CHAPTER THREE
On Saturdays, Lizzie usually went to the bar late so she could stay until closing. But this afternoon, she’d just returned from a long walk with Charlie when she received a desperate message from Brett, begging for help. Justin had gone home sick, and the place was packed.
She showered, dressed quickly, and twisted her wet hair into a bun.
“Hey, buddy,” she said to Charlie. “You ready to go to work?”
She loaded him into the car and drove the short distance downtown. Since his adoption, Charlie had become a constant fixture at The Drop. It might be some kind of health code violation, but she’d purposely never looked into it. That way, she could claim plausible deniability if anyone ever complained. Sometimes, when business was slow, he’d mosey around and greet patrons, but mostly, he just slept in Lizzie’s office, especially at night. The morning’s long walk must have tuckered him out because he went straight to his bed once they arrived. Lizzie jumped in to take over bartending.
She’d been there about an hour when a group of men paraded in, obviously celebrating something. And obviously, having started the party beforehand. She recognized one of them as Dax, a firefighter she’d dated for a couple of weeks. From the look of his crew, he was with friends from work.
One guy stood out. He appeared to be a little older and a lot impatient with their obnoxious, rowdy antics. Maybe he was their boss. As the man approached the bar, Lizzie sensed wariness in his soulful, coffee-brown eyes.
“Your best a?ejo, neat. Please,” he said.
Lizzie’s eyebrows inched upward. Sophisticated drink for a sophisticated man?
“You seem incongruous with that crowd,” she said, reaching for the top-shelf tequila.
“Yeah, I probably am,” he said. There was some gray at his temples and a few creases in his forehead, but that didn’t detract from his commanding presence and handsome face. He glanced at his phone, sighed, and rolled his eyes. “Ugh. I’m gonna kill that guy.” He’d muttered it, but she overheard him.
“Do I need to call the police?” she asked, pouring his drink.
He waved a hand and shook his head. “My buddy’s flaking. Now I’m stuck with those yahoos.” As he said it, the “yahoo” she knew approached.
“Lizzie, we want to do shots,” Dax said, sidling up beside the man. He tipped his chin to the bottle in her hand.
Lizzie held up the Don Julio, her finest tequila. “This is a?ejo. It’s not for shots,” she said.
“Why not?” Dax asked. “What’s the difference?”
The man spoke before she could answer. “A?ejo is for sipping. Reverently,” he said, a touch annoyed if she wasn’t mistaken. She passed him the drink. He took a small sip and hummed his appreciation.
“Oh, Ben,” Dax said, slapping the a?ejo lover on the back. “We’re celebrating, not pondering the wonders of the world. Lighten up.”
“Heathen,” the man named Ben mumbled, making her chuckle.
Lizzie lined up six shot glasses on a tray, poured, and pushed them toward Dax.
“I miss you, Lizzie,” Dax said woefully, clearly pushing past tipsy. He turned to his friend. “You don’t wanna get mixed up with her, Ben. She’ll break your heart.” He took the tray of drinks and returned to his booth.
“Boyfriend?” Ben asked.
“Not for long,” Lizzie said. “Can’t date someone who doesn’t appreciate fine liquor.”
He nodded and handed her thirty dollars. “No change.”
Hm. Generous paired nicely with tequila connoisseur. She stuffed the money into her bra, and he raised an eyebrow. She winked and turned away to take orders. Not that she was stalking him, but out of the corner of her eye, she watched him go sit with Dax and his boisterous friends. Calmly sipping tequila, he looked out of place—like an uncomfortable wallflower planted in a bed of weeds. Five minutes later, when she glanced over again, he was gone.
She stayed till closing, helped lock up, loaded Charlie into the SUV, and drove home. It was dark and cold, and she was tired, so after a quick jaunt up the waterfront to allow Charlie to pee, she hustled inside.
She’d no sooner shut her front door and dropped her purse when her cell phone rang. What the heck? It was two in the morning. This couldn’t be good.
“Hello,” Lizzie said.
“Lizzie,” Bella whispered. “It’s Bella. I need help.”
Lizzie jotted down the address and left immediately, leaving Charlie sleeping on the couch. She pulled into the driveway of a huge lakefront Victorian. Hip-hop music blared from inside. Probably some rich kid throwing a party while his parents were out of town. Bella waited for her on the front porch, rubbing her arms up and down to keep warm.
