Page 3 of The Lonely Road

The file was incomplete.

I already knew this was going to be a delicate job. Now, I revise that delicately upward. And as I do, she glances across the bar—the unconscious scan of a woman who’s learned to be aware of a room. For one flat second, her eyes pass over me.

Nothing.

She doesn’t register me.

Why would she? I’m no one. Just a man at a bar with an empty glass, in a town I arrived at a day ago, with a job to do.

I look away, catch the bartender’s eye, and signal for another drink.

She’s a means to an end, Brooks.

I say it to myself the way I’ve said a hundred things to myself over the years. I do it to keep things clear and clean.

This time, however, it lands a little less cleanly than it usually does.

CHAPTER 2

taya

Inotice him.

He’s at the far end of the bar, tucked into the corner as if he put himself there on purpose.

There’s a glass of bourbon in front of him, barely touched for a while but then emptied in a hurry.

He’s not scrolling through his phone or talking to anyone. He’s not watching the band the way everyone else is, with that loose Friday-night attention that says the week is finally over.

He’s watching the room.

That’s what alerts me. It’s not his face, even though objectively it’s a damn good-looking one in that contained, I-know-exactly-what-I’m-doing way that I have learned, at some cost, to be suspicious of—it’s the watching, like he’s cataloging.

I recognize it because I do it myself.

In courtrooms.

I lean toward Joy. “The man at the end of the bar. Dark hair, corner seat. Do you know him?”

Joy swivels with zero subtlety. I love her for it and also want to put my hand on her face and redirect it.

“Nope.” She swivels back.

I turn to Aria.

She shakes her head. “Haven’t seen him. Could be a tourist.”

I arch an eyebrow. “He’s not a tourist.”

Aria arches an eyebrow. “Barely six months in and you can already tell?”

“He’s too still,” I explain. “Tourists move differently.”

They both stared at me as if I spoke in an alien language. I shrug and pick up my drink. “Occupational habit.”

Aria grins. “Sure.”

Joy chuckles. “The fact that he’s hot as hell…nuh-huh, that didn’t even cross your retina.”