“It’s hard to see the resemblance otherwise, but on the rare occasions you smile…” Nico shook his head. “Dead ringer. She wasalwayssmiling.”
“Who?” The word barely made it out of her. She was certain she knew who Nico was talking about but wondered how it was possible.
“Alice,” he said. “Your cousin. Or maybe… sister?”
“How…”
Nico shrugged, tossing a white bar towel over his shoulder. The pulsing music and high volume of conversation in the club faded into the background, a trick afforded by Grey’s focus. “The resemblance, plus you asked John a bunch of questions about Alice and Daisy. I put two and two together.” He circled a finger at the club. “People here talk, you know.”
“Not to me.” She swallowed a lump in her throat. “I’ve been trying for months.”
He shrugged again, and it looked like he was about to turn back to work, so she blurted, “How did you know her?”
“We used to work together.”
“But…” Grey shook her head. “That’s impossible.” She’d scoured the case file. Memorized the list of Serpent employees. Every name in that file, she knew; every person, she’d talked to. And there had been no Nico, or Nicolae, or anything close. “I’ve seen the police records. As her sister,” she added, still not wanting to reveal what she did for her day job. “There was no mention of you.”
“Yeah, well.” Nico looked down at his feet. “I don’t talk to the police. Not now, or back when Alice disappeared. They show up, I get gone.” He must’ve read the confusion on her face, because he added, “John lets me work under the table. He’s a pretty good guy under the gruff exterior.”
The goddamn service industry and their under-the-tables. First Daisy, now Nico. For months, she’d been working alongside someone else who’dknown Alice, and she’d had no idea.
“Do you have a criminal record?” Grey asked, right as another server hustled over. Nico’s face turned red, and he didn’t respond to Grey until the other woman sprinted away.
“Nothing like that.” He spoke so quietly she almost didn’t hear him. “I’m just… not exactly in this country legally.” When he turned his eyes to her again, there was a quiet plea in them. “I try to lay low.”
A thought sprang into Grey’s mind: Alice had disappeared in 2016, a year of global upheaval, though in retrospect it was nothing compared to now. Back then, it was Syria, Turkey, Ukraine—she opened her mouth to ask Nico which he’d been running from, but stopped herself. It would only be invasive. The important thing was, Nico had slipped through the cracks, slipped past the original investigators’ notice. What else had slipped?
Grey pushed past the swinging door into the bar to stand beside him, not caring that she was violating protocol. “Were you there that night?” she asked in a low, urgent voice.
His eyes widened at her nearness, but he didn’t back away. “Yes.”
“What do you remember? Please,” she added preemptively, accustomed to people not wanting to talk. “I’ll take anything. Any detail.”
He leaned against the bar and crossed his arms, ignoring the printer spouting out orders. Grey was ignoring her own tables, too. She didn’t care.
“Not much,” he said, sounding regretful. “It was a regular Friday, which, as you know, means we were slammed. I think Alice was off that night, but they’d called her in to pinch-hit. All the girls were running around begging me to do their drink orders first, offering me favors. They used to do that as a joke.” The corners of his mouth lifted in the ghost of a smile.
“Do you remember who she served that night?” Later, Grey would spend time combing over the little details, like the affection in Nico’s voice when he spoke of Alice, but right now, she needed to get as much information as he would give. A new witness out of the blue, like a gift from heaven. “Did anyone stick out to you as dangerous or even a little off? Anything out of the ordinary?”
He shook his head. “Not that I remember.”
Grey deflated. “Anything?”
He sighed. “I don’t get to see clients from back here, which honestly, I prefer. I mostly interact with you guys.” Something lit in his eyes, a sudden thought. “You know, I do remember Daisy following Alice around that night, begging her for something.”
Grey actually fell back against the bar—it was only a few inches,the metal sinks stopping her, but her bones felt hollow. She’d never heard that detail before. “For what?”
“Well, you probably already know this, but Daisy was a wild child.”
Grey hadn’t known—not even a hint. “When you say ‘child,’ do you mean she was younger than the other girls?” It was one of her theories, that Daisy had lied on her application because she wasn’t twenty-one, the minimum age to serve alcohol at the club.
Nico cocked his head, thinking. “I couldn’t say. No offense, but you all look young to me. One thing’s for sure, though, Daisy was always cooking up trouble.” He shook his head. “She was the one organizing the after-parties, and I always thought she might’ve dealt harder stuff on the side, but I could never prove it. I remember there was something she was begging Alice to do with her that night, and Alice didn’t seem like she wanted to.”
He waved at the side of the bar, near the computer. “They’d talk about it whenever they came to place an order. Daisy kept pressing until Alice gave in. I remember Daisy, you know, hugging her, all excited. But that’s pretty much it.”
Nico was quiet for a beat. The new information swirled inside Grey.What did you get yourself into, Alice?
“She was always too nice, your sister,” Nico said suddenly. “A real tender heart. That’s why everyone loved her.”