“What’s goin’ on?” Lizzie asked. Bella smelled of alcohol and was unsteady on her feet.
“It’s my friend, Maya,” Bella said. “She’s pretty drunk, and there’s a guy here giving her a hard time.”
“Why don’t you guys leave?”
“Our friend Taylor was the DD. We were supposed to spend the night at her house, but she got sick and left us stranded. I didn’t know who else to call. I don’t want Uncle Edward to know, and Maya’s dad can’t find out either.”
“Let’s go find your friend,” Lizzie said, heading toward the door.
Bella panicked when Maya wasn’t in the living room. “I shouldn’t have left her. She obviously didn’t want to be alone with Devon.”
Lizzie searched the house, starting with the bedrooms upstairs. High-pitched protests came from behind one door. She shoved it open and found a teenage boy with his arms around a terrified girl. Both were still dressed, but experience had taught Lizzie how quickly this kind of thing could go south. The kid was a good foot taller, so to make sure he heard her, Lizzie grabbed him by the hair and yanked his head back.
“Beat it,” she growled into his ear.
“Who are you?”
“I’m your worst nightmare,” Lizzie said. “Get your sorry ass out of here. Now.”
The teen wisely backed out of the room without saying another word. Bella ran to Maya, who was crying. “Are you okay?”
Maya looked at Lizzie. “Thank you,” she said. “I thought he just wanted to make out. He wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
“Let’s go,” Lizzie said. She loaded the girls into her car and took them back to her place. A stern lecture on the perils of underage drinking was in their immediate future. But tomorrow. It was too late tonight.
After making them each drink a bottle of water, she put them to bed in the guest room. Exhausted, she took a quick shower to wash away the day, then fell into bed.
She’d barely drifted off when “Red Red Wine” blaring from her phone woke her. The caller ID showed an unknown number.
“This better be good,” she mumbled.
“Elizabeth Parker?” a man’s voice asked.
“Yes.”
“You own The Drop on Main Street?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Who’s this?”
“New Bern FR. We need you to come down here right away.”
“Fire department? What’s going on?” she asked.
“Your bar’s on fire.”
She sat, suddenly wide awake. “I’ll be right there.”
After checking on Bella and her friend, she scribbled a note telling them she’d gone to the bar in case they woke up and realized she wasn’t there. Charlie barely budged from his bed in the living room as she slipped out the door.
By the time she arrived, the fire had been extinguished, but long trails of smoky gray lingered, drifting slowly into the air. Her dreams turned to rubble. She parked in the back alley next to a fire truck. The rear door had burned away, and the bricks around and above it dripped a wet, black sludge.
It was hard to evaluate with just one dull streetlight, but it looked like most of the damage had been contained to The Drop. The two offices that flanked Lizzie’s bar seemed relatively unscathed. Good news for her neighbors at least.
She gave her information to the firefighters, who told her she wouldn’t be allowed in until after the fire inspector did his thing and gave the all-clear.
“What could have caused it?” she asked. “Did we leave the grill on?”
“I’m not the final say,” the fireman said, “but it appears to have started at the bar itself and there’s evidence of an accelerant.”
“Wait. You mean someone set it? Used gas or something?” Lizzie gasped. Who would want to burn her bar?
The man shrugged. “There will be an investigation.”
That’s all he had to say? “How do you catch the person who did it? Won’t all the evidence be burned?”
“Up to the fire inspector to figure out. We’ll tape off the scene. No one in or out until he does his eval. It’s a weekend, but they’ll call him out in the morning. Better light once the sun comes up.”
“So, what do I do?”
“Go home. Get some sleep. Someone will call once you’re allowed in.”
Go home? And sleep? Not likely. She muttered her thanks and trudged back to her Jeep. It was almost five am by the time she climbed into bed again. She tried but failed to sleep. Near dawn, she realized it wasn’t happening and got up.
After amending her note to Bella, she left again, heading to The Drip 1.0. That way, once she was allowed into the bar, she’d be right across the street.
As soon as she thought her family might be awake, she announced the news in the family group chat. Which immediately and thoroughly blew up. Everyone texted at once, asking questions, demanding answers, and, of course, offering opinions and suggestions.
She parked herself at a table by the window, giving herself a perfect view of The Drop’s front door. As the sun came up, she sipped coffee, scrolled the internet for what to do after a fire, and kept an eye on her bar.
