information.
“The one who took care of the old lady who lived there.”
What had Tyson said about Margaret Duval when Nikki had found him fixing the gate at the estate?
“She was Nana Beulah’s nurse, so she was there a lot, even spent some nights at the house, I think.”
Margaret Duval and Baxter Beaumont?
Joe studied his glass for a second. “Again, don’t quote me. I’m just passin’ on info that Bronco told me. Is it true?” He rocked his thick hand in a maybe, maybe not gesture. “But as I said, Bronco’s tales tend to be pretty damned tall when he’s into his cups, so I never gave any of ’em much thought.”
Baxter Beaumont, Tyson’s father, and Margaret Duval were having an affair?
“When was the last time he was in?” she asked, and the bartender shrugged, shaking his head.
“A week ago?” Joe was thoughtful. “Yeah, whatever night it was that the Braves were playing the Marlins. I remember cuz they had a no-hitter going until the bottom of the eighth. That’s the last time I seen him. But I talked to him once on the phone and he was pretty jittery about those bodies been found up there.”
“And you’ve been here every night since?”
“Sure. Well, except when the hurricane hit. I missed a few nights then.”
The bartender swiped a white towel over the bar’s glossy surface. “He was in one other time and was all pissed off that the coverage was about the hurricane. Interrupting the sports on TV. Hell, I thought we were lucky to even be open, avoid being hit hard, y’know. No flooding except the back lot.” He tossed his towel into a bin of other wet rags.
Joe half turned on his stool and said to Nikki, “Hey, if you’re lookin’ fer him and find him, tell him he owes me a ten-spot for the Marlins game. Cheap ass is probably layin’ low to avoid payin’.” His attention back on the television, he said, “I could use another,” to the bartender.
Nikki walked back to her Honda and saw she was hemmed in, a blue Ford Escape backed in tight, its back end nearly touching the nose of her CR-V.
Irritating.
She’d have to jockey her way out of the tight space.
“Great,” she muttered, slipping into the warm interior. She started the engine and rolled down the windows to cool things off. Then, before trying to pull away from the curb, she slid her phone from her pocket to google the Braves’ schedule.
Sure enough, the Atlanta team had played the Miami Marlins at home on the night before the discovery of the bodies at the Beaumont estate.
Not really a surprise.
Bronco had been freaked.
And it was time to pay him a visit and find out what the hell he was doing in that basement and what he knew about Baxter Beaumont and Margaret Duval. Had they had an affair? Did it matter? Was it a reason for Harvey and Margaret divorcing? What had Andrea Clancy said? She dropped her phone into a cup holder.
She put her Honda into gear and inched backward, then forward, cranking the steering wheel, hoping to ease out of the space. Each time her back wheels hit the curb, she tried again, gaining inches and beginning to sweat. What kind of a jerk would pin her in like that? Backward. Forward. Backward again.
Finally, she thought she would clear the Escape.
Checking her side-view mirror before hitting the gas, she noticed someone lingering at the doorway of the bar, partially hidden by a lamppost. A man? A woman? She couldn’t tell as the sun was in her eyes.
So what if someone was looking?
Probably getting off on watching her frustration as she tried to maneuver into traffic.
Or maybe someone had overheard her talking to the bartender. She cranked on the steering wheel to get out of the tight space and hit the gas.
An angry honk blasted.
She hit the brakes, her car rocking to a stop as a BMW roared past her, the middle-aged driver raising an angry fist as the car, tires screeching, fishtailed into the oncoming lane, nearly swiping a minivan heading the opposite direction.
“Stupid bitch!” the driver yelled, speeding off.
Nikki’s heart jackhammered.
Several people smoking outside the bar were staring at her, and the figure hiding behind the lamppost?
Gone.
“It was nothing,” she told herself as she eased into the flow of traffic, her pulse still in the stratosphere, but she couldn’t shake the image of the person behind the lamppost surreptitiously watching her, and the memory of the intruder inside her