Except this was a grown-up and deadly playground.
He slowly eased his hold on Vinnie, who straightened his jacket. “I’ve gotta go back up on stage. You explain, huh, Flynn?”
He stood and walked away.
Aidan watched as Kendall took the chair Vinnie had just vacated, staring at him venomously. “You son of a bitch,” she told him.
He didn’t blink. “Jenny Trent was in your shop and at this bar. Vinnie is always in your shop and at this bar.”
“What makes you think he was in the shop that day?”
“When isn’t he?” He leaned toward her at last. “The waitress told me he’d been flirting with Jenny, and that makes him a natural person with whom to start. And he admits that he walked her back to her B and B.”
“So go question everyone else who stayed in the same place,” Kendall told him, seething with hostility.
“I don’t know where she stayed. Vinnie does.”
“And he told you that—so you’re threatening him? How interesting.”
He decided it was time to turn the conversation. “I’ll tell you something else interesting. I thought you wanted out of this scene for a while. We went to dinner out of the Quarter—at your request.” He lowered his voice but leaned even closer, so she could hear him clearly despite the music. “Then you about turned into a ghost when you saw Jenny Trent’s picture and jumped to attention on behalf of Vinnie’s reputation. So what are you doing out here now? Checking in with him?”
She gaped, then quickly recovered. “You are a jerk.”
“Jenny Trent is missing, and probably dead. If I have to be a jerk to find out what happened to her, so be it.”
She stood up, telling him what he ought to do with himself, then headed to the bar.
Jeremy returned to the table and took a seat across from him.
“Wow. You really know how to make friends and influence people, huh, partner?” he said dryly.
“Something is going on with her,” Aidan said.
“I agree. She’s ape-shit angry because she thinks you’re persecuting her friend,” Jeremy said.
“No. She was really unnerved by Jenny’s picture. I thought it might be because she was worried about Vinnie. But that wasn’t it. She wasn’t angry, she was stunned.”
He stood, and Jeremy looked up at him. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to find out why she came back out tonight.”
Jeremy shook his head. “More community relations. Great.” Aidan looked at him. “Hey, good luck. Should I follow Vinnie out of here?”
“Not a bad idea,” Aidan said, and strode for the bar.
Kendall didn’t look his way, but she had known he was coming, because she spoke the minute he stopped beside her. “Don’t you ever give up and go away? I don’t have to talk to you. I’m out on the town—so what? You can investigate all you want, but you’re not a cop, and the cops don’t want to talk to you. Give up. Go away.”
He slid onto the bar stool at her side anyway. She had ordered a sweet drink, too, and was playing with the fruit garnish that came on top.
“Look, Vinnie can take us further on Jenny’s trail than we’ve been able to get before.”
“So you decide to manhandle him?”
“I was just making sure he wasn’t giving me a line.”
She swiveled on her stool, eyes still flashing with anger. “You are a piece of work.”
“I need to find the truth.”
She shook her head. “Why?” she whispered. “You found a bone. Just a bone. If you had been here every day for the last couple of years, you wouldn’t have thought anything of it.”
“But now I know there was a real girl who disappeared and I do think something of it.”
She looked tired suddenly.
“You’ve been in the service, you’ve been FBI. God in heaven, you must know that sometimes people disappear. Why the hell do you care?”
“Someone should,” he said.
She lowered her eyes, then looked up at him again. “Then help me.”
“What?”
“Help me now,” she said.
“What are you talking about?”
She hesitated, took a deep breath, exhaled. “You want help. You crash into all our lives and think we should just help you because you have a hunch. Well, I need help, too, because…that thing with the card that I told you about? It happened again today.”
“The card smiled at you?”
“Worse. It laughed.”
He fought to keep his composure. Crazy as it seemed, it was clear that she believed what she was telling him.
And crazy as it seemed, he felt he had to try to understand.
“Okay. So…?”
“I need you to help me find her, the girl I was giving the reading to. I want to make sure this girl, Ann, gets on that cruise ship tomorrow.”
“What did she look like?”
“Blond. She was wearing a halter top and slim-fitting jeans. She had green eyes, she was young, and she was with a girl in a Saints shirt.”
They were interrupted when the bartender stopped in front of them. “Last call.”