While the damage from the rear looked catastrophic, from the front entrance, there was hardly any indication there’d been a fire at all. Just faint black smudges above the door where smoke must have escaped.
Around ten, just after her third twenty-ounce latte—she’d probably regret that—the fire dispatcher called to advise she could return to the scene and that someone would be in touch about what came next.
Carloads of Parkers arrived not long after she did, everyone as stunned and outraged as she felt. Lizzie stepped gingerly through soggy ashes and debris. Her office, the storage room, and the bathrooms in the back had smoke damage and soot everywhere but hadn’t really burned.
The real carnage was to the public area. Only a skeleton of the actual bar remained and nothing of the wood stools. Most of the booths were discernible but burned beyond repair, the red vinyl frozen, like wax drips from a candle. All the liquor bottles had burst in the heat, not one left standing. The walls, ceiling, and windows were covered in grimy, damp soot.
She noticed her grandma bend down and pick up something but thought nothing of it.
“What’s Nana doing?” Lucy asked.
“Who knows,” Lizzie said. “You know how she likes to collect random junk. Probably a shiny bottle cap or something.”
Nana had a habit of “collecting” things. Some might say stealing, but it was mostly harmless trinkets—items that weren’t necessarily hers but that no one really cared about. Usually. Lizzie’s father had spoken to Nana about it on numerous occasions, but Nana claimed she was amassing “souvenirs of life” and insisted it was stuff nobody would miss.
“Honey,” her dad said, approaching from behind. “I’m so sorry this happened. They really think it’s arson?”
Lizzie shrugged. “I guess. Supposedly, someone came this morning to investigate, but I didn’t see him and haven’t heard what he found.”
“Who would do such a thing?” Daisy said.
“Some son of a bitch,” Lizzie said.
“Where’s Bella?” Emma asked.
“She spent the night with a friend,” their dad said. “I didn’t want to bother her. We’ll tell her when she gets home.”
Lizzie didn’t say anything about where Bella actually was. Coming clean would be part of her penance for her behavior last night.
Adam called the foreman who was handling Lizzie’s remodel and asked him to board up the building. “He’s got some guys that’ll take care of it today,” Adam said. “I’ll call a company that specializes in fire clean-up tomorrow.”
“Thanks, Adam. I appreciate the help.”
With nothing left to do at the bar, she returned home. Bella’s friend was gone, and Bella sagged against the tub on the bathroom floor near the toilet, a familiar haggard expression on her face.
“Not feeling too great?” Lizzie asked.
Bella moaned. “I’m never drinking again.”
“Good. That’s what I like to hear. Where’s your friend?”
“She lives a couple of buildings over. She walked home.”
“Too bad she’ll miss my lecture on underage drinking. You’ll have to pass it along after I give it to you.”
“I’m sorry, Lizzie. I didn’t know what to do.”
“I’m glad you called me, and you can always call me. That doesn’t mean I won’t ream your ass for doing something stupid though.”
“Are you going to tell Uncle Edward?”
“No. You are.”
Bella hung her head. “That’s fair, I suppose. After I feel better though?”
“Sure,” Lizzie said. “I’m gonna run outside with Charlie for a minute. I’ll bring you some aspirin and water before I go. Hang tight.”
She waited until Charlie did his business and then threw the ball until he plopped down at her feet and gave her “the look,” saying he was too tired to continue. When she returned, Bella trudged to the living room and sank into the couch.
“Drinking is so stupid. Why do people do it?”
Lizzie shrugged. “It can be destructive.”
“You own a bar. How can you say that?”
“Have you ever seen me drunk?”
Bella thought for a second and shook her head.
“I enjoy a glass of wine or two now and then, but I’ve learned my lesson—the hard way, just like you are now—that too much isn’t good for you. Especially when your brain is still growing, like yours is. And that’s just the health risks. As your friend learned last night, there are other problematic, potentially dangerous, situations that come up as well. People do dumb stuff when they’re drunk.”
“I understand.”
“Will you pass the message along to your friend? She should tell her parents about what happened too.”
“She only has a dad, and she was pretty adamant we couldn’t call him. I don’t know what the story is, but I’ll tell her.”
“Well, he has a right to know what’s going on with his kid.”
She nodded before rushing back to the bathroom. By one o’clock, Bella felt well enough to go home and face the music. Lizzie drove her, wished her luck, returned to her condo, and collapsed into bed, exhausted.