Page 22 of Bishop's Flight
“We had this huge car show just a couple of weeks ago, and it got a ton of traffic, so this is probably a good place for that kind of thing.”
“I heard about that.” Brigid waited for Sierra to tend to two men who sat themselves halfway between her and the football watchers.
“Bikers.” Sierra wandered back over to Brigid. “I could probably even get my boyfriend to come out for that one. He’s always wanted one, but his mom’s a nurse, and you know what they call them?”
Brigid feigned ignorance. “What’s that?”
“Donor-cycles.” Her eyebrows went up. “Like organ donors?”
“Ah.” Brigid nodded. “I won’t tell my boss.”
Sierra laughed. The woman seemed more than happy to chat with Brigid. They were the only two women in the bar, and most of the men were in a midnight stupor, shouting at the screen, drinking their beers, and ignoring everything else unless they were hooked to a video poker machine.
“So were you working the auto show convention?”
Sierra nodded. “Lots of high rollers, and there was a match from like Turkey or something on one of the nights? That night was packed in here. There were three bartenders working, and we could barely keep up.”
Bartenders. They always had the news. “So I’ve a random question that may seem odd.” She pulled the picture of “Angel” out of her jacket pocket. “But do you happen to remember this girl wandering around the car show? She might’ve been a hanger-on with some of the high rollers. That kinda thing.”
Sierra squinted at the picture, and then her eyes went wide. “Oh my God, she didn’t have that hat, but she was totally there. I do remember her. She had, like, these huge blue eyes. I remember wondering whether they had some kind of cosmetic surgery to make your eyes look bigger in Russia because they didn’t even look real.” Sierra shook her head. “That’s so weird that I remember that. She stood out though. She was pale, likereallywhite, and her hair was this icy, snowy blond. Russian accent, big pouty lips.” Sierra smirked. “She was definitely getting a lot of attention, that’s for sure.”
Brigid mentally recorded everything Sierra was saying. “What else do you remember?”
The bartender cocked her head. “Okay, so it’s kind of weird that you’re asking that. Do you, like, know her?”
“Uh…” She thought up a quick excuse. “It’s kind of awkward to mention, but this girl goes by a few different names. And she tends to hook up with older, wealthy men at collector events like this. Someone mentioned they’d seen her at the recent show, and my boss wanted to know if she was a regular here. To be honest, I think he might avoid the place if she is.”
“That’s so weird.” The woman frowned, still staring at the picture. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen her before that weekend, so I don’t think she’s a regular. I mean, there are a lot of those types—the male version too, if you know what I mean—but I don’t remember seeing her before.”
“D’ya remember anyone in particular that she was with? Any regulars maybe?”
“Um…” Sierra took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I mean, it was mostly people passing through. Regulars are not very common in places like this.” She closed her eyes for a second; then someone called her at the end of the bar. “Give me a sec.”
Brigid watched her walk away and come back. So Angel had been at the convention, and it was entirely possible that was how she’d entered the country. She had a Russian accent, which might fit with Carwyn’s guess that she was Central Asian.
But how did that relate to Lucas?
Sierra came back. “So what’s up with this girl? You trying to find her or something? I mean, it’s not illegal.”
Brigid needed to convince Sierra to give her whatever information she knew about a girl that was just passing through and hadn’t really done anything wrong in the bartender’s eyes. On the surface, it was gossip, but Angel wasn’t a criminal and Brigid wasn’t a cop.
Brigid sighed. “Okay, it’s kind of embarrassing, but here’s the deal. My boss’s son… he was kinda taken in by this girl. She took advantage of him and she took something pretty valuable from him. Family heirloom kind of thing.”
Sierra’s eyes lit up. This was the kind of gossip that reached beyond the mundane. “Oh shit. That sucks.”
“It really does. My boss could call the cops, but honestly, he’d really like to avoid the public embarrassment. He’s a fairly prominent person, and he likes to remain as private as possible.”
She was all the way in. “So he’s like a celebrity or something?”
“He’s fairly well known in England, and he doesn’t want this to be a big deal, but if I could find the girl and just…” Brigid put on her exhausted face. “I don’t know, I’ll probably just pay her to get the necklace back, but I don’t even care. That’ll clear the way for this convention to move forward, the family gets the jewelry back, and this girl won’t be in trouble for taking advantage of a fifteen-year-old kid.”
Sierra’s jaw dropped. “Fifteen? You’re kidding me.”
“Poor kid was head over heels. This girl completely scammed him.”
“Oh, thatsucks.” She was clearly thinking it over. “Okay, I don’t know for sure because I wasn’t here that night, but I know one of my friends mentioned this blond girl too because there is a regular we get in here for any San Diego State games—pretty sure he’s an alumnus—and the car show coincided with March Madness finals.” She pulled out a receipt and scrawled a number on it. “So my friend was saying that the weird blond girl was taking the attention from her regular and she was kinda pissed because he’s a really good tipper.”
“Sounds like exactly the kind of man she’d be interested in.”
