The One That Got Away (17 page)

She didn’t trust herself to remember the bar just from seeing it from the outside, which meant stopping at every town to check out every bar and restaurant that fell within her search radius. The first town she hit was Big Pine, which turned out to be an Indian reservation. She pulled off at each road sign that pointed to someplace where there could be a bar or a restaurant. It was slow going. The hours slid by, but she didn’t let that stop her. Everything else could wait. This was all that mattered.

She eventually came to Bishop. It was a small town but by far the biggest one she’d hit since leaving Vegas. She checked her odometer. She’d racked up over 260 miles since Vegas. She and Holli would have been hungry, low on gas, and only halfway home. It was a likely place for them to have stopped.

She slowed her pace. Bishop was a place out of time. US 395 served as Main Street and its spine, with everything else spreading out from it. From what she could see, it was a tourist town serving as a base for exploring the Sierras. She could envision Holli and her stopping here. It was kitschy, which was right up their alley.

But for all its kitsch and possibility, she didn’t remember it. It was as unfamiliar as everything else had been during the drive. She didn’t let her lack of recognition deter her. She’d known when she’d started this journey that the whole thing could be a massive blowout, but that was OK. The important thing for her was that she tried and didn’t let the past stop her from finding the truth. Bishop meant nothing to her—
fine
—but she had to look under every rock.

She stopped at a place claiming to be a bar, restaurant, and gift shop. She asked for the manager and was met by the owners, a couple in their sixties, as round as they were tall.

She started with her opening gambit, “Do you remember me?”

It was an odd question to hit strangers with, but it got their attention, for better or worse. It had been awkward and humiliating at first, but after a dozen shots at this, the sting had gone.

The couple, Martha and Fred Blanco, shook their heads. She explained the situation and showed them a picture of Holli. That got her more head shakes.

The Blancos offered her a complimentary dinner, but she declined. Time was working against her. Places would be closing for the night in a couple of hours. In lieu of the meal, she asked for the location of all the other restaurants in town. They marked them for her on a tourist map.

She went to The Alley, a bowling alley with a restaurant; La Hacienda, a big Mexican cantina; Lucia’s, an Italian place; a German hofbräu, and three other places, and struck out at every one. Nobody remembered her and she didn’t remember them.

That changed when she reached the Smokehouse, a barbecue joint. It was a big place for the size of the town. It was a warehouse in scale and shape, but the whitewashed walls and colorful murals softened its appearance. The establishment meant nothing to her on the surface but struck a chord with her subconscious. Her palms were slick with sweat in an instant. Her body was telling her that this place meant something.

“Please don’t be a delusion,” she told herself and climbed from the car.

She walked in. The Smokehouse was a Wild West saloon on the inside. It had bare wood floors and a long bar. A brass foot rail ran the length of one wall, flanked by high-top tables. Booths resembling horse stalls with high wooden walls filled the other half of the restaurant. Antler and longhorn racks and cowboy garb decorated the walls. A small stage and dance floor were in the back. Country music played. She thought she felt a flicker of recognition, but she couldn’t tell if it was genuine or was just the echo of some other barbecue joint or steakhouse she’d visited in the past.

A waitress spotted Zoë and walked up to her. She was short and in her late forties.

“How many, sweetie?”

“Just one, but I have a question first.”

“Sure. Shoot.”

“My name is Zoë Sutton. Do you remember me at all?”

A concerned expression spread across the waitress’s face, and she shook her head.

Zoë ignored the look and plowed on. It paid to keep going. “It would have been fifteen months ago. I was here with my friend.” She held up the picture of Holli. “My hair was longer back then.”

The waitress kept shaking her head. “Hon, do you know how many people I’ve waited on in that time?”

“I’m sure we would have been memorable.”

“Memorable or not, I don’t recognize you.”

“But you were here back then,” Zoë said, pouncing on the implication. It was one of those things that worked to her advantage. In towns like this, away from the big cities, job turnover wasn’t high.

The waitress put her hands on her hips and frowned. “Look, I don’t mean to be rude, but do you want to be seated?”

