“What are you going to do?” he asked.
“The thing is... McQueen has a whole company that does venture capitalism. They find start-up companies to invest in. But you don’t invest in a company first without doing lots of background checks on the company founders. You don’t want to accidentally give money to a con man or a sex offender. So McQueen has a couple of women on his staff who do nothing but dig up people’s pasts.”
“You’re going to ask your ex...whatever to help us find Oliver?”
“I was thinking about it,” she said.
“Okay,” Roland said. “Call him, then. As long as his ladies on staff don’t do anything illegal.”
“Nah. They have all the databases that private detectives use. It won’t be a big deal to get a phone number or address. I’m calling. Are you staying?”
“I can handle it,” he said.
“All right. Here goes.”
Allison made the call.
McQueen answered after two rings.
“Allison? This is a quite a surprise,” he said.
“Hey,” she said. “Sorry to bother you.”
“No bother at all, sugar. What’s on your mind?”
Sugar? She did the mental math—it would be right about eleven in Louisville right now. Good chance he was already on his third drink of the night.
“I need your help with something.”
“Name it,” McQueen said.
“Name it?” she asked.
“Name it and claim it. You’re talking to a man sitting in a doghouse. Got nothing else to do in here.”
“What did you do now?” Allison asked.
Roland eyed her with suspicion and amusement.
“I made the mistake of answering my lady love’s questions about you.”
“You said you already told her about me.”
“I apparently neglected to inform her of your age at consummation.”
“Oh...dear,” Allison said in sympathy. “I guess she’s mad?”
“She’s not happy, that’s for damn sure. I’m under orders to make amends.”
“Should I write your girlfriend a letter of recommendation for you?” Allison asked. If Roland furrowed his brow any harder, she could put a pencil between the folds.
“That’s not the worst idea I’ve heard all day. Now tell me what I can do for you,” McQueen said. “I hope it involves the loss of a limb. That might appease the future missus.”
“Roland and I want to find one of the kids who used to live here. Nothing came up when we Googled him,” she said. “Can you help?”
“You and Roland, eh? Hmm...might do it for you. Not sure I’ll do it for him.”
“Be nice, McQueen. He’s sitting right here.”
“Put him on.”
“What?”
“Put the man on the phone. I would like to talk to him.”
“Oh, hell, no,” Allison said in an exaggerated Kentucky accent.
“What?” Roland whispered.
Allison put her hand over the phone.
“He wants to talk to you,” she said in a whisper.
Roland shrugged. “I’ll talk to him.”
“No,” Allison rasped.
“Allison...” McQueen sang her name.
“Speakerphone,” Allison said. “That’s my offer. I want to hear what nonsense you tell him.”
“Offer accepted,” McQueen said. “Put the boy on.”
Allison sighed heavily and hit the speakerphone button.
“All right, McQueen. Here he is.”
“Am I speaking to Brother Roland Capello?” McQueen asked.
“You can call me Roland,” Roland said, smiling at Allison, who was already rolling her eyes.
“And you can call me Mr. McQueen.”
“Of course, Mr. McQueen.”
“Oh, my Lord.” Allison sighed.
“I understand you and Allison are seeing each other now?” McQueen asked.
“You understand correctly,” Roland said.
“And you’re a monk of the Benedictine persuasion. Do I also understand that correctly?”
“I’m on leave from the order,” Roland said. “But technically, yes.”
“This is weird,” Allison said to them both. “This is very weird. This is weirder than the time I had sex with my brother who is also a monk.”
“You mean two hours ago?” Roland said.
“I did not need to hear that,” McQueen said. “Not enough bourbon in the whole goddamn world.”
“You dumped me,” Allison said. “You’ve obsessed about me more in the last forty-eight hours than you did in the entire six years we were together.”
“I don’t obsess about my big toe, either, but I sure as hell would if someone made me chop it off,” McQueen said.
“How much have you had to drink tonight?” Allison asked. “You sound like Matthew McConaughey.”
“I’ve had three shots of Knob Creek Single Barrel, one-hundred-twenty proof. We call that ‘guilty conscience’ bourbon in the trade,” McQueen said. “It’s not helping as much as I’d like. I best increase the voltage.”
“Guilt is the soul’s way of reminding you that actions have consequences,” Roland said. “So says my abbot.”
“I am a forty-five-year-old man with two grown children and a baby on the way with a woman I hardly know from Eve. Young man, I know actions have consequences.”
Roland looked at Allison and mouthed, “Does he always talk like this?”
“I heard that,” McQueen said. “Tell me, Roland, do monks drink bourbon?”
“We bust out the Maker’s Mark on special occasions,” Roland said. “Feast days, parties, anniversaries, days ending in Y.”
“Hmm.”
“McQueen, that’s a good Kentucky bourbon,” Allison said.
“Maker’s is ninety proof,” McQueen said. “But I suppose it’s a decent enough breakfast bourbon.”
Roland laughed again.
“Are you laughing at me, young man?” McQueen demanded.
“With you,” Roland said. “I’m starting to understand why Allison stayed with you for six years.”
“I could show you why she stayed with me for six years,” McQueen said.
“McQueen, that’s—”
“I was referring to my bank balance,” McQueen said.
“That’s not any less insulting,” she said. “That’s it. Chitchat is over.” She took McQueen off speakerphone and shooed Roland from the room. He went, reluctantly. Very reluctantly. “Okay, we’re alone again. Will you help? Seriously?”
“I’ll help. What exactly am I doing?”
“I need the contact information for Oliver Collins from Oregon, about age twenty-six.”
“And why am I hunting this boy down for you?”
“We think he might know something about my fall or whatever it was. We want to ask him a few questions.”
There was a pause before McQueen answered and Allison hoped the man hadn’t passed out on her.
“You really are planning on staying there with them, aren’t you?” he asked.
“For now,” she said. “But even so, I need to know what happened.”
“I’d want to know, too. I hope you have the family I could never give you someday,” McQueen said.
Allison swallowed a lump in her throat.
“I should hate you,” she said. “I really should. Why can’t I?”
“You know what they say...ours is not to wonder why. Ours is but to drink bourbon and rye.”
“They don’t say that. You say that, McQueen.”
“Is that so? Then I am a very wise man.”
She whispered a good-night and hung up before McQueen could say something else to make her remember why she didn’t hate him. She texted him Oliver’s name, his age and what little else she remembered about him—blond, blue eyes, from Portland. McQueen sent back a thumbs-up emoji. Message received.
She left her phone in her room and found Roland in the kitchen putting together what seemed to be a cocktail of pills into a tiny shot glass.
“Bourbon is better,” she said.
“These are all Dad’s,” Roland said. “We’ve got Benadryl for the itching. A diuretic to help with swelling. A few others I forgot what they do but they’re very important, I was told. They’ll add literally hours to his life.”
She sat down across from him at the table.
“Sorry McQueen gave you the third degree. You handled it really well.”
“I expected him to be, I don’t know, more of an asshole,” Roland said.
“He can afford to be nice. You were nice, too. Nicer than I would have been.”
“I hate to say it, but I like him.”
“He’s a charmer.”
“Seriously,” Roland said. “I’m straight and even I was thinking, Yeah, I’d sleep with this guy.”