Page 9 of Shadow Strike
He noted it.Tonight, then.Not tomorrow.
He drove past without slowing.When he reached the first intersection, he turned left instead of right and circled back.
The truck was still there.
CB found a spot in the parking lot of the antiques dealer next to a farmer’s food stand with a clear line of sight in both directions, cut the engine, and settled in.
He called Mack.“I haven’t been officially hired yet, but this one’s got teeth.Both of these women are in danger.”
“What do you want to do?”Mack asked.
“Play watchdog for now.You okay with that?”
“You’ll miss your session with Doc,” he said with a note of teasing.
“Really sorry about that,” CB said, not sorry at all.
“Your call.Keep me posted.”
“Copy that.”
CB picked another of Regan’s podcasts and settled in to listen.
CHAPTERTHREE
Closing time had its own particular rhythm, and Regan knew every beat of it.
Glasses washed and racked.Register counted and logged.Tables wiped, chairs up, floor swept in the pattern her father had taught her—back to front, left to right, so you didn’t track dirt over clean ground.
The jukebox unplugged.The neon signs killed one by one until only the Coors Light in the front window was still going, then that too, and the bar went dark except for the kitchen light she left on because her mom always insisted.Leave a light on, Regan, just in case.
In case what, she wasn’t sure, but her dad had always done it, and now it was one of the small ways her mom honored him.
She’d been doing this since she was seventeen.On all the nights she helped her dad close, and the nights after he was gone, when she’d had no choice.The routine was the routine.It didn’t require thought, which was either a comfort or a problem, depending on how much she had on her mind.
Tonight it was a problem.
She tied off the last garbage bag and hefted it toward the back door.The Malbec situation was going to require a call to their distributor in the morning.CB Briggs had sat at her bar this afternoon with his mother’s eyes and his easy smile and the kind of stillness that made you feel like whatever was in the room with him had already been assessed and found manageable.
I’ll think about it, she’d told him.
She was still thinking about it.About him.
The back door opened onto the back parking lot, and the night air hit her immediately.It was cool after the heat of the day finally gave up and let the mountains take over.She stood on the step for a second, garbage bag in hand, and just breathed in.
The sky was enormous.Out here, away from the city light pollution that made the night sky a flat orange smear, the stars were the real thing—dense and close, the kind of sky that made a person feel appropriately small.
She found the cluster of stars she always looked for first.Was it Sagittarius?Lyra?She couldn’t remember.Her father had pointed them out to her when she was nine, standing in this same spot on a summer night, him pointing up with a patience she hadn’t fully appreciated until he wasn’t there to offer it anymore.
“Hey, Dad.”She felt slightly ridiculous talking to him like this, but on days like today, it was comforting.“I think the Malbec vendor is ripping us off.Third short order in two months.Mom keeps arguing that he’s not, and then I show her the spreadsheet, and you know how that goes.”
The stars didn’t answer, but they didn’t have to.
She was quiet for a moment.Up on the hills behind the bar, the lights of the house she’d grown up in were dark—her mother already home and asleep, the way she usually was by now.From here, she could just make out the shape of the roofline against the sky.
“I think I’m doing okay.With the bar.I think you’d think so, too.Still wish you were here.Man, do I miss you.”
The stars stayed bright.A light breeze brushed past her cheek.She wasn’t into any life-after-death woo-woo stuff like her friend Nassar, but her breath caught anyway.She raised her fingers to her face, just for a second, allowing herself to remember the feel of her dad’s big hand patting her cheek when he was proud of her.Hot tears pushed at the back of her eyes.
