“Well, if he’s dead”
“Presumed,” Mason qualified. “And shortly after, correspondence begins between Bowes and a Brent Stevens, initially with a Queens return address and postmark. But there’s no Brent Stevens from Queens during that time period. And I’ve read the correspondence, Naomi. I’d swear the same person wrote Stevens’s and Spinner’s letters. There’s an attempt to change it up, but the syntax, the terminology. We’re having an expert analyze the letters.”
“If they’re the same person, you think this is the man you’re looking for.” She picked up Spinner’s photo again.
“Some of Stevens’s letters were postmarked from areas you were in, and the timing jibes. Then he drops off the grid. It all stops.”
“And that worries you.”
“Because it wouldn’t stop. He’s found another way to communicate. Smuggled cell phone, smuggled snail mail. Somebody looking the other way when Bowes gets his supervised computer use. It happens.”
“Maybe without all the hair, the beard.” Naomi shook her head. “I’m going to scan this onto my computer, work on it. I’ll work on it while you’re flying to West Virginia. That way if I have any luck, you’ll be right there with Bowes. You could push on it.”
“He’d be older now. Remember that, too.”
“You said he blends. He wouldn’t blend with the hair and the beard, so let me work on seeing him without them. First thing tomorrow,” she promised. “We need to get going. I promise you’ll have a good time.”
While she checked the locks on the back door and got Tag a rawhide bone to keep him busy, Mason checked his watch.
“A bar, a rock band, a Friday night. Yeah, I’ll have a good time, but only a couple hours, max. We’re leaving at seven thirty tomorrow morning.”
“Will you let me know when you’re on your way back? After you’ve talked to him?”
“I’ll text you. I’ll call if there’s anything you need to know. You do the same,” he added when she set the alarm, stepped outside.
“We haven’t done this in a long time. Gone to a bar together.”
“My twenty-first birthday, you flew home to surprise me.”
“Not since then?”
“Not since. We went to the bar at the Spot, so I had my first legal drink with you, Seth, and Harry, then you took me to that weird little place.”
“The Hole in the Wall, in Chelsea. And that girl hit on you.”
“I might’ve hit back, but I had a date.”
Laughing, Naomi closed her eyes, let the wind blow over her face as Mason drove. “Let’s make a pact. Once a year, wherever we are, we meet somewhere and have a drink in a bar. Even when we’re a hundred and ten.”
He held out his hand, pinky crooked. She hooked hers with it. “Even when you’re married with five kids,” he warned.
She snorted. “That’ll be the day.”
Yes, he thought. Yes, it will.
He saw her come in. He’d been watching, waiting, and felt a tightening in his loins when she stepped into the bar. Pale yellow shirt, snug jeans.
Had her kid brother with her, and after one look at the stage where the mechanic and his grease monkeys hammered away on some ancient Rolling Stones bullshit, the kid brother began to scan the room.
So he angled away, picked up his beer.
Grabbing a stool at the end of the bar hadn’t been a problem. Most people wanted tablesand he didn’t. A solo at a table drew attention. A guy sitting at the bar drinking a beer didn’t.
He shifted on the stool just enough to keep them in his line of sight as they worked their way through the tables to sit with the asshole carpenter and his asshole wife.
He’d thought about killing the wifeJennyjust for the hell of it. But she really wasn’t his type.
Maybe, if he ever decided to come back this way, just for the memories, he’d pay her a little visit. But he didn’t have time to play with her now.
Now, it was all about Naomi. So he’d watch awhile, finish his beer, leave a decent tip. Nobody remembered a decent tipper, just the lousy ones or the big ones.
Then he had things to do. It was going to be a big night.
You said they were good,” Mason shouted at Naomi. “You didn’t say they were really good.”
Delighted, she nudged him toward the table. “They’re really good!” She locked eyes with Xander and thought: Oh yeah, I’m with the leader of the band.
After laying a hand on Jenny’s shoulder, she leaned down. “We’re a little later than we planned. I’m going to the bar for a round. Are you guys ready for another?”