18. Imogen
IMOGEN
The Village Tavern hums with its usual eclectic crowd.
College students from the next town over celebrate the start of a new school year with draft beers and baskets of buffalo wings.
Women sip Aperol Spritzes and munch on charcuterie boards, a family of five tucks into gourmet burgers, newcomers shake the rain from their coats.
It’s always a mixed bag here—youth and age coexisting in harmony to enjoy the polished, industrial digs and music selections from the likes of Modest Mouse or The Strokes.
Most people are out on the covered patio buying drinks from the Airstream bar surrounded by heat lamps and chatter, leaving the cozy interior with open tables and bar stools aplenty.
Inside is looser, a bit quieter, so I slip easily onto a stool alongside the wooden, L-shaped bar.
The brick wall lined with liquor gleams under pipe-fitted light fixtures, and a chalkboard menu lists beers on tap and today’s cocktail special: a Pumpkin Spiced Espresso Martini—which feels unironically tempting.
Three women tend bar, and I wonder which of them, if any, might have known my mom.
If she’d shared small confidences over a glass of Chenin Blanc, perched on this very stool with her kale Caesar salad.
That was always her go-to pairing. When I visited, this was where she brought me, her unofficial second home—nestled in an accessible area of downtown Blair.
A blonde bartender greets me as I glance at the wine list pinned on the far wall. “Hi, welcome! Can I get you started with a drink?”
My phone reads just shy of noon. I hesitate, then shrug inwardly. What the hell.
“A glass of Chenin Blanc,” I say. “From Oregon, if you have it.” In honor of someone, I almost add. But I keep it to myself.
She pulls a bottle from the fridge, snags a glass from the rack above her head, and pours generously.
I clear my throat. “Weird question,” I start. “Did you ever serve a woman named Alice? Blonde, in her fifties. She came here a lot, usually sat at the bar alone.”
I’m not even sure what I’m fishing for—maybe a scrap of overheard conversation, maybe the face of the younger man Leo swore he saw. It stings thinking a stranger could know something about my mother that I don’t. She told me almost everything.
The blonde bartender tugs on the neck of her black T-shirt, thinking. “Doesn’t sound familiar. But I only started working here a few weeks ago.” She glances over her shoulder. “Let me ask someone else.”
She consults the other bartenders while they pour drinks and slide plates down the polished wood. One of them, a woman with a dark pixie cut and sharp eyes, looks up at me and nods.
“I know Alice,” she says with a smile. “I’ll be right over.”
The first bartender sets a large glass of Chenin Blanc in front of me. I take a sip, savoring its crisp, saline edges, the faint brush of nectarine and strawberries.
Pixie Cut finishes with a customer and comes over. “I’m Eve. Are you her daughter?”
“Yeah,” I say, returning her grin. “How’d you know?”
“Lucky guess.” She shrugs. “You look a lot alike.” She studies my face. “Your mom’s a riot. Is she coming in?”
I exhale, bracing myself. “Actually… she passed.”
Eve’s face falls, and her eyes get all sad—the same way everyone else’s have. “Oh god. I’m so sorry.”
I’ve been on the other side of this exchange at Bar Henry, feeling that odd ache when a familiar regular vanishes forever.
“Thanks,” I murmur. Then add, “Since you two talked sometimes, did she ever mention… dating anyone? Or talk about a man? Young or old…” I trail off.
It seems a terribly strange question for the daughter of said woman to ask a bartender. But I also know that when people sit at a bar alone and have a drink—or more—they say things. They spill secrets they might not admit anywhere else.
Eve firmly shakes her head. “I never heard her mention anyone. And I never really saw her come in with anyone.”
The certainty in her voice should reassure me—that Rachel and Leo are leading me astray. That there’s no suspicious path to follow in the story of Mom’s death. But for some reason, it lands like a dead weight.
She goes on. “But I do remember that the last few times she was here, she was tired, sometimes getting a coffee instead of wine. She said she hadn’t been sleeping well. She told me that she kept hearing things in the night, and it was keeping her up.”
“What kinds of things was she hearing?” I ask, concerned.
Eve pulls a chilled glass from the fridge, tips a beer from the tap, and lets the foam spill before cutting it clean.