She was losing this woman, and she needed to pull her back in. “I don’t mean to take up your time, but it’s important. My friend and I were abducted on the way home. I have no memory of what happened. I’m trying to piece together our movements for the police.”

She spotted a heavyset guy who was wearing a Smokehouse polo shirt, carrying half a dozen dirty plates, and looking their way. He handed his load off to a busser and headed for them. His frown said she was about to be kicked out. She needed to make an ally.

She pulled out a newspaper clipping and showed it to the waitress. “I got away. My friend was killed. Are you sure you don’t remember us?”

Shock entered the waitress’s face.

“Do we have a problem, Karalee?” the heavyset guy demanded.

“No, Tom,” Karalee said. “She needs help, that’s all.”

Zoë couldn’t tell if Karalee meant general help or mental assistance.

“Are you the owner?” Zoë asked.

“No, the manager.”

She handed Holli’s photo and the newspaper clipping to Tom and hit him with the bare facts. His gaze remained on the article. She knew how she sounded. She could be a crank, but it was hard to ignore that story.

“What do you want?” Tom asked with a mix of caution and helpfulness.

“To ask your staff if they remember me or Holli. Is there anyone here who was working here back then?”

“Three or four of my staff. But look, I don’t want you upsetting our customers. As you can see, we’re busy.”

Despite their size, the place was close to two-thirds capacity.

“I promise to be discreet and quick.”

Tom exhaled and said to Karalee, “Sit her at the bar, and I’ll send them over one at a time.”

Zoë took Tom’s hand. “Thank you. You don’t know what it means.”

“Yeah. Great.”

Karalee sat Zoë at the end of the bar. The bartender came over and put a paper napkin down along with a menu.

“This is Andrew. He was here,” Karalee said. “Andrew, this is Zoë. She has some questions. Please help her.”

Andrew took the cryptic request in stride. “Sure. I can do that. Can I get you something to drink, Zoë?”

“Coffee. I’ve got a long drive.”

“Coffee, I have,” he said and retreated to a coffeemaker.

Andrew was somewhere in his thirties and not bad looking. He had an untidy thatch of blond hair, which needed a good brushing, but it worked for him. Zoë put it down to his laid-back manner.

He put a cup before her. “You have questions?”

She slid the clipping over to him. “I’m trying to find out if I was here fifteen months ago. I was traveling with my friend, Holli.” She handed him the photo. “My name is Zoë. Someone kidnapped us and killed Holli.”

“It says here that she’s missing,” Andrew said without scorn or judgment in his voice.

“Trust me, she’s dead. The cops just haven’t found her yet.”

He handed back the photo and the clipping. “And you’re trying to find her?”

“If I can, but what I’m really trying to do is give the police a better account of what happened. I want to help lead them to the bastard who did this or to anything that’ll assist.”

Andrew stared at her, expressionless.

“My hair would have been longer then. I was driving a VW Beetle.”

“I remember you.”

The remark caught her off guard. She was so used to people having no recollection that a positive answer had thrown her.

“You do?”

“I don’t remember the date or anything, but I remember you and your friend.”

A sudden rush of elation swept through her. This was a start. It was more than that. It was the beginning of the end for
him
—her kidnapper and Holli’s killer.

Zoë hoped Andrew wasn’t bullshitting her.

“How do you remember us?”

“You both made quite a spectacle while you were here.”

She felt herself flush.

“You’d come in from Vegas. You were cash rich and manners poor. You were whooping it up. The two of you hit on every single guy in the room and a few that weren’t that single. We had the band in that night, and you ladies got up on the stage for some impromptu karaoke.”

She looked over her shoulder at the small stage and dance floor. She tried to picture the events Andrew was describing and saw nothing. She could imagine her and Holli doing things like he described. They’d been playing fast and loose in Vegas. That was the point of their trip. They were letting their hair down and blowing off steam.

“I’m sorry if we were jerks.”

Andrew shrugged. “You weren’t doing much harm. I saw you as a couple of girls having fun. You did upset some of the diners, but nothing too heavy. You were encouraging others to spend, so the manager liked that.”

