danny made a point of nodding toward the pool tables. “We’re up next on number three.”

“Yeah, after those Brads. Did they buy everything at the Polo outlet before they came here?”

Danny measured the loafers. The watches. Those haircuts. “Moose, buddy, those boys do not shop at outlets.”

The set of four matching preppies, aged twenty-one to twenty-five, had sauntered into Timeout about twenty minutes before, and he was guessing they had boated to the New Brunswick Yacht Club under sail, parked in a private berth, and were slumming it here after having dined on lobster thermidor and baked Alaska with Mumsey and Dads. No doubt they were hoping for some hot, raw townie sex before they went back to their oceanfront mansions and their two-entry-only Daughters of the American Revolution fiancées.

He’d seen the type before. And they’d come here again because these Brads were like the social equivalent of the rhinovirus. Bound to show up from time to time, but nothing that was terminal, and by reducing exposure, you had less a chance of catching one.

So yeah, he was going to give ’em plenty of time at that pool table. Until they moved on on their own.

“You drive me batshit.”

He refocused on Moose. “Usually I just try to piss people off. I’m over-succeeding with you without meaning to.”

“If you know something about Amy, why aren’t you tell me?”

“Go talk to Chavez directly.”

“He never goes into his personal life.”

“So guess you’re screwed.”

“Fucker—”

A whistle broke through the argument, and both he and Moose looked toward the pool table.

“More beers,” one of the frat boys said over the din. “Now, not later, chiquita.”

Danny frowned and sized the kid up with the mouth up. He looked like law school material. Or med school—i.e., more forehead than jawline. With that gold watch and those Bermuda shorts, it was also an easy guess he had some roman numerals after his last name.