I bundled Laurie into her stroller, not bothering with any of the straps as the manager was already through the restaurant and at the kitchen door. I maneuvered the stroller toward him, the front wheel catching on a chair and further delaying me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Rich take a deep breath. I struggled to free the wheel.
Why did I feel rushed? Couldn’t he wait a second for a woman with a baby?
I caught up to him then followed him through the kitchen doors and down a narrow hallway to a dark, cramped room. To call the space an office was a joke. My human filing cabinet cubicle was larger than this.
“Is this your baby?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I answered.
Why else would I be lugging an infant around?
Up close, the colored lenses made his eyes seem like they were floating. Eerie.
He reached out to touch Laurie. “She’s tiny.”
I moved her stroller before his hand could reach her cheek. His eyes locked on mine. We stared at each other for a moment, sizing each other up.
No way was Mr. Creepy touching my baby.
He shifted subtly, understanding. Don’t mess with baby cub when Mama Lion’s around.
“How old is she?”
“Almost two weeks.”
He looked me up and down. “You look pretty good for a chick that just popped out a baby.”
What happened to “ma’am”? Maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea to follow this guy into a dark room. Suddenly, it was difficult to breathe.
He circled around behind me. “So, you know Michelle?”
Was he checking out my ass?
I shifted, forcing him to face me. He smirked.
“I know Michelle.” I said, “You know George?”
He nodded, clearly enjoying himself.
I imagined him asking the female staff “to his office,” then copping a feel.
Hoping to intimidate him a little, I pulled a notebook from the diaper bag that was now serving double-duty as my purse.
Oops. No pen.
I eyed the pencil cup on his desk.
If I leaned in to grab one, I’d give him a shot of my milk-engorged cleavage. I flipped opened my notebook and hoped he wouldn’t notice that I wasn’t actually writing anything down.
In my most official voice I said, “I need to reach George. Can you tell me when he’s scheduled to come in?”
He leered. “I haven’t seen him in a while. I don’t know what Michelle told you, but he’s not on any schedule or anything.”
“What does he do here?”
“This and that.”
Why all the secrecy about George?
“How long have you been managing the restaurant?”
He scratched at his newly forming beard. “ ’Bout three months.”
“Around June?” I asked, for clarification.
“That’s right.”
“June fifteenth or sixteenth, would you say?”
“What are you getting at?”
“You started managing the restaurant after Brad’s . . . disappearance? I take it you knew Brad Avery.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “Sure. Yeah. ’Course I knew Brad. He and I were good buddies.”
“Didn’t you think it was odd, his vanishing like that?”
He moved toward the desk and sat on the edge, forcing me to step back. I bumped into the wall behind me and jarred Laurie’s stroller. She wailed and kicked, protesting being awakened.
I jiggled the stroller to soothe her and pressed backward as far away from Mr. Sleazy as I could. I felt the coolness of the wall through Jim’s shirt. I resisted the urge to shiver.
He licked his lips and smiled a crooked little smile. “You a cop?”
“No.”
He squinted. “What’s with all the questions, then?”
“I just think that you’d have wondered when suddenly your boss, your good buddy, didn’t show up.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “Michelle told me they’d had a fight, that he was leaving her. When he didn’t come to work, it was obvious that he’d left her. So she and Mrs. A asked me to run things for her.”
“Mrs. A?”
“Brad’s mother. She’s part owner,” he clarified.
“Michelle told me Brad was having an affair.”
“Don’t know nothing ’bout that.”
Didn’t he? Mr. Rico Suave here, with the jet black hair and colored contacts. Mr. Leery. Mr. Good Buddy of the deceased.
“Do you know who might?” I pressed.
He unfolded his arms and stood up, leaning in a little too close to me. “Might what?”
“Never mind,” I mumbled. It was none of my business anyway.
I closed my notebook and bent over to shove it into the diaper bag. The notebook caught on a little rag doll I’d packed for Laurie. I had to do a quick rearrange and cram everything in. When I straightened, my heart jumped into my throat.