Abby realized she was shaking.
She sat down on the chair in front of the computer screens. She gazed at them for a moment, her mind strangely blank and her hands still trembling. She clenched them into loose fists.
The screens showed her that Sullivan remained behind the bar, Macy chatted with customers, Bootsie raised a beer to his lips.
Will Chan sat and watched.
In the dining room, Paul and Roger were still at the table. Paul was speaking earnestly to Roger; Roger nodded and kept drinking.
He was going to play an interesting Blue the following day if he didn’t stop.
She left the computer screens, knowing that someone at the house on Chippewa was always watching them. By the time she came downstairs, Bootsie and Will were gone. Sullivan worked behind the bar, putting away glasses.
Macy was off-duty, and Grant Green had taken her position at the host stand.
“Hey, girl,” Grant said to her. “I’m glad you’re here. You getting any rest?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Abby said.
“No luck on the missing girl, huh?”
“Not yet.”
He leaned toward her. “I’m having the waitress bring a check to Paul and Roger. I’m pretty sure Paul wants to get Roger out of here. At least the two of them won’t be driving.”
“Thank God for small mercies,” Abby said.
“It’s all right to...hurry them out?”
“Grant, yes of course. You’re the manager. You can and should refuse to sell to anyone who appears inebriated. That includes my high school friends.”
He smiled. “Thanks. It’s just kind of... Well, we’re entering a new era at the Dragonslayer. We all need to adjust.”
She refrained from telling him that, at the moment, the running of the tavern was the last of her concerns.
“But you know what? I’m here. I’ll take care of this,” she told him.
She walked over to the table where Paul and Roger were still sitting. She slid in next to Roger and took his hands. “Look at me, Roger.”
When he did, she said, “You’re going home now. Go to bed and get some sleep. We’re doing the pirate show for the crowd tomorrow. I need you to be in good shape. You and Paul. I’m not an actor. I can only do it because I grew up here—and because I have the two of you. Okay?”
He smiled at her a little blearily. “Yeah, you know about Missy Tweed, don’t you?”
“She was ransomed,” Abby said.
“But she fell in love with Blue. She wanted to stay with him. He did save her—he came back to his ship to find that bastard, Scurvy Pete, trying to attack her. Scurvy Pete told him she was a captive and they were pirates and he was being a fool. So Missy thought Blue was her savior. Of course, Blue had seized her off her father’s ship, but that didn’t stop Missy from loving him. He was a businessman, Abby. Blue was a businessman. He only attacked ships that belonged to England’s enemies. He took her off her father’s ship when he saved the crew because the ship had been caught in a storm and wrecked and began sinking. So...Blue actually saved Missy twice,” he concluded.
“It’s a great story, Roger. And we’ll do it well tomorrow. If you go home now.”
Paul looked at her with gratitude. “Come on, Roger. I’ll get you home.”
Paul helped him up and they left together, arm in arm. As Abby watched, a man in a colorful tourist shirt rose from his table and followed.
Abby smiled. The police were at work; she knew the man had to be a plainclothes officer, doing his job.
Following Roger English.
*
“I busted into an empty cabin,” Malachi told Jackson. “And I’m afraid I dripped water all over that beautiful yacht. But I did find this.”
He hadn’t heard anything in the cabin and hadn’t really expected to find Bianca Salzburg. If she’d been there, she would’ve made some sound—unless she’d been gagged and Helen hadn’t said anything about being gagged, just blindfolded.
So, no Bianca. But what he had found was more than a little suspicious.
Maybe not under normal circumstances. But under these circumstances...
He handed Jackson the scarf. It was a large pirate-themed scarf, the kind that was sold all over the city. It had been crumpled and kicked half under the bed. He wondered if it was used as a blindfold by someone.
Aldous?
The man was big and burly. He looked like a pirate. He was rich. He owned ships and a private yacht. He was in the prime of his health.
“Where did he go when he left here?” Malachi asked, sitting on a bench to get his shoes back on as they spoke.
“He was followed to his house. There’s an officer outside now,” Jackson said.
“Did they get anything off that partial gum wrapper?”
“Testing isn’t in yet.”
Malachi nodded. Fingerprints, if there were any, weren’t necessarily easy to match, since they might not be in any law enforcement database.