Save Me from Dangerous Men (Nikki Griffin #1)(37)

She was unfazed by the question anyway. “Then I’m just in time for lunch.” She drew a bottle from her handbag. The label said SAINTSBURY. I searched my mind, wondering why it was familiar. “Any relation to George Saintsbury, the writer?”

She shrugged. “I have no idea. A wine shop down the street recommended it.”

“Notes on a Cellar-Book—it must be the same person.” I looked at the bottle curiously. A Napa pinot noir. I’d have to make my way over sometime. I felt a strong alliance to businesses referencing nineteenth-century English writers. After all, I had my Brimstone Magpie. “Have a seat, why don’t you?” I gestured to an armchair and found a couple of clean coffee cups and a bottle opener. I twisted the cork off and poured. “Cheers,” I said. “To something or other.”

“To something or other,” she agreed. We drank. She put her mug down and tugged at one of the jeweled rings she wore where a wedding band would normally go.

“What brings you into the neighborhood?”

She looked at her wine in the mug and then up, showing sad, intelligent brown eyes. She spoke in measured, thoughtful sentences, and as she spoke her gaze roved around the store. “Two weeks ago my husband told me he was leaving. I thought he meant for work. He meant for another woman. Arguments, couples therapy … he skipped all of the local stops, you might say. He was on the express train. Stop one, a happy marriage, stop two, no marriage at all. He’s a professor of mathematics and I woke up today to a house precisely fifty percent empty. One of our two dogs, gone; one of our two cars, gone; even half the bath towels. I’m surprised the mattress wasn’t chopped in half. Formulaic. One marriage, divided by two, equals divorce.” She interlaced the fingers of her hands, pulled them apart.

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Everyone says you shouldn’t let those things derail your life, even though by definition that’s exactly what they do. So I decided to put on nice clothes, buy a good bottle of wine, take myself out to a nice restaurant for lunch. Only I forgot to make a reservation, and so now I’m on some waitlist, waiting, which is kind of how I feel the rest of my life will be. Waiting to be seated, waiting for something good. When really all you get is a very young, very beautiful hostess telling you with dreadful politeness that you can’t come in.”

She poured more wine for both of us.

“Which restaurant?”

“The Redwood Tavern. Right down the block.”

I got up. “Be right back.” At the counter, I called The Redwood Tavern and asked for Marlene, giving my name. I knew she’d be in. She wasn’t one of those chefs who opened a restaurant and then made themselves as scarce as possible the moment it became popular. After a minute’s hold she picked up. “Nikki?”

“Can I get a friend off the waitlist? She’s had a hard day.”

The answer was immediate. “Send her in. We’ll have a table ready by the time she’s here.”

I paused by a shelf on my way back to the woman, who sat there quietly with her wine. “Go get lunch. Tell them you were over here.”

She was perplexed. “Will that matter?”

“Give it a shot.” I handed the woman a paperback. “Take this, too. I’ve always felt that you’re not dining alone if you have a good book. The Days of Abandonment—you know it?”

She took the book curiously. “No, I’m afraid not.”

“Sort of a sad book, but a good one. You might like the ending especially.”

The phone was ringing again. I excused myself and picked up, thinking Marlene had forgotten to tell me something and was calling back. “Brimstone Magpie.”

“Nikki? Is that you?” It was Gunn, his voice raw with tension. “Karen Li. She disappeared and we have no idea where she is.” His words came hurriedly. “You have to find her, Nikki. This time she’s gone too far. We think she’s stolen something crucial, and we need to find out for sure.” He fell silent, as though trying to organize and control his words. “You need to find her and stop her. Before it’s too late.”





21


Buster’s World Class Bike Smog & Auto Repair was in Vallejo, over the Carquinez Bridge. Even in the Bay Area, Vallejo was just far enough and plenty ugly enough that no one was jumping to buy homes there. The kind of city that most people would only drive through on their way to somewhere else. Buster’s World Class was buried between a Jack in the Box burger place and a payday lender. I’d never been to either and never planned to. But I went to Buster’s from time to time. I ignored the small parking lot out front and instead rode around to the back, straight into an open garage bay. Roughly half the garage was devoted to cars, the other half motorcycles. Two cars were up on lifts, a few more on the ground. None of them looked anything close to under warranty. The motorcycles were newer. I saw a Ninja and a Ducati, a few Harleys, a massive Honda Gold Wing.

I got off the Aprilia and one of the mechanics came over. He was a skinny teenager with a bad complexion and a buzz cut. “If you’re looking for the waiting area it’s down that way.” His eyes wandered openly around my body before settling on the area of my chest. I didn’t know why. My zipped-up leather jacket wasn’t exactly showing a lot of skin.

“I’m not looking for the waiting area,” I told him. “I’m looking for Buster.”