“Sure do,” I tell her, being vague.
“And?” she presses. “I’ve never seen her around here before—she doesn’t strike me as the type to be at this bar.”
“That there,” I point to the door, “was Keegan Power’s girlfriend—a girlfriend no one knew a thing about.”
“He had a girlfriend?” Annabelle questions. “Then again, none of us knew he was suicidal either.”
“That was my first reaction too.” I don’t know August well enough to make assumptions about what kind of relationship she had with Keegan, but I must assume by her obvious pain that she was more committed to him than he was to her. “Poor girl,” Annabelle comments. “I can’t imagine picking up the pieces from something like that. Honestly, I only met Keegan a handful of times, but I wouldn’t have pegged him as a troubled man. He hid it well.”
This gnawing feeling in my gut won’t give in. Forgetting about Keegan for a minute, August is like a puzzle I want to solve, but there are so many missing pieces, and I don’t know if anyone would be able to find them all. I understand heartache. I know what it looks like, but what she’s going through … is way more. “How do you know her?” Annabelle asks. “Keegan’s girlfriend.”
“She’s been visiting this bar for the last week, trying her best to drink as much as she can withstand. We were wondering what her deal was. Now, I think I know.”
“Hmm, Luke didn’t mention her.”
“You know how Luke is,” I tell her. “This is a job, and he does what he has to here, then heads on home to his real life.”
“I guess, but he shouldn’t be serving her with the condition she’s in,” Annabelle adds in.
“He can’t deny her, either ... I don’t think. He can’t put his foot down because she isn’t a typical drunk.”
“She might need help,” Annabelle continues.
“Every man in this bar, including myself, might need help, Annabelle. And, this is why you work the early day shift,” I remind her. “You wouldn’t make a good salesperson, you know.”
“Shut it, Chance Miller.”
I frisbee a coaster at her just as the bar door opens. The clattering of the bells echoes loudly inside the empty bar. For a split second, I hope and wrongly assume August might have come back.
It’s Luke, in a suit and tie, like me. “Thanks, baby,” he calls over to Annabelle, flipping on the “open” sign in the front door.
“I forgot the light again,” Annabelle tells him.
“Chance is the only guy who would be here now anyway,” Luke says, whacking my head with the back of his hand as he passes by.
“That’s not always the case,” Annabelle corrects him. “Anyway, I have to get down to the school. I’m supposed to be volunteering in Ginny’s classroom at two.”
“Go on then. I got it. I just need to change out of this monkey suit.”
Annabelle peels her apron off and places it on a hook near the kitchen door. “Hey, Luke, how was the funeral?” she asks.
Luke peers around the corner, unbuttoning his white collared shirt. “It was bizarre.” He disappears behind the wall again. “Chance, I thought you were coming to the funeral too. What happened to you?”
“I was there for a bit.”
“Hmm, didn’t see you,” Luke says, turning back around the corner with his usual plain black tee shirt.
“So, there’s some strange stuff going on in that family. I overheard a few people talking, and it was all about Keegan’s girlfriend, who apparently drove him to his suicide.”
My heart drops into the bottom of my gut. What could this woman have been doing to her boyfriend to cause him to take his own life? He was the one who never mentioned her. I suppose there could have been a reason for that, but still—nothing is adding up.
“That sounds kind of rough to assume ... for anyone to assume, really,” Annabelle says. “Unless, maybe he left a note.”
“Well, this one woman who was there—she might have been Keegan’s mom or something, she was passionate about her hatred for his girlfriend. She said Keegan was an upstanding man, provided for himself and his girlfriend. He was in love with her and would do anything to show her, but nothing was ever good enough. She sounds like a real piece of work. I mean, I didn’t see any young women at the funeral, so I’m not sure if she was even there. Who does that?”
“Hmm,” I pipe in. “Sounds odd.”
“Not really. I guess they had been together since high school, so she was always the pact leader, taking him for a ride. He got sick of it and couldn’t find a way out after being with the same woman for so long.”
