The Smallest Bar in Key West was very small. Vanessa had gotten to know several of the bartenders, and they were nice—even when she just wanted to order a soda or a bottle of water. She was certain that they knew who she was—her picture had been in the papers and on the news.
The afternoon had gone well. The warm shower, food and the Irish car bomb the bartender had suggested had done a number on her and she’d slept like the dead for almost four hours. Once she awoke and thought about the night, she didn’t want to be alone and she didn’t want to sit by the phone waiting to see if Sean was going to call her.
She decided to head south on Duval for O’Hara’s. Katie should have been setting up the karaoke by then. Not that she had to set up much—it was her uncle’s bar, and nothing was going to happen to any of her equipment there.
As she walked down the street, she knew that many of the shopkeepers and servers at outside restaurants watched her as she went by. Just another reminder that people would not quickly forget her face, or the story that was associated with it.
Such gruesome murders did not occur without a great deal of sensationalism.
She wondered sometimes if whoever had killed Travis and Georgia—she didn’t believe for a minute that it had been Carlos Roca—had relished the attention that the killings had brought. The police had questioned both her and Jay about their enemies. To the best of her knowledge, she didn’t have any. Nor did Jay. They had led simple lives, gone to college, gone out into the world, worked really hard and survived. That had come from a lot of twenty-hour days at film school, but they had paid off. She knew she was lucky, too; she knew the water, thanks to her father.
Ah, her father! As far as her parents knew, right now she was just in the Keys with Katie. She knew they wouldn’t be happy if they knew what she was doing—trying to retrace the steps she had previously taken and find out if there was an answer anywhere. Maybe, if she had convinced Sean, they would find nothing. But she would have the satisfaction of knowing that she had tried everything that was in her power to find out the truth.
When she reached O’Hara’s, she found that Katie and David were seated at the bar. Katie was ready to go when the time rolled around, and she was snacking on conch fritters with David and sipping a soda. The two were in deep conversation when she arrived. She wondered what they were talking about—they shut up the moment they saw her.
David Beckett stood politely, offering her the stool next to Katie. She tried to tell him to sit, but he wouldn’t, so she thanked him and sat down. “I hear we’re on,” Katie said happily.
“We are?” Vanessa asked.
“Sean called and asked if I was sure it was a direction I willing to go in—and I must say I’m intrigued. We’ve had Liam studying what information he can from various sources, and it is one of the most disturbing mysteries of recent time,” David told her.
Katie looked at Vanessa with triumph. She had an “I told you so” look in her eyes.
“We started interviewing for researchers and our film crew today,” David said.
“And how did that go?”
David grinned. “Sean said that not one of the people we saw had your credentials. But some seemed okay. We actually have a number of friends who are top-notch, but most of them are already committed to projects—it’s tough, even for the best people, so when something is up, you commit fast. And I admit, we didn’t set this up ahead very far, which might have helped in that area.”
“I’m still sure you can find the people you need,” Vanessa said.
“Oh, yeah. But it would have been easier to hit the folks we know—and whose work and work ethic we know,” David said.
“Everyone has to start somewhere,” Vanessa said.
“That’s true, and now I have to go to work,” Katie said. “I’m counting on both of you if it’s a dead crowd,” she added.
Vanessa smiled and shook her head. “A group number!” Katie said.
There were about twenty people in the bar when Katie started up, singing a number with a friend of hers, Clarinda, who was also one of the night servers at O’Hara’s. The two sang a country number that was beautiful and sexy. By the time they finished, other people were walking in the door.
“I don’t think that she’s going to have any problem with this crowd not getting up,” Vanessa told David.
“Probably not. We’re off the hook. Oh, and she’s trying to get Clarinda to get up enough confidence to take it over when she’s not here,” David said.
“Oh?”
David smiled. “You don’t think we’ll all be going on this excursion without Katie, do you?”
Vanessa smiled. “So it’s a done deal?” she asked.