Pros and Cons by Jenna Black

Author:Jenna Black [Black, Jenna]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: BluA
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

I had been in the car for umpteen hours already, and the thought of driving around to a bunch of bars that were scattered throughout the D.C. metro area was spectacularly unappealing. Heather had cast her net wide, which I supposed made good business sense for a blackmailer but wasn’t exactly a picnic for me. I could have been satisfied with my day’s work already—I had, after all, gotten a hell of a lot accomplished—but aside from my desire not to hang around at the mansion, I had a nagging sensation that I didn’t have all the time in the world. I hadn’t had a chance to research Wayne Fowler yet, but I figured for the time being, my best bet was to assume he was as dangerous as Heather thought.

Unlike a police officer, I couldn’t just walk into a bar and start asking questions. Not if I wanted anyone to cooperate with me, that is. And so at each stop, I had to buy an expensive drink and leave a big tip, then hang around for a while sipping at the drink to establish myself as a “real” customer. Having learned my lesson at Top of the Hill, I took no more than one or two sips of my drink in any one place, not letting myself get even a hint of a buzz. While alcohol might lower my inhibitions enough to let my subconscious hunches shine through, I couldn’t afford to let my tongue get away from me. Besides, I was driving.

I had no luck at the first two bars I tried. No one at either place even recognized Heather, much less Doug. A bartender and a waitress at the third place recognized Heather, and the waitress thought she might have seen Doug around, but she couldn’t be sure, and she didn’t know his name.

I hit pay dirt at bar number four, a tiny little place called Farraday’s. It was upscale, as were all of Heather’s hunting grounds, but it didn’t have the pretentious decor and stuffy atmosphere of Top of the Hill. The bartender recognized Heather and knew her by name, and though he didn’t recognize Doug, he directed me to the bar’s owner, who was apparently the kind of hands-on type who spent more time at her establishment than any two of her employees combined.

Linda Farraday was a friendly-looking forty-something whose body language screamed confidence and competence. There was a sharp intelligence in her eyes that made me swallow the pretext I’d made up about why I was hunting for Doug. So far, I’d made up a different story at each bar, tailoring the story to my audience, but my instincts suggested that Linda might know bullshit when she heard it.

Of course, I couldn’t tell her the truth about why I was looking for Doug, either, so after our initial greeting and handshake, I got right to the point.

“I’m a private investigator,” I told her, drawing the now much-handled photo print of Doug and Heather from my pocketbook, “and I’m looking for this man.

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