City of the Lost (Casey Duncan #1)(42)

“Isabel’s … Well, Isabel’s worried. She worries about all the new women in town, but in Diana’s case it’s moving fast into ‘pissed off.’ The best thing your friend can do is talk to her, if this is what she wants. It’d be safer that way.”

“Safer?”

“Just tell her to talk to Iz. Okay?”

I nod and say goodnight and go inside.


I barely make it into my place when there’s a tap-tap-tap at the door. It’s Diana, bouncing like a kid.

“Ready to go?”

I check my watch. “Doesn’t the bar close in an hour?”

“Sure,” she says, grinning. “That’s when we go have some real fun.”

I remember Isabel’s warning and say, carefully, “There’s a curfew for a reason. Everyone needs to be at work the next day. It’s not like home, where if we call in with a hangover, someone can cover for us.”

“God, you’ve been hanging around that sheriff too long already. I haven’t missed an hour of work yet. Now come on and let’s go get a drink.”





Three

We go to the other bar: the Red Lion. Apparently someone envisioned it as a quaint British pub, but that vision doesn’t extend beyond the name. The place looks like a set piece for a Western saloon. Wooden building. Wooden bar. Wooden chairs and tables.

Diana’s friends are … God, how do I say this without sounding like a total bitch? Her friends are exactly what Dalton said they were. They remind me of the kids Diana so desperately wanted to hang out with in high school.

In eleventh grade, the popular girls had invited Diana to eat lunch with them … an invitation that did not extend to me. I barely saw her for two weeks afterward. Then she showed up at my house crying, because it turned out all they wanted was to meet her cousin, who was an actor in a new TV show, and when she admitted she hadn’t seen him since a family reunion ten years earlier, they dumped her.

Yet despite my misgivings, I enjoy the next half-hour. Conversation is lively, if not exactly deep. And they have a sense of fun that’s infectious. They’re stuck in Rockton for a few years, and they aren’t providing essential services, so they can just cut loose and party, beholden to no one and nothing.

It’s just past ten-thirty and I’m talking to a woman named Petra. She’s a comic-book artist, which she jokes makes her all but useless in Rockton. We’re deep in conversation when Diana perks up beside me. She straightens her shirt and tucks her hair back, and I think, Huh, who’s the guy?

I look up to see Anders coming our way. He’s grinning, and Diana is practically vibrating in her seat. And I smile, because now I know she wasn’t pushing me in his direction—she was testing whether my gaze had already turned that way. When he catches her smile and returns it, I’m glad. I slide out, motion for him to take my place, and then sit in the empty seat on Petra’s other side. Anders pulls up a chair and plunks it down next to me.

“Got a story for you,” he whispers as he sits. “Rockton policing life at its finest.”

There’s a moment of silence, and I realize everyone at the table noticed the interplay with Diana.

“You’ve met Diana, right?” I say, and as the words leave my mouth, I want to kick myself.

Diana looks as if she wants to drop through the floor. Anders just smiles at her and says, “Sure, we’ve met.” There’s a snicker from someone farther down the table, and as genuine as Anders’s smile seems, I detect a bit of distance in his eyes. That’s when I realize it’s no secret Diana has her eye on Anders. She’s let him—and everyone else—know … and he’s made it clear he isn’t interested.

Shit.

“Hey, Di,” I say, leaning forward. “You want to go for a walk?” I lift my shot glass. “I’ve hit my limit, and I could use the air.”

Yes, it’s an awkward excuse, but I’m desperate to fix this. She only gives me a cool look and says, “I just started my drink.”

Anders takes a long gulp of his beer. “Give me a minute and I’ll walk with you.”

“No!” I say, a little too sharply, and Petra gives a sympathetic chuckle.

“We should both turn in soon,” Anders says. “Eric will give me proper shit if you so much as yawn tomorrow. I’ll walk you home and tell you that story.”

And there it is. A good evening shot to hell, and Diana glowers at me like it’s my fault. I want to take her outside and set her straight. But that won’t change the fact that she’s hurt, and the more I try to fix it, the more humiliated she’ll be. So I go back to talking to Petra, who picks up where we left off. Anders joins us as he finishes his beer, and then we leave.


“You doing okay?” Anders asks when we’re outside.

“Sure.”

He glances over as we head into the street. “You seemed to be having a good time when I got there. Did I …?” He clears his throat. “I mean, I realized afterward that I probably shouldn’t have just waltzed in and pulled up a chair and started talking like you’d been waiting for me.”

“You didn’t.”

He walks a few feet in silence, before checking my expression and nodding. “Okay. I just … It got a little awkward.”