She Has A Broken Thing Where Her Heart Should Be - J.D. Barker Page 0,161

she had expected. Instead, they looked sad and dull. If he wasn’t drunk, he was well on his way.

He swallowed the shot, placed the empty glass on the corner of the table, and gestured to one of the empty chairs. “You’re a long way from home, Detective.”

Fogel sat facing him, her purse resting in her lap. “You’re a tough man to find, Jack.”

“I try.” He nodded at a passing waitress. She spotted the empty glass, winked at him, noted Fogel’s glass was still full, then headed toward the bar. An unspoken language.

He looked back toward the entrance. “Did you just come in?”

Fogel nodded.

Jack leaned forward. “How many white cars did you see in the parking lot?”

“White cars? I don’t know. Why?”

“There was only one a few days ago. I counted three when I got here tonight. I need to check again.”

His speech was slightly slurred, not as much as she first expected. His eyes glanced over the crowd, then dropped back to the empty shot glass.

Fogel leaned forward, too. “Is she here?”

“Who?”

“Stella Nettleton.”

Again, his eyes betrayed nothing. They remained fixed on the shot glass. “Why would she be here?”

“Because you’re here.”

He grinned at that. A sidelong grin. “I may be a few drinks up on you, but I fail to see the logic. Maybe I’m just thinking about joining the Navy.” He raised a hand above the table and simulated flight. “Gonna fly airplanes, like Maverick and Goose. Not like Iceman, though. He was a dick.”

The waitress returned with another shot, scooped up the empty one, then disappeared back into the crowd. Jack pulled the glass closer. “Pittsburgh has its share of strip clubs. If you wanted to satisfy some fantasy, no reason to board a plane and come all this way. Are you afraid of running into one of your coworkers? I bet that’s it. Some secrets are better left to the dark.”

“It’s August 8,” Fogel said. “Somebody is going to die tonight, right?”

“Is that a confession?”

“Every year, like clockwork.”

He said nothing.

“Billings, Montana; Iowa, Chicago, New Hampshire…now, Fallon, Nevada.” Fogel turned in her seat. “Who is it? Somebody here?”

“Go count the white cars so I don’t have to get up. Maybe I’ll tell you.”

“I know it’s her, Jack. I don’t know how or why she killed all those people, but I know it’s her. Talk to her for me. If she turns herself in, I can make sure she stays safe. You want that, right? You don’t want to see her get hurt. You care for her. I could tell that day at the house, the way you stared at that painting in her room. If she doesn’t turn herself in, who knows how this will end? I can see some rookie cop putting her down, though, some trigger-happy kid taking a shot to make a name for himself. Imagine if she died, and you could have stopped it.”

“Do a shot with me.”

“What?”

“Do a shot with me.” He grinned.

“No.”

“Yeah, you need one. You’re all wound tight.” Jack flagged down a waitress, pointed at his own shot, then at Fogel. The waitress returned a minute later and set a glass in front of her.

“It’s Jameson, you’ll like it.”

“I’ve had Jameson before.”

He took his own glass in hand and raised it above the table. “To the detectives of Pittsburgh PD Homicide Division, both past and present, the whole tenacious lot of you.” He swallowed the whiskey and brought his glass down hard on the table.

Fogel sighed, took her own glass, and drank it down. The whiskey made her shudder.

Jack fell back in his chair, smiling again. “Are you even considered a cop in this state? I bet I have just as much power to arrest you as you do to arrest me. The way I understand it, your boss is supposed to call the local sheriff and let them know you’ll be in town working a case. You need permission, can’t just show up. I imagine if you did just show up, without telling the appropriate people, you’d probably land yourself in a world of trouble. You seem like a ‘by-the-book’ kind of girl, so I’m not sure…Oh…Do you have your gun?”

Fogel’s eyes darted to her purse and back again before she could stop them.

Jack’s smile widened. “I don’t have one of those, so I guess that gives you a little leg up. The people in the white cars? They like to carry guns. Every time I travel to a new state, I check the concealed carry laws and figure out