Don't Look for Me(28)

He asked about the tip and she told him—about the woman and the truck and how they’d just gone to meet her, Nic and Officer Reyes, and did he know Reyes, and of course he did. Everyone knows everyone else in this town. He wiped the already clean counter with a bar towel as they spoke. He was nervous. Something about her return had him unsettled.

“Want a drink?” he asked.

“It’s a little early,” she answered.

She said it as though the thought hadn’t nearly consumed her mind.

“Kurt,” the bartender said abruptly.

He poured her a glass of water.

“My name,” he continued. “Kurt Kent—and please don’t make a joke. I’ve heard them all.”

Nic drank the water as her cheeks flushed.

“I feel like I would have remembered that name.”

“You never asked.”

“Yeah,” Nic replied. And then, “Sorry. I was a bit of a mess.”

Kurt leaned back against the other side of the bar, arms crossed, that look of surrender in his eyes as he smiled slightly.

“Understandable.”

“Not really,” Nic replied. “I was here to search for my mother and I spent every night closing down this bar.”

He started to make excuses for her, people handle fear differently, don’t be so hard on yourself, it wasn’t that bad.… But it had been that bad.

Vodka had not been able to settle her that night, the night after they found the note and everyone decided her mother had left them. Had walked away. The shock of this had gutted the hollow spaces. It made her cringe to remember now, with him standing before her. How she’d pulled him to the back of the bar, kissed him until he’d kissed her back. Thank God they hadn’t been alone.

“I’m sorry,” Nic said now. She buried her face in the palms of her hands.

“Don’t be sorry. It takes two, you know?” There it was—that calm voice. The kindness.

“So what’s next?” he asked her. “How long are you staying?”

Nic unburied her face and opened her eyes to look at him. “I don’t know,” she said.

“Are the police getting involved again?” he asked.

“They said they would. What do you think? Reyes seems on top of things.”

“That’s one way to put it.”

The sarcasm in Kurt’s voice was unmistakable.

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve never seen him disappoint a damsel in distress.”

“Yeah—I kind of got that about him. Lots of eyes linger when he’s around.”

Kurt moved closer now, elbows on the counter, leaning forward. Nic could smell his cologne, or soap, something, and it pulled from a far corner of her mind the feel of his hands on the small of her back, then tangled in her hair.

“You noticed, huh? Most women don’t. Until the next day when he doesn’t call.”

Kurt the bartender was not that kind of man, and he brought her back, somehow, to the time before. Across that invisible line to the time when life was just life. When her future was nothing but opportunities and the quiet faith that her family would remain as it was. Happy, even when Evan and Annie were fighting over something trivial, when her parents were hovering over them. Her father wasn’t perfect—he could be demanding and rigid. But they knew he loved them.

And how he had adored their mother. It was in his eyes, the way he admired her idealism, her passion for her students. They had a special anniversary the first Tuesday in August, the facts of which they kept a secret between them. Her father always bought her something blue. She always made him a chicken salad sandwich. They shooed away the children into another room and sat alone, drinking wine and laughing. They did this every year before Annie died.

On the other side of that line was also her mother—soft on the outside, but strong on the inside. Molly Clarke had never missed a cross-country meet or talent show or football game. She’d crawled into bed with them when they were sick or had nightmares or just because they’d asked her to. She had been the definition of home, the embodiment of family. A sacred symbol of the most primal human connection. Mother and child. How ironic that it had been her dedication that left one of them dead.

Nic had thought of her family as special. Idyllic. Perfect. Maybe Annie had been her punishment.

Kurt the bartender. He had pulled her back across that line to a time when the men she chose, the boys then, were the kind ones.

Kurt busied himself with another task. “So was she helpful?”

“I don’t know,” Nic answered. “Reyes thinks she might be lying. Something about her E-ZPass records and her story about coming from New York City. Thinks she might be after the reward money.”

“Oh yeah?” Kurt asked. “Makes sense. It is strange she waited so long. What did you say her name was?”

“I didn’t—it’s Edith Moore. Lives in Schenectady.”

Kurt’s face grew still. “Edith—kind of an older woman’s name, right? Is she?”

“Is she what?”

“Older?”

Nic shrugged. “Older than we are. Younger than my mother. Why—did you see someone from out of town that night? Before you closed the bar?”

Kurt looked up at the ceiling as though deep in thought. His hand moved to his chin. His actions seemed exaggerated, like he was overselling his contemplation.