“Was that Tom?”

“No. Tom’s only been in charge three months.”

She thought of the people who’d gotten upset. “Did anyone get superpissed at our antics?”

“A couple of families with kids. Some of the older crowd.” Andrew tapped the news clipping. “But angry enough to do this to you? No.”

Her thoughts took her to the other end of the scale. “Did anyone get friendly with us?”

“You had quite a few admirers.”

“Anyone special?”

“Yeah, one—Craig Cook.”

The name meant nothing to her. “Is he local? Do you think I could talk to him?”

“Yes and yes.”

Craig Cook . . . could he be the one?
She played the name over and over in her head. Had she and Holli pushed his buttons, and when he hadn’t got what he wanted, he’d taken it anyway? Had he done the same to four other women? Her hands tightened into fists.

“Where can I find him?”

“I’ll do you one better. I’ll bring him to you.” Andrew brought out his cell and dialed a number. “Craig, it’s Andrew. You busy? No? Good. Come by the Smokehouse. I have a lady who needs to talk to you. No, it’s not like that, man. Get here, ASAP.” Andrew hung up. “He’s on his way. Get you anything while you wait?”

She ordered an appetizer she had no real interest in eating.

While she watched Andrew attend to the other customers sitting at the bar, an eerie feeling wormed its way into her. He was so smooth and easygoing. Nothing ruffled his nerves. People were normally taken aback when she asked them about her abduction, but Andrew hadn’t seemed to be. It had all washed over him. She pictured the Tally Man from that night. The figure with the whip, standing over Holli’s suspended body, was tall and blond. Andrew didn’t match that drug-addled image. He wasn’t big enough, but she could be wrong. In her state of fear, he could have seemed larger than life. People’s recollections were often unreliable, and hers were even more suspect since she’d been full of chemicals. Had there really been just one man? Could there have been two? How easy would it have been for a single man to handle a pair of doped women? Not that easy. And how had they been drugged in the first place? Had their drinks been spiked? That wouldn’t be an easy thing for a customer to do, but it would be child’s play for a bartender. She looked down at her coffee.
Is there just coffee in here?

She may have just put herself back in the firing line, but she was okay with that. She wanted the police to find whoever had abducted her, and she didn’t care how it happened. If these guys were expecting the same Zoë, they were wrong. She had skills now. Skills they wouldn’t be expecting. She was a fighter. Not a victim.

A man walked into the restaurant and Andrew waved to him. The man waved back. Andrew came back over to Zoë.

“That’s Craig. Remember him?”

Remember him? No. Remember his outline? Yes. He was big, over six feet with broad shoulders and a tight build. His hair was thick and blond
. He matched the mental sketch she had from that broken-down workshop.

Anger rose up, hand in hand with fear, which mixed to form panic. Her breaths quickened. A meltdown was coming, but she had to rein it in. She couldn’t let them know she was on to them.

Breathe
, she thought.
Breathe. Don’t give yourself away. Let them believe they have the upper hand. Don’t let fear take over. Just breathe
.

Craig smiled at her and dropped onto the barstool next to her. She managed one in return.

“This is Zoë,” Andrew said. “She and Holli came through here a while ago. You three got friendly.”

Craig creased his expression in reflection, and it didn’t look as if he remembered. It was a long moment before his look changed. The smile returned as a grin.

Was it all a game?
she wondered.

“Zoë and Holli. I remember you girls. You cut your hair. We had a great night.”

Holli and I didn’t
, she thought and hoped her facade remained intact.

“Is Holli here?” he asked.

“No.”

“Shame. You in town for a special reason?”

“Yes. To see you.”

She put out her hand. As he put out his, she grabbed his wrist and jumped off her barstool, sending it toppling to the floor. She yanked his arm back and thrust it up between his shoulder blades.

“Hey,” he yelped. “What the fuck?”

A ripple of shock and surprise went through the customers.

“Jesus, Zoë,” Andrew said.

The disturbance brought Tom rushing forward. Zoë stopped him with a glare.

“Call the cops,” she barked at him.

“I knew you were trouble.”

“Just do it.”