Chapter 12
We had driven only a few miles when Ramón pulled into the parking lot of the first bar on the list. Javi pivoted in his seat. “How do you want to do this?”
I straightened my wig-scarf and reached for the door. “You two stay here. I’ll go in and ask around. I’ll text you if I find Theo.”
“I’ll go with you,” a voice said from behind me.
I screamed, my heart leaping out of my chest when Vero climbed over the bench seat and into the captain’s chair beside me. Ramón and Javi whipped around, their expressions as startled as mine.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Ramón yelled at her.
“Did you seriously think I was going to let you three go off and do this without me? Let’s hurry up and get on with it. We only have a few hours to cover all these bars. I have to be home by ten o’clock, or I’ll turn into a pumpkin.”
“You are not going anywhere!” I said firmly.
“You’re going to stay in this van with Javi and Ramón.
The last thing we need is for someone to recognize you and report you to the cops.
” Vero opened her mouth to argue, but the looks Javi and Ramón gave her made her sit back in her seat.
“I will go into the bar and see if I can find him. The rest of you will stay here. What’s Theo’s last name?
” I asked Vero. She hadn’t been inclined to cooperate when I’d asked her this question earlier.
Until this moment, my entire plan had depended on asking for a bartender named Theo.
“His last name is Sideris,” she said, spelling it out for me. “He’s about five-ten, medium build, pierced ears, short hair … He usually wears his baseball caps backward, and he’ll probably have a goatee.”
“He sounds like a douche,” Javi muttered.
“I’ll send you all a text if Theo is inside,” I said, climbing around her.
I hurried into the first bar and chatted up the staff, but didn’t find any employees named Theo.
The next three stops were dead ends as well.
As we pulled into the fifth bar on the list, Vero leaned forward in her seat.
“Wait,” she said as a tall man with a shock of russet-brown hair exited the bar.
“Look, that’s Jackson Ferrante! I knew Ben was lying when he said none of his friends knew where to find Theo.
Ben must have told Jackson I was asking around.
I bet this is Theo’s bar and Jackson came here to warn him. ”
“Good. If Theo’s in there, this shouldn’t take long.” I took off my wig-scarf. I’d worn it when we’d visited Ben’s office. If Jackson had come to warn Theo we were looking for him, the blond hair and scarf might give me away.
“What’s the plan?” Vero asked as I tried to coax some life back into my hair. “You can’t just walk in there and tell Theo who you are.”
“No.” I swiped on some more lip gloss and checked myself in my compact mirror.
“I’m going to walk in there and ask him what kind of car he’s driving.
Then I’m going to come back out to the parking lot and find it, take a photo of his license plate, and send it to Cam.
” Cam had a back door into every motor vehicle department in the country (and probably a few others I didn’t want to know about).
A plate number would be all he’d need to get us Theo’s home address.
Vero stomped on the floorboard. “We are not asking for Cam’s help.”
“If you have a better plan for figuring out where Theo lives, we can argue about it when I get back.” The whole van rattled as I got out and slammed the door.
Javi jumped out after me. “I’m going, too.”
Ramón hurried out of the van after him. “No fucking way. I don’t trust you not to go in there and break this guy’s face.”
“What makes you think I plan to stop with his face?”
I pulled them both up short as they tried to pass me.
Then I lowered my voice, making sure no one in the parking lot was listening.
“If Theo knows we’re looking for him, he’ll figure out who we are the minute we walk in together.
If you insist on coming with me, we’ll have to split up.
I’ll do the talking. And you,” I said, pointing at Javi, “will neither speak to nor break any part of Theo’s face.
If I need help, you’ll know.” I turned and started swiftly toward the bar.
Their boots echoed on the pavement behind me.
My phone vibrated with an incoming call. I checked the screen as I walked. The call was coming from Ramón’s Towing and Salvage, but when I turned around to see why Ramón was calling me, his phone wasn’t anywhere in sight.
Fifty feet behind him, Vero was waving at me through the windshield of my minivan.
She had her cousin’s cell phone in one hand and my binoculars in the other.
I cursed Ramón for leaving his phone in my dashboard charger.
And then I cursed myself for leaving my binoculars in the glove box.
I had purchased them months ago from my local lawn and gardening center, for the purpose of spying on my ex-husband.
