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“Do you recognize the woman?”
Livia studied the images. The woman was in her mid- to late thirties with a round face and long hair. She looked like she’d been pretty in the past, but the years of tanning and smoking had taken a toll.
“No.”
Bryce scanned through the pictures. They looked like a regular couple, posing on a boat in the middle of a lake, and one of them standing in front of a bar with an alligator drinking a beer painted on the window behind them.
“Not much else to see,” Bryce had at last conceded. “Name number three.” Again they came up empty. “Hmm. Number four.”
This time, a couple social media pages popped up, both with Larry Sutton’s photo at the top.
“He didn’t bother to pull down this profile.” Livia leaned forward, a small flare of hope racing through her.
“No, but it hasn’t been updated for over three years,” Bryce pointed out. “I’m not sure how helpful it will be.”
They swiped through the entries that claimed he was a pharmaceutical salesman who traveled the country, a race car driver on the weekends, and able to speak four languages. Livia snorted. It was a wonder he hadn’t announced he was busy curing cancer in the evenings.
“Wait.” She grabbed Bryce’s hand as they scrolled past a cluster of pictures that had obviously been taken during a New Year’s Eve party.
Bryce sent her a hopeful glance. “You recognize something?”
“That sign in the background.” She pointed toward one of the pictures. It had a cluster of customers in a shadowed bar. They were all wearing hats with flutes of champagne they were lifting in a boozy toast. Her fingertip touched the alligator drinking beer painted on the window behind the men. “It has to be the same place we saw him with in the pictures with the blonde. I mean, there can’t be more than one bar with that cheesy logo.”
“You’re right.”
Bryce enlarged the photo until they could read the name of the establishment painted over the top of the alligator. It was backward, but it was easy enough to make out the words.
GATOR BREW.
Bryce pulled up a new page and typed the name into a search engine. A second later, she had the website pulled up.
“Here we go. Gator Bob’s Pub. Home of the famous Gator Brew. Whatever the heck that is. The address is in La Harpe.”
“Where?”
“It’s a small town not far from New Orleans.” Bryce tapped her fingers on the desk, as if lost in thought. “I wonder if the bartender is still working there.”
“There’s only one way to find out.” Livia abruptly rose to her feet. Her nerves felt as if they’d been scraped raw. She needed to be out doing something. Anything.
“True,” Bryce agreed, shoving herself out of her chair to send Livia a stern glance. “I’ll let you know what I find out.”
“I want to go.”
“No, Livia.” Bryce used her cop voice, shutting down any argument. “If this man is a friend of Larry Sutton he might decide we’re a threat. In these small towns people are willing to take matters into their own hands.”
Livia shivered. She was so accustomed to the looming sense of danger since she’d caught sight of Jacob sneaking into her house that she occasionally forgot that someone might actually get hurt. The last thing she wanted was for her friend to put herself at risk.
“All the more reason for me to go with you,” she insisted.
“I’m trained to deal with trouble,” Bryce retorted. “And it will be much easier if I don’t have to worry about protecting you.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“Livia. You agreed to let me do the investigating.”
“Did I?”
Bryce narrowed her gaze, unwilling to budge. “You can’t go. You have an engagement party tonight, don’t you?”
