And that’s the kind of bar we were in.
Now that my thoughts were clearer and Camden’s hunky tattooed form was nowhere near me, I left the rambling drunk and made my way back into the bar and started looking for the scapegoat. It was going to be as easy as shooting slimy fish in a dirty barrel.
I leaned against one of the timber posts and surveyed the packed crowd. I had to pick someone that probably should end up behind bars, or at least someone that had enough of a reputation that being blamed for a robbery wouldn’t do much to it. Not that anything was going to happen to the dude, not without any proof. I just didn’t want the fingers pointed at me when Camden discovered that his money was gone.
I guess the fact that I was going through with it made me a pretty terrible person. Well, that was probably true and, unfortunately, I’d never been able to be anyone else but me. Yes, it kind of sucked learning that he had a kid and ex-wife to support, but that wasn’t enough to stop me from doing what I’d planned on doing. But I wasn’t going to leave Camden high and dry. There was no doubt that his shop was insured, and like I noted earlier, he had more than enough pricey crap in there to make up for the loss. It came down to who needed the money more. He had his opportunity to escape and start over. It was only fair that I had mine.
Shitty reasoning, I know. Sometimes I was just all out of excuses.
I found the guy, sitting at the quiet end of the bar. He was sickly pale, an oddity in this part of California, in a hockey t-shirt with mullety hair under a weathered baseball cap. He kept his icy, penetrating eyes focused on his bottle of beer which he gripped so hard that all the tendons on his forearms stood out. He worked his jaw back and forth on his gaunt face, as if he were trying to calm himself down by grinding his teeth down to the gums. He didn’t glance around at anyone and didn’t talk. He looked like one of those people who would suddenly pull out a gun and shoot the bartender in the face for pouring him a weak drink.
He was perfect.
I’d pulled the scapegoat scam on a few people in my day, and they’d always fit the same profile. The loner with the piercing eyes, the guy that people glance at and think “yikes, one day he’s going to blow.” When the crime happens—pickpocketing a few ladies at a café, for example—and there’s no clear person to blame, it always comes to “I bet it was that young man, the quiet one in the corner who wouldn’t look at anyone. He just smelled suspicious.” No one ever notices me heading out the door. Never commit a crime when you’re the only person to blame.
The trick now was to get this guy on Camden’s radar, and that wasn’t going to be so easy in a bar as crowded as this.
I pulled a notepad out of my purse and found a wedge of space at the opposite side of the bar. I ripped out a page from the back and wrote on it:
You helped me out once before. Just returning the favor.
I folded the note, motioned for the bartender, and slipped it to him with a $100 bill.
“Can you give these to the man at the end of the bar, the pale guy with the hat?”
The bartender looked behind him. “Ol’ scary eyes over there?”
I nodded. “I’m the girlfriend of one of the guys in the next band, Kettle Black.”
He frowned at me, unsure why I was telling him that. “Yes, I served you earlier. Can I get you anything?”
I ordered another one of Camden’s specials, dropped him a $20, and left the bar with my drink before the bartender had a chance to deliver the message. I moved through the crowd until I was off to the front of the stage and waited.
The scapegoat would get my message and the money and would be confused as all hell. Maybe even a bit suspicious. He’d ask the bartender who gave him the note. He’d describe me and then throw in the fact that I was the supposed girlfriend of a guy in the next band. Maybe he’d even describe Camden. That’s all I needed. With any luck, the guy would be casting calculating, guarded glances our way for the rest of the night. And since he wouldn’t know who I was, the chance of him approaching me over it was too risky for him. After all, this favor I was returning was probably something very illegal.
I stole a peek at the bar and saw ol’ scary eyes looking around, already beginning his search.
I smiled before he could see me and looked at the stage just in time to see Camden walk on with his guitar.
CHAPTER FIVE
Then
The girl walked into the cafeteria with her soda and carton of French fries, scouring the hellish landscape that was high school lunchtime. Even though she was now in the ninth grade and things were a little easier than the year before, she still didn’t have any friends aside from Camden, and each step she took was like a new nightmare waiting to be unleashed.