They’d since come in handy for more than I’d bargained for.
I connected the call. “What?”
“Put in your earbuds,” Vero said.
“Why?”
“Just do it. I want to hear what Theo says.”
“No.” We had employed this tactic before, one of us taking point while the other secretly listened to a conversation, feeding information or questions through the earbuds until we got the information we needed out of a mark. The last time had been a disaster and we’d been caught in the act.
“I’ll be quiet,” Vero promised. “I’ll listen until I hear what kind of car he’s driving. Then I’ll look for his license plate while you settle the bar tab. It’ll save time.”
I refrained from reminding her that we wouldn’t be so pressed for time if she had simply stayed home. Then again, having Vero with us had definitely given us an advantage.
“Fine,” I said, “but only if you’re quiet.” I slipped my earbuds into place, pulling my hair down to cover them. As I entered the bar, I tucked my phone into my breast pocket.
I lingered by the door while I took in my surroundings.
At least a dozen flat-screen TVs were perched on the walls, each one tuned to a different sporting event, featuring teams I didn’t know and sports I didn’t follow.
Almost every booth and table was packed, mostly with men in jerseys or graphic tees.
A few of them glanced up from their beers to watch or leer at me as I walked past their tables on my way toward the bar.
Three bartenders were working behind it.
I clocked Theo immediately.
Just as Vero had predicted, his baseball cap sat backward on his head.
The hair I could see was cut in a fade, and his short goatee was framed by a set of diamond ear studs.
Theo was attractive, but I could also see why Vero didn’t seem to hold much of a candle for him.
He was no more or less handsome than any other man in the room.
His good looks didn’t stand out or command attention the way Javi’s did.
I sat on the empty stool closest to Theo, sneaking a glance over my shoulder as I set down my purse.
Javi gave me a discreet nod as he entered the bar and claimed an empty table by the door.
Ramón walked in a moment later and strolled right past him, settling onto a barstool a few seats down from mine.
He reached for a plastic menu. If he saw the look of warning I shot him, he didn’t show it.
“What can I get you?” Theo asked me, raising his voice over the TVs as he wiped the bar top in front of me.
I skimmed the beer taps, picking the lightest draft I recognized. “I’ll have an Ultra, please. And a water,” I added, remembering that I wasn’t supposed to drink.
Theo smiled to himself, as if he’d expected as much. He poured me a glass of water, then slid my beer toward me as the foam crested the rim. I put a few dollars in his tip jar, and he flashed me a wink before leaving to take Ramón’s order.
“What’s the plan?” Vero asked me.
I talked into my beer as I pretended to sip it. “I’ll chat him up for a few minutes, then I’ll turn the conversation toward his car.” Theo wasn’t at all my type, but he was clearly willing to flirt in the hopes of boosting his tips.
“That’s a terrible plan. You’re old enough to be his mother.”
“I’m only nine years older than you. And I have plenty of experience picking up younger bartenders,” I reminded her.
A middle-aged man with a beer gut stared at me with more than passing interest. “This is a perfectly good plan,” I said to Vero when he tried to wave me to his table.
“I’m a beacon of estrogen in a sea of Cialis and hot wings. ”
“You’re in a sports bar, Finn. This isn’t some bougie, white-collar networking event. You’re out of your league.”
“So, I’ll talk to him about sports.”
“What about sports?” Theo asked, startling me as he set a bowl of peanuts in front of me.
“Whatever you’re thinking about saying, don’t say it!
” Vero shouted. I reached a finger under my hair to lower the volume of my earbuds.
“Theo hustled his way through college working as a bookie,” she continued.
“He will suss you out before you even take a swing.” I sat there, dumb, my mouth hanging open like a fish as Theo raised an eyebrow, waiting for me to answer.
“Ask him who he bet on for the Final Four,” Vero suggested.
I cleared my throat. “So … who’d you bet on for the Final Four?”
Theo gave me a once-over, his eyes skeptical as they lingered on me. “You’re into college hoops?”
I pretended to sip my beer as I stalled. If we were talking football, maybe I could have faked this. I’d watched enough Super Bowl games with my dad and Georgia over the years to know the names of a few NFL teams, but never college sports. And definitely never basketball. I shrugged. “A little.”
“Who’s your money on tonight?”