“She slapped him.” He buried his face in his hands a second time and spoke from behind them. “She’s never slapped anyone in her life. It looked like a lovers’ quarrel.”
Finally, I put a hand on his shoulder and he looked up at me, his eyes moist and lined in a bright red.
“After she left,” he continued, “I followed him to his dealership and confronted him. He wouldn’t tell me what was going on, only to keep an eye on Mimi, that she could be in danger.” Moisture dripped over his lashes, and he rubbed his eyes with the thumb and fingers of one hand. The other one balled into a fist on the table. “I’m so amazingly stupid, Ms. Davidson.”
“Of course you’re not stupid.”
“I am,” he said, pinning me with a look so desperate, I struggled to breathe under the weight of it. “I thought he was threatening her. Honestly, how thick can one person be? He was trying to warn me that something was happening, something beyond my control, and I yelled at him. I threatened everything from a lawsuit to … to murder. God, what have I done?” he asked himself.
I realized immediately Warren was going to need two things when all this was said and done: a good lawyer and a good therapist. Poor schmuck. Most women would kill to have someone so dedicated.
“What else do you know about him?” I asked. Surely he did some kind of investigating into this guy’s background.
“Nothing. Not much, anyway.”
“Okay, give me what you do have.”
“Really,” he said, lifting one shoulder in hopelessness, “Mimi went missing right after I confronted him. I just don’t have much.”
“And you thought she ran away with him?”
His fist tightened. “Told you I was thick.”
I could almost hear his teeth grinding in self-loathing. “Did you find out how she knew him?”
After a long sigh, he admitted, “Yes, they went to high school together.”
The bells and whistles of a winning spin on a slot machine echoed in my mind. That must have been some high school. “Warren,” I said, forcing his attention back to me, “don’t you get it?”
His brows furrowed in question.
“Two people who went to the same high school with your wife are now dead, and she’s missing.”
He blinked, realization dawning in his eyes.
“Did something happen?” I asked. “Did she ever talk about high school?”
“No,” he said as if he’d found the answer to it all.
“Crap.”
“No, you don’t understand. She never talked about her high school in Ruiz before she moved to Albuquerque, refused to. I asked her about it a couple of times, pushed her a little once, and she was so angry, she didn’t talk to me for a week.”
I leaned forward, hope spiraling out of me. “Something happened there, Warren. I promise you, I’ll find out what it was.”
He took my hand into his. “Thank you.”
“But if I die trying,” I added, pointing a finger at him, “I’m totally doubling my fee.”
A minuscule grin softened his features. “You got it.”
Just as we were wrapping up our conversation, his lawyer walked into the room. As they talked quietly, I excused myself and strolled to the two-way mirror, leaned in, and grinned. “Told you,” I said, hitching a thumb over my shoulder. “Innocent. That’ll teach you to put a tail on my ass.” Payback was fun.
* * *
After taking a picture back to the Chocolate Coffee Café to no avail—no one remembered seeing Mimi the night before—I flirted with Brad the cook a little then hustled back to the office, but Cookie had left early to have dinner with her daughter, Amber. Every time her twelve-year-old stayed with her dad, Cookie would insist on taking her to dinner at least once, worried that Amber would be miserable. I suddenly found it odd that in the two years I’d known Cookie, I had never met her ex. I had no idea what he even looked like, though Cook talked about him plenty. Most of it not good. Some not so bad. Some kind of wonderful.
Dad was at the bar when I made it downstairs for a bite. He tossed the towel to Donnie, his Native American barkeep who had pecs to die for and thick, blue-black hair for which every woman alive would sell her soul. But we’d never really seen eye to eye. Mostly ’cause he was much taller than I was.
I watched as Dad wound his way to my table. It was my favorite spot, nestled in a dark corner of the bar, where I could watch everyone without them watching me. I wasn’t particularly fond of being watched. Unless the watcher was over six feet with a hot body and sexy smile. And he wasn’t a serial killer. That always helped.
Dad’s coloring was still off. The normally bright hues of his aura that encompassed him were now murky and gray. The only other time I’d seen him like this was when he was a detective working a brutal series of missing-children cases. It was so bad, in fact, he wouldn’t let me get involved. I was twelve at the time, old enough to know everything and then some, but he’d refused my offer of help.
“Hey, pumpkin,” he said, plastering on that fake smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
“Hey, Dad,” I said, doing the same.
He brought us both a ham-and-cheese on whole wheat, exactly what I’d been craving.
“Mmm, thanks.”
With a smile, he watched while I bit into it, while I chewed then swallowed, while I chased the bite with a swig of iced tea.