“Follow Megan,” I told him. “We can always get Nick’s address from Jacquie.”
In fact, we should have done that already. Yet another way I’d missed the obvious.
Zach hung up, with a promise to call back and report progress. Edwina was panting at the window, happily oblivious to my rookie mistakes.
“At least you’re not judging me,” I told her.
She ignored me, too busy watching the scenery blur past, although her little tail whipped back and forth a couple of times in delight at being talked to.
We turned left on 8th, and then circled the other traffic rotary in downtown, at 7th and Lafayette, just past Cannery Row. Rachel’s Toyota headed straight down Korean Veterans Boulevard, past the new convention center, and I followed at a discreet distance as she crossed 2nd Avenue and the Cumberland River into East Nashville.
Five minutes later she had made her way over to the business district that was Five Points: very trendy, very expensive, and very much the kind of place where new bars and eateries opened every other month and half of them closed within a year.
Still, I had to admit, if you were going to open a bar, this was the place to do it. Five Points was packed with restaurants, coffee shops, vintage clothing stores, and enough nightlife to keep the twenty-somethings happy. The residential streets radiating out from the main intersection were lined with renovated Victorians and bungalows that probably cost three times what they ought to, but they were filled with young professionals and creative types who had plenty of disposable income and a taste for craft cocktails.
Rachel turned onto Woodland Street and slowed, looking for a parking space. I hung back as she pulled into a small lot about halfway down the block. A few seconds later, a pickup truck pulled in behind her and parked a few spaces down, and Daniel got out.
I pulled into a loading zone down the street as they greeted one another and crossed to the building on the corner. The windows were papered over, but there was a ‘For Lease’ sign in the window that had been modified with a strip of tape that read ‘LEASED.’
Edwina shifted in her seat, following my gaze. After a moment, she jumped across the central console into the backseat.
“We’re just observing,” I told her. “This is totally normal behavior.”
She gave me a look that suggested she disagreed.
I watched as Rachel and Daniel stopped in front of the papered-over storefront. He said something that made her laugh, then gestured toward oncoming traffic. A moment later, a flashy white Ford Bronco with oversized tires zipped into the no-parking zone in front—that couldn’t be anyone but Kenny—and my stepson climbed out, all swagger and expensive shades despite the fact that the sun had already set.
He had been a beautiful child when I met him, with golden hair and a sweet smile, although there had always been a somewhat malicious glint in his big, blue eyes. He was still good-looking at twenty-seven, and dressed to within an inch of his life in a suit that could have come straight out of my late husband’s closet, although when he took the sunglasses off to greet his uncle and Rachel, there were bags under his eyes big enough to carry groceries for a family of four.
The three of them stood outside for a moment, chatting, while Daniel fumbled a keychain out of his pocket. He selected a key, unlocked the door, and they all disappeared inside.
I settled in to wait, drumming my fingers on the steering wheel. Edwina hopped back into the passenger seat and curled up with a contented sigh.
I had to admit—to myself, at least—that the bar location really was a good one. I could see why Daniel thought this would work. Five Points had the foot traffic, the demographics, and the right energy. It was the kind of neighborhood where people walked from bar to restaurant to coffee shop, where they lived close enough to stumble home at the end of the night. If you could make it work anywhere in Nashville, you could make it work here.
Of course, that didn’t mean that this particular group could make it work. Location was only part of the equation. You also needed capital—which, apparently, Kenny had provided, God help us all—and management skills, which Daniel’s track record suggested he might be lacking. And even if you had all of that, you still needed luck, which Daniel had never seemed to possess much of, either.
My phone rang again. Zachary, calling back.
I glanced at the clock. Only fifteen minutes since the last time I had spoken to him. That couldn’t be a good sign.
Unless Megan lived very close to her new job, and I supposed that wasn’t impossible.
“Tell me something good,” I told him.
He winced, in a way I could hear down the lane. “Sorry, Gina. I lost her.”
I closed my eyes. “What happened?”
“She got on I-40 heading east, and I followed her, but then she started speeding. Like, really fast. The kind of fast that would have gotten her pulled over if the police had caught her. She was weaving between cars, cutting people off. I tried to keep up, but…” He trailed off, sounding miserable. “I think maybe she spotted me? Unless she drives like that all the time. But she’s gone. Sorry, Gina.”
“Never mind,” I told him. “You did your best.” And she’d be back at work tomorrow anyway, no doubt. We’d get another chance then. “Did you get her license plate, by any chance?”
He groaned. “I didn’t even think about it. I should have done that first thing, shouldn’t I? I was focused on staying on her tail, and then when she sped up I was just trying to keep up, and?—”
“It’s OK,” I interrupted. “Don’t worry about it, Zach. It’s no big deal, I promise. She’ll be back at work tomorrow, and we can get it then.”
We’d probably have to borrow Rachel’s Toyota. If she had made Zachary and his beater, and she had seen me and my Lexus, it was the only option left.
