Chapter Eighteen
Dante’s Inferno
The Pub
Interview and Dinner
Saturday Five P.M.
After dropping the cop off outside their hotel, they managed to slip in without anyone knowing. The media was still all over the memorial, that was ending in the next hour. For now, it was about getting changed and heading back out.
Gene’s plan was to get them to the pub before the memorial was over, so they could continue on with some privacy.
Why?
Gene wanted to do something romantic since Ethan had drawn him a heart on his cast.
Those rings were burning a hole in his pocket. So, while tonight’s dinner was a working one, they’d make sure to make it a fun one too.
All work and no play made Ethan and Gene VERY dull boys.
And no one wanted that.
NO.
ONE.
As they headed to the last interview of the night, Gene could smell Ethan’s cologne, and it gave him that warm, happy feeling in the pit of his belly.
Lust curled there, waking up that need he felt for him.
“You smell nice,” Gene admitted, parallel parking their ride on the street.
Ethan smiled at him.
“You smell nice too. In fact, I was just enjoying the scent of your cologne. It makes me happy,” he admitted.
That wasn’t the only thing he was contemplating.
Ethan had been sitting there thinking about Gene, and how only yesterday, he’d believed his running had destroyed them. Now, they were back in their rhythm, and all was right in their world.
Thankfully.
“Well, come on over here and give your man a kiss,” he said, leaning over to reach Ethan.
Without any hesitation, Ethan did, and while leaning over the console, his lips found Gene’s.
The kiss was the kind that gave you chills and grounded you all at the same time.
It was like coming home after a long night. While it might be getting dark and the snow was falling, it was a light in Ethan’s world.
Slowly, he broke the kiss, but his palm stayed on Gene’s scruffy cheek.
They stared into each other’s eyes.
“Want to bang out the interview, skip dinner, and head to the hotel where we can fornicate?” Ethan asked.
Gene laughed.
He hadn’t expected him to just go there from a kiss. Someone was making it easy for him.
“Oh, Mr. Blackhawk, normally, I’d say yes, but we need to eat something. You can go days without food. I can’t. We haven’t eaten since breakfast at the café.”
Yeah, that sounded like him.
“I get hungry, but just for other things,” he said, knowing Gene knew what he meant.
He grinned.
“I love you, EJ. Don’t you dare change,” he said. “I got me a hot, horny man. I won this game,” he said, gleefully.
Ethan laughed.
“Same,” he admitted. “I love you, too, big guy. I like how I caught a bear. I’m never letting him go.”
Hallelujah.
Gene hoped not.
“Let’s go interview and eat a steak. This bear needs some protein before someone’s eating more meat later.”
Blackhawk laughed.
“Subtle. I like it.”
Gene winked at him, and the two men got out of the ride to head across the street to the pub. It was semi-dead in the parking area around it, but it was only early evening.
The night was young. Then again, the town might be slow due to the memorial for Ivey Slee still going on.
Heading in, they were met by a young woman at the hostess table just inside the doors.
“Hey! Welcome to Dante’s. Bar or booth?” she asked, picking up two menus.
For a ‘pub’ it was more a restaurant inside.
“Booth,” Gene said, reading her name off the tag she was wearing. “If you have one, Molly,” he said.
Molly smiled and had them follow her into the dining area. It was empty in there, but the bar had a few people at it, enjoying some cocktails.
“I thought it would be busier,” Gene said, making chitchat as he got the lay of the land.
Molly put menus down.
“In about three hours, it will be crazy. By ten, it’s at its worst, and then, it calms down before we close at two.”
Gene reached into his pocket and pulled his badge out as they sat down.
“Molly, we need to talk,” he said.
She saw the badge and didn’t even flinch.
“Is this about Megan?” she asked.
He nodded.
“Can you sit for a few and talk to us?” he asked. “We want to do this in the least intrusive way for your business.”
She nodded.
“My dad owns the place. He’s in the kitchen. After we talk, I’ll get him for you. We’re all willing to help. All of us are really broken up about what happened to Megan. My dad is struggling with the guilt of not walking her to her car.”
Yeah, they bet.
To make room for her, Ethan slid over, and she sat beside him.
“Tell us about what happened,” Gene said.
Because they were a family here, and she was devastated about Megan, Molly shared.
“It was a slow night. Like I said, by ten, we’re at our worst, normally, but it was pretty dead in here. My dad needed to cut some staff, so he asked who wanted to go home. Megan volunteered.”
Gene was curious.