“Just bump-in-the-night–type stuff. She was still her cheery self, but definitely a bit deflated. One sec.” Eve drifts to the end of the bar and delivers the pint to a man.
He sits at the short end of the L, facing my way.
Air catches in my throat when I look at the man’s face.
It’s Tim—or whatever his name is. A chill prickles down my spine as our eyes meet, and I notice the almost sinister gray-blue tone to his irises, even from down the bar.
They’re pointed… angry even? He looks unchanged from the man framed in the circle of my binoculars all those years ago: dyed-dark hair grazing his ears, pale skin, black clothes.
Time has only added a few creases to his forehead. Some subtle crow’s-feet.
It’s disorienting to see him in the flesh, so close I could cross the room and touch the condensation on his glass. He eats the kind of solitary lunch Mom used to—a club sandwich, a house salad, and bar chatter as company.
Eve turns to the screen with his card, and I force my gaze to the brass beer taps in front of me, pulse thudding, wondering if he overheard me mention Mom.
The room is a wash of conversation and indie rock, and still I can’t shake the thought that my words somehow reached him.
As unsure as I was about my sudden distrust around Leo, I can’t pinpoint why I wouldn’t want Tim to hear of my miniature investigation.
As if he could have anything to do with it.
As Eve struts back toward me, I glance his way again. His eyes remain on me as he swallows from his beer—intense, purposeful. Then, without finishing it, he scrawls on the receipt and walks out of the tavern. His gait was just so that I’d stretch to say he stormed out.
The abruptness of it all fills me with another shudder, like my mind has an answer it won’t release.
Like I recognize him in ways I can’t put words to—the answer locked behind a door I can’t open.
And yet, the idea that I’d somehow irked him—that my presence or conversation drove him out—seems implausible.
He had just ordered a new drink, drank barely half of it, and then left, his attention never straying. My brain scrambles for foolish explanations: Did he know I spied on him as a kid years ago? Did I disturb him on the lake the other night with Rory? Does he have some kind of vendetta against us?
I don’t even know this man. But seeing him in person solidified something. That he’s someone I need to watch out for.
I take another sip of wine and look to Eve, leaning forward so no one else can hear. “Do you know that guy? The one who just left?” I cock my head toward the door.
“The old rocker dude?” she asks. “No. I’ve seen him in here before, but we’re not on a first-name basis or anything.”
The receipt. My eyes flick to the check on the bar, but it’s too far, too public. Too many people would notice if I tried. Wouldn’t they?
“Did you ever see him talking to my mom?” I press, knowing how it sounds. “He just… looks familiar.”
Her face scrunches in thought as she fills another pint. “Not that I remember. But your mom was… social. She’d hug people, say hi to everyone. I couldn’t tell you if he was ever one of them.”
After she walks away, I call after her. “Look. I know you probably can’t do this, but…” I pause until she’s back in front of me. I sigh, and I just say the damned thing. “Could you please check his name on the tab?”
She pauses, likely assessing her moral compass. I know how bizarre it sounds, because if someone asked me to do that at my bar, I’d hesitate, too.
“I don’t think I can do that,” she says, a kind scoff escaping her throat.
I lick my lips, finding my angle. “I’ve been asking about my mom a lot because I think something happened to her. Something bad,” I say quietly, twisting my wineglass by its base. “I’m worried that guy is bad news… and maybe even knows something.”
It’s not entirely untrue. Tim gives me the creeps. My gut is screaming that something is off about him. It’s utterly unshakeable.
Eve looks around, chewing on her lip. “Hold on.”
She crosses the bar, pulls his tab, and closes it out on a nearby screen before adding it to a pile. Walking back, she says, “He paid with a company card. His name isn’t even on it.”
“What’s the company?” I try, pushing my luck.
She looks uncomfortable, like she’s fighting the choice to give it up or keep it to herself. But then she blurts it out. “Pacific Records.” And in a conversation-ending move, she walks away.
Pacific Records. The name pulses in my mind—hammering. Familiar yet elusive. Not a major record label that anyone would know, but it’s one I’ve heard before. Surely established somewhere on the West Coast. Maybe one of my old favorite band’s labels.
No…
My memory clicks.
It’s a record label in Seattle. And the last time I heard its name was just a few days ago on Mom’s TV, during a morning news segment.
It’s where Madison Tory was working when she went missing.