Page 8 of Property of the Bikers

“I’ll wait,” she says.

“Fair enough.”

I pull my phone out again, unhurried, the way you do when you’re checking something that doesn’t require explanation. Text to Reeve this time. Mira Sokolov. Female, late twenties, heavily pregnant, alone. Bar. Run it. I send it and put the phone face down on the counter in front of me, visible, so she can see I’m not hiding that I’m using it.

She’s watching me. Not obviously. She’s looking at the bar surface, but she’s watching me the way I was watching Cole a few minutes ago, peripheral and precise.

I like her immediately and set the feeling aside because liking someone is not the same as trusting them and trust is not something you extend to a woman you’ve known for four minutes who walked into your president’s bar asking for him by name.

“You come far?” I ask.

“Far enough.”

“Alone?”

She meets my eyes. “Yes.”

One word and she holds it flat, not defensive, just factual. She knows why I’m asking and she’s answering without performing anything around the answer. That’s another flag, different from the others. She understands the nature of this conversation better than most people would.

Hayes laughs at something from the card table and she doesn’t flinch or turn her head. She keeps her eyes on me. I note that.

Cole finishes restocking the cooler and straightens up. I catch his eye over her shoulder and tilt my head slightly toward the back hallway. He reads it, nods once, and heads that direction without saying anything. Good prospect. Knows when he’s being asked to disappear.

The door at the far end of the bar opens and Ghost comes through it. He doesn’t come to the bar. He finds a spot near the wall two tables back, orders nothing, sits down with his phone and a view of the entire room. He doesn’t look at her. She doesn’t look at him.

Now there’s a man at the door she came in through, one at the wall behind her, and me in front of her.

She’s holding her water glass.

“That bag looks heavy,” I say. “You want to put it down?”

She glances at the bag on her shoulder. “It’s fine.”

“I’ve got a hook right here.” I lean over and tap the hook mounted under the bar lip on her side, the one that’s been there since we built this counter. Before she’s decided whether she wants to use it, I’ve already reached over and lifted the strap gently off her shoulder with one hand, the way you do when you’re being helpful, and hung it on the hook below the bar.

Out of her reach without making it obvious it’s out of her reach.

She watches the bag go and then looks back at me. Something moves behind her eyes. She knows what just happened, or she almost knows, the way you almost know when someone has done something so smooth that your instincts register it a half second after the moment has passed.

I smile at her. She doesn’t smile back.

Her phone is in the outer pocket of the bag. I saw it when I lifted the strap, corner of it visible through the mesh. I need it out of that pocket and I need a moment to get it without her clocking the motion.

“You eaten?” I ask.

“I’m not hungry.”

“We’ve got food. Nothing fancy. Kitchen does a burger that’ll keep you on your feet.” I’m already turning toward the back. “Let me check if there’s anything left from tonight.”

I take four steps toward the kitchen hatch, which puts me directly between the bag and her line of sight, and I reach down to the hook, unzip the mesh pocket, and pocket the phone in one motion while I’m calling back toward the hatch, “Hey. Anything left on the grill?”

A voice from the kitchen says something affirmative.

I turn back. “You’re in luck.”

She’s looking at me steadily. The bag is still on the hook. Her hands are still around the water glass. She doesn’t know. Or she does and she’s decided not to show it, which would tell me something different and more significant about who she is.

Either way she’s still sitting there, which is what matters right now.