“Was that normal?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“No. He NEVER lets us leave unless we are LITERALLY dying. Only, we had too many servers on duty, and not enough customers. So, he let Megan leave, and I was going to cover for her if it got busy. I can multitask.”
Ethan was making notes.
Molly was worrying a ring on her pointer finger as she shared what she recalled that night.
“Megan grabbed her things out of the locker room and walked out the back door. No one thought anything about it until we were leaving around three after closing. We all walked out together, and there was her car.”
Gene was curious.
“Who is ‘we’?” he asked.
She rattled the names off of the people who had been working that night.
“There was myself, my dad, Mitch, Kiki, the other server, Jimmy, the backup bartender, and the two cooks, Maddy and Kelvin.”
Ethan stopped her.
“I need all their last names.”
She rattled them off for him. When she was done, she kept talking.
“My dad was caught off guard because her car shouldn’t be there. It was weird she drove to work in the first place, but then, he let it go because Megan lives around the corner, not far from here. So, he wasn’t sure if she walked, but it was too late to call her and ask.”
Ethan made notes as Gene kept asking questions—or tried to.
Yeah, he didn’t get to finish.
“HEY!” a big, gruff-looking man said, as he headed toward them. “What’s with this?” he asked, pointing at his daughter sitting in a booth with the two men.
She rolled her eyes.
“Calm down, Mitch. They are here about Megan,” she said, and that worked. “This is my Dad.”
The big man softened at the mention of her name.
“Cops?” he asked.
Now, they could bang out another interview at the same time, so Gene showed him his badge.
“Feds, and we were trying to do this on the DL, so your business didn’t get tagged by the media nuts,” he said, pointing to the news that was on with the story being run about the memorial for the first victim.
Hearing that, Mitch grabbed a chair from a table, spun it, and straddled it.
“My bad. I’m protective about my baby girl.”
The baby girl in question rolled her eyes.
“Dad, what are they going to do? Assault me with the menu?” she asked.
The man was to the point.
“Someone took our Megan. I don’t trust anyone,” he stated, his voice full of emotion. “They killed her. The news is plastering it all over the place.”
Well, there was the damn media making things miserable for everyone involved.
Only, the show had to go on.
So, Gene went there.
“Was anyone bothering her?” he asked. “You know…other than a normal patron being a dick when she cut them off from booze?”
He shook his head and whistled to get someone’s attention.
“Yo! Jimmy, get your ass over here,” he said to the bartender.
The man tossed down his towel and headed their way. When he got there, Mitch pointed.
“These are the Feds. They are here about Megan. Was anyone bothering her? You were back there with her the most,” he admitted.
Jimmy shook his head.
“No, boss. It was the normal.”
Gene took in the man. He was in his late twenties and looked like a typical bartender. He had tats up and down his arms, and around his neck.
Someone liked ink as much as Ethan.
Apparently.
“No one?” Mitch asked.
He shook his head.
“No, even our regulars were normal. It was so freaking slow, painfully. We were about to play checkers back there.”
And that was likely why he sent her off duty.
“I feel horrible,” Mitch said. “Had I not sent her off duty, we all would have walked out together.”
Gene reassured him.
“The person who took her likely has been stalking her a while. He knew where to be and got lucky. If he didn’t take her here, he would have gotten her somewhere else.”
That didn’t help, and Gene got it. It had only been a couple of days ago, so emotions were raw. It was time to do this delicately.
“Was she dating anyone?” Gene asked.
Jimmy laughed.
When they all looked over, he explained.
“Megan liked the ladies. If you even said the word ‘dick’ around her, she got green. She was NOT a fan of the dudes. She barely tolerated me being in her space. The only reason she did is she told me she felt safe around me because I was gay.”
That told Ethan one thing.
She wasn’t feeling safe, and that had to be for a reason. Had something in her past made her feel unsafe? Women didn’t generally make statements like that unless something happened to them.
They’d have to figure that out.
“If someone started with the ladies,” Jimmy said, “I would have kicked them out or called Mitch.”
They didn’t doubt that. If the man’s daughter worked here, he was likely very cautious since this was a pub.
“We get some wild ones,” Mitch admitted. “If they start hassling the ladies, I don’t tolerate that. I don’t want someone putting their hands on my kid.”
Molly rolled her eyes, but he wasn’t having it.
“You’re my daughter. Do you think I want some scumbag slapping you on the ass?” he asked. “Look what happened to Megan. There are animals out there who hurt people.”
Well, that he was one-hundred percent correct about, and that was why they had jobs.
Gene went there.