Page 58 of Risk It All
Cara smiled. “Dutch’s.”
Reaching back, Norah closed her laptop and left it on the bed. She followed—well, was towed by—Cara out of the bedroom. “I thought you were done with fieldwork.”
“This is still research, just more…activeresearch than usual.” Cara knew her sister was smart to protest, though. “We’ll just go, have some bar food, see if we see any familiar faces, let our more adventurous sisters know if we do, and then come right home.”
Norah groaned, although she didn’t pull away from her sister’s tugging hand. “Fine, but I want it on the record that I think this is a stupid idea.”
“Noted.” Even though she knew Norah was probably right, Cara couldn’t help but feel a zing of excitement that she was actively helping to search for the person who had framed Henry for murder. Maybe her sisters weren’t so crazy. There was something to be said for fieldwork and adrenaline rushes after all.
* * *
“Okay.” Norah slid to the edge of the booth seat, looking like a spooked bird about to take flight. “We’ve eaten wings and looked around, but Layla Baron isn’t here. We should go home now.”
Although Cara sighed, she couldn’t say her sister was wrong. Even the crowd at Dutch’s seemed mellower than the other time she’d been there. It was a disappointing stakeout all around.
“Fine. Let’s go. Wait.” Her eyes narrowed as she recognized a weaselly face across the bar. “Excuse me for just a second. I have a throat to punch.”
Norah just blinked at her, wide-eyed, apparently too startled by Cara’s uncharacteristically violent urge to be anxious about being left alone.
Cara wove her way through the crowd, her gaze locked on her target. When she was just five feet away, he spotted her approaching. Face paling, he tried to dart toward the exit.
“No, you don’t.” Lunging forward, she caught him by the arm. Twisting it behind his back, she pinned his front to the end of the bar. The red-haired bartender glanced over at them and then away, looking bored, and none of the patrons seemed too concerned about a wannabe kindergarten teacher trapping a guy against the bar. Dutch’s did have its perks.
“Let me go, Cara!” Stuart wriggled in her grip so she shoved his arm a little higher, making him yelp. Her first instinct was to feel guilty for intentionally hurting someone, but then she remembered his part in everything.
“Not until you answer some questions. You helped Abbott kidnap me!” Granted, it was more of an exclamation than a question, but she was still pissed about Stuart’s role.
“No, I didn’t! I—” He cut off sharply when she yanked his arm again. “I didn’t know he was going to kidnap you! All he wanted was for me to try to get you to open the door. Ow! Stop! Fine! He wanted to know who you were, just basic stuff. Nothing he couldn’t get out of the campus directory.”
“The campus directory? My friends are listed under my name?” Her voice was heavy with sarcasm as she pressed Stuart harder against the bar. In a way, she was glad that she’d found him before Molly and John could. Making the weasel squeak was cathartic.
“No, but…I mean, it’s really on you for being friends with Kavenski. Everyone knows he’s Baron’s toy poodle.”
The name startled her into letting up the pressure, and Stuart yanked away. “Layla Baron?” she clarified.
“Yeah.” He stepped back out of reach, his face twisted in disgust. “Kavenski even went to jail for her. Loser.”
Cara reached for his arm again, new questions bubbling in her mind, but Stuart dodged her hand and almost ran for the door. After watching him go, her brain working at a hundred miles an hour, Cara made her way absently back to the booth, processing the new information. She was snapped out of her thoughts when she saw her sister’s anxious expression. “Sorry, Norah, but now I really want to talk to Layla Baron. According to Stuart, she’s who Henry took the fall for. Will you hate me if we stay just a little longer?”
Norah looked doubtful. “You know the odds of her actually showing up here while we’re waiting for her are pretty low, don’t you?”
“Yes, but at least I feel like I’m doingsomethingto help Henry.” She gave her sister her best entreating expression, and Norah sighed audibly.
“Fine.” Norah gave her a stern look. “We’ll give it another half hour. That’s it.”
Cara nodded, happy to have gotten that concession.
“So what did Stuart say?” Norah asked, and Cara filled her in on their brief conversation as her gaze roamed the bar patrons. A half hour passed, and Cara wheedled another fifteen minutes out of Norah. Once that deadline had passed too, Cara heaved a huge sigh.
“You’re right. She’s not coming here tonight. Sorry for making you stay here so long,” Cara said, disappointment hanging heavy in her belly. “We can go now.”
Looking relieved, Norah stood. “Do you think I’ll be knifed if I use the bathroom here?”
“Maybe?” Cara made a so-so gesture with her hand. “I’d say the odds are around seventy-thirty that you’ll survive.” She smiled to show that she was joking…sort of.
“I’ll risk it. I really have to pee.” With a determined expression, Norah headed for the narrow back hallway that contained the bathrooms.
Cara pulled out some cash for a tip and then turned, her eyes scanning the crowd for a final time. After almost three hours of disappointment, she wasn’t really expecting to see anyone else she recognized, so her gaze skipped over the woman talking to a guy in a battered trucker hat before zooming back to her striking, memorable face.
