As he removes the old sheets and is tacking the new ones up, I raise my Glock, gethishead in my line of sight.
And take the gun off safety.
70
Jackson
It’s so dark inside the bar, after the harsh afternoon sunlight, that Jackson has to blink away the sunspots in order to see.
He’s at Leslie’s, an upscale gay bar in lower Greenville, just next to Highland Park, where Ethan said he had most of his gigs.
At this hour, the place is still empty, just a slow trickle of pre–happy hour customers scattered at a few tables.
Jackson approaches the bar, plops down on a stool.
This was one of his regular hangouts when he lived here; a pang of sadness and nostalgia seep over him. He should just move back. Seriously. What the hell is he doing in Longview? Rotting away the best years of his life. He’s saved enough so that hecould, at least enough to rent something decent, but that would mean giving up on his long-held dream to move to San Francisco.
He can’t think about all that now.
The handsome bartender glides over, torso a bundle of muscles under a tight T-shirt. Damn, Jacksonmissesbeing around openly gay people so much—at least open in the sanctuary of a handful of establishments—and watches as the man wipes the bar off with a white towel, beams a gleaming smile at him.
“What’ll it be?”
“Draft beer, please.”
Seconds later, it arrives, starkly cold and frothy, so chilly that the beer makes the glass fog. Jackson takes a long, refreshing swig.
“That hittin’ the spot?” the bartender asks, still grinning.
“Yes, in more ways than one. Used to live in Dallas, stuck ina small town now, so—”
The bartender scratches the back of his neck. “That’srough.”
Jackson takes another pull, feels the beer loosening him up. “Hey, I wanted to ask, I’m, um—” He feels comfortable with this person for some reason, feels like he should shoot it to him straight. At the other bars, he just asked after Ethan, offering no explanation. “Just had my heart broken and was wondering if the heartbreaker ever frequents this place. Or frequented it. Woulda been a few months ago.”
“Ahhh,” the bartender says, blotting the top of the counter again with his rag, “that’s rough,too. Sorry to hear it. Ask away!”
“His name is Ethan Swift. Probably close to my age. Handsome, like deadly handsome.”
The bartender’s eyes glimmer with mirth. “Go on; I’m intrigued.”
“But also, kind ofdifferent. Like,” Jackson starts, nips at his beer,steeling himself, “pretty sure he was in the closet. Wife, kids—”
“Ouch. But yeah, that’s most of the clientele here—”
“And kind of a Bible thumper? Like totes a Bible with him? Dresses like he’s from the 1800s—”
The smile on the bartender’s face instantly vanishes; he hangs his head, gives it a long, slow shake. “I knowexactlywho you’re talking about. But that’s not his name. At least that’s not what he called himself around here. Said his name was Charles. Never caught his last name.”
71
Charleigh
Charleigh walks laps around the kitchen island in a tight, agitated loop.
She can’t sit still, can’t settle her nerves, which are shattered.
This is like a nightmare she woke herself up from, but she knows she needs to get a goddamned grip, calm the hell down.
