“Finlay! You ready?” Javi called up the stairs.
“Coming!” I shouted back, giving myself one last look in the mirror. Was it my imagination or was I a little pale? Or paler than usual anyway. I slapped on some blush and knocked on Vero’s door.
“We’re leaving,” I called through it. “We’ll be home in a few hours. I’ll text you if we find Theo.” Vero didn’t answer, which I took to mean she was still pissed at me for siding with her cousin. “Want me to bring you back some ice cream? I can stop at the store on the way back.” Still no answer.
She could be angry with me all she wanted, I reminded myself. It didn’t change the fact that making her stay home was the right call.
I slung my purse over my shoulder and hurried downstairs, where Javi and Ramón were waiting for me by the door. They were both appropriately intimidating, in formfitting T-shirts, leather jackets, and steel-toed boots.
I tossed Ramón my van keys. “Let’s go find our witness.”
CHAPTER 12
We had driven only a few miles when Ramón pulled into the parking lot of the first bar on the list. Javi pivoted in his seat. “How do you want to do this?”
I straightened my wig-scarf and reached for the door. “You two stay here. I’ll go in and ask around. I’ll text you if I find Theo.”
“I’ll go with you,” a voice said from behind me.
I screamed, my heart leaping out of my chest when Vero climbed over the bench seat and into the captain’s chair beside me. Ramón and Javi whipped around, their expressions as startled as mine.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Ramón yelled at her.
“Did you seriously think I was going to let you three go off and do this without me? Let’s hurry up and get on with it. We only have a few hours to cover all these bars. I have to be home by ten o’clock, or I’ll turn into a pumpkin.”
“Youare not going anywhere!” I said firmly. “You’re going to stay in this van with Javi and Ramón. The last thing we need is for someone to recognize you and report you to the cops.” Vero opened her mouth to argue, but the looks Javi and Ramón gave hermade her sit back in her seat. “Iwill go into the bar and see if I can find him. The rest of you will stay here. What’s Theo’s last name?” I asked Vero. She hadn’t been inclined to cooperate when I’d asked her this question earlier. Until this moment, my entire plan had depended on asking for a bartender named Theo.
“His last name is Sideris,” she said, spelling it out for me. “He’s about five-ten, medium build, pierced ears, short hair… He usually wears his baseball caps backward, and he’ll probably have a goatee.”
“He sounds like a douche,” Javi muttered.
“I’ll send you all a text if Theo is inside,” I said, climbing around her.
I hurried into the first bar and chatted up the staff, but didn’t find any employees named Theo. The next three stops were dead ends as well. As we pulled into the fifth bar on the list, Vero leaned forward in her seat. “Wait,” she said as a tall man with a shock of russet-brown hair exited the bar. “Look, that’s Jackson Ferrante! I knew Ben was lying when he said none of his friends knew where to find Theo. Ben must have told Jackson I was asking around. I bet this is Theo’s bar and Jackson came here to warn him.”
“Good. If Theo’s in there, this shouldn’t take long.” I took off my wig-scarf. I’d worn it when we’d visited Ben’s office. If Jacksonhadcome to warn Theo we were looking for him, the blond hair and scarf might give me away.
“What’s the plan?” Vero asked as I tried to coax some life back into my hair. “You can’t just walk in there and tell Theo who you are.”
“No.” I swiped on some more lip gloss and checked myself in my compact mirror. “I’m going to walk in there and ask him what kind of car he’s driving. Then I’m going to come back out to the parking lot and find it, take a photo of his license plate, andsend it to Cam.” Cam had a back door into every motor vehicle department in the country (and probably a few others I didn’t want to know about). A plate number would be all he’d need to get us Theo’s home address.
Vero stomped on the floorboard. “We are not asking for Cam’s help.”
“If you have a better plan for figuring out where Theo lives, we can argue about it when I get back.” The whole van rattled as I got out and slammed the door.
Javi jumped out after me. “I’m going, too.”
Ramón hurried out of the van after him. “No fucking way. I don’t trust you not to go in there and break this guy’s face.”
“What makes you think I plan to stop with his face?”
I pulled them both up short as they tried to pass me. Then I lowered my voice, making sure no one in the parking lot was listening. “If Theo knows we’re looking for him, he’ll figure out who we are the minute we walk in together. If you insist on coming with me, we’ll have to split up. I’ll do the talking. And you,” I said, pointing at Javi, “will neither speak to nor break any part of Theo’s face. If I need help, you’ll know.” I turned and started swiftly toward the bar. Their boots echoed on the pavement behind me.
My phone vibrated with an incoming call. I checked the screen as I walked. The call was coming fromRamón’s Towing and Salvage, but when I turned around to see why Ramón was calling me, his phone wasn’t anywhere in sight.
Fifty feet behind him, Vero was waving at me through the windshield of my minivan. She had her cousin’s cell phone in one hand and my binoculars in the other. I cursed Ramón for leaving his phone in my dashboard charger. And then I cursed myself for leaving my binoculars in the glove box. I had purchased them months ago from my local lawn and gardening center, for the purpose of spying onmy ex-husband. They’d since come in handy for more than I’d bargained for.
I connected the call. “What?”
