“She wouldn’t have had just anyone as her maid of honor, I’m sure.”
Dani jerked her head, the tears she fought to hold back streaming down her face again. She rubbed a shaking hand across her forehead and took a long pull from the glass before her. “You never think you’ll have to deal with this sort of thing, you know? You do your regular routine every day, and it’s easy to forget this type of stuff happens all the time.” Liam didn’t move; instead, he fought the bindings of panic beginning to tighten in the center of his chest. “You just don’t think it will ever happen to you. It’s terrible of me, but I didn’t want to come. I wouldn’t have, but there’s no one else on Suzie’s side of the family besides my parents, and they’re on a cruise vacation.” Dani wiped her eyes again.
Liam struggled for words of comfort. Words he’d spoken before to families he didn’t know, wives, husbands, children, mothers, fathers. But now, he found nothing in the reservoir deep within him. It was hollow and empty, a tomb of dried emotions that lay silent in a dark place he couldn’t reach anymore.
“I’m sorry,” Dani said after a moment.
“For what?” Liam asked, rising from the depths inside him.
“Here I am sobbing and carrying on, and it was your brother. Suzie and I were close, but I’m sure not as much as you and Allen were.”
Liam curled his mouth at one corner and reached for his mostly empty beer. “Allen and I weren’t on the best of terms as of late.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
Liam shrugged. “We . . .” He shifted in his seat. “We just didn’t keep in touch anymore. He had his life here, his practice, Suzie. I was always busy. It just wasn’t conducive for us.”
Dani looked at her lap. “I hadn’t seen Suzie for quite a while either. I think the last time was at Christmas two years ago. My mom and dad and I all came here for a weekend. We stayed with Allen and Suzie. It was nice.” Dani’s face contorted with grief again, and Liam reached out to grasp one of her hands in his own. Her fingers wrapped around his, and she squeezed as a sob hitched through her chest. “I’m sorry, I just can’t believe they’re gone,” she whispered.
She took another drink of her vodka and glanced at him before staring at the table. Her hand remained in his, and neither made any move to release the hold. “Do they have any leads?” she finally asked.
“Not that I can tell. They’re being pretty close-lipped about the whole thing. I met with the sheriff tonight. I got the feeling he doesn’t know much more than I do.”
“It makes me so angry,” Dani said. “What did Allen and Suzie ever do to deserve this?”
Liam said nothing. The door to the pub opened, and Liam watched the shaggy head of Nut appear and slouch to the bar, where he began to talk to the bartender.
“Dani, I have to speak to someone,” Liam said, his eyes never leaving the vagrant’s back. “Can you give me your number so I can get ahold of you tomorrow? Maybe we can help each other make arrangements?”
Dani glanced over her shoulder and then back at Liam. “Sure,” she said, and reached into her purse, pulled out a business card, and handed it to him.
He saw the confused look on her face and squeezed her hand once more. “Are you going to be okay?”
Dani finished her drink and made an effort to smile. “Yes, I’ll be fine.”
“I’ll call you tomorrow.”
Liam stood and left his beer and food on the table. He moved in a straight line across the pub toward Nut, who had an overfull glass of beer clutched close to his chest. The older man spotted Liam when he was two steps away; his eyes widened and a bit of beer slopped from his glass onto the floor. Liam saw the indecision on the bum’s face and wondered if he would have to pursue him out of the pub.
“I need to talk to you,” Liam said when he was within arm’s reach of the man.
“Uh,” Nut said.
Liam jerked his head toward a corner table in the back of the pub and saw the bum’s shoulders slump. Liam let him go first, and as they made their way to the back of the bar, he saw Dani rise from her seat and walk toward the door. He felt her eyes on the side of his head, but he locked his gaze on the back of Nut’s dirty coat. Nut set his beer on a wobbly table and sat in the chair closest to the wall, while Liam took a seat beside him, effectively blocking the vagrant’s only escape route.
“Listen, I don’t know what this is about, but—”
“How much did you get from the reporter for giving her my name and what I looked like?” Liam asked.