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great
place to just hang out. It’s been here forever.” She looked at her sister. “I’d
have though old Frenchy would have retired or sold out by now. But it’ll be
nice to see him again.”
    “Actually you’d probably have to go to his house to do that.
He took a bad tumble and broke his hip.”
    “Oh, no.” Sophia’s face sobered. “How’s he getting along all
by himself?”
    “Remember that nephew that lived with him for a while? Back
when we were in high school?”
    “Vaguely. If I recall Frenchy homeschooled him and he stuck
pretty close to home. We always wondered if there was something wrong with him.
Then he sort of just disappeared.”
    “Went into the Army. Special Forces, I think. He’s been gone
for years. Apparently he’s not actually a blood relative to Frenchy. Just
someone he took in for whatever reason. Apparently has no family of his own and
just showed up after his discharge, looking for a place to decompress. Frenchy
needed a bartender/manager for a few months, so it worked out well.”
    “Really. What’s he like now?”
    A corner of Rebecca’s mouth twitched with the beginning of a
grin. “You’ll see for yourself in a little bit.” She stood up. “Come on. His
hot sandwiches are better than Frenchy’s and the place is a lot cleaner.” Now
she laughed. “Almost drove out the regulars.”
    Logan made a face. “I can hardly wait.”
    Sophia linked her arm through his. “We’ll protect you. We
Blacks are made of strong stuff. And maybe it will be just the diversion we
need at this point.”
    Right now she desperately wanted a change of scene,
something to ease the tension gripping her. Night Seekers was used to dealing
with suspicion and outright disbelief when they presented their theory, but
they’d seldom seen such open hostility. They might have been “invited” to
participate in the investigation but it was going to be like knocking down a
brick wall every step of the way. They silently shared their frustration as
they headed to their cars in the parking lot.
    The snow had finally stopped while they were inside and the
plows were out doing their best to clear the streets. Apparently Frenchy’s
nephew had also made sure the parking lot was scraped because the area was
clear, although ringed by mountains of the cold white stuff.
    The inside of The Crown was just as dim as she remembered,
the aged wood on the walls still as mellow, the floor still littered with
peanut shells. Half the stools at the bar were filled, and a fair number of the
booths and tables. The clacking of balls echoed from the pool table where the
room made an L-shape around the end of the bar. At the moment the ancient
jukebox was silent. The crowd was about what Sophia expected, a lot of singles
and a few couples, letting their hair down after work. Nearly ninety percent of
the people in the town of six thousand plus worked for corporations or the
government.
    The found a corner booth and slid in and a waitress
materialized next to them almost at once.
    “You guys planning to eat?” she asked.
    When they nodded she dealt plastic menus around the table,
took their drink orders and headed toward the bar. Sophia watched her, eyes
tracking to the man behind the bar. And unexpectedly her pulse kicked up and
heat flashed through her.
    What the hell is this?
    But the man seemed to carry an electric charge around him.
He wasn’t that tall, not even six feet, she guessed. But inside the plaid shirt
with the rolled-up sleeves she could see the outline of a compact, muscular
body. Thick, dark hair touched the collar of the shirt and she could see it
sprinkled on his arms where they were visible. His face was rugged rather than
handsome, at least as much as she could tell from that distance. A good case of
five o’clock shadow gave him an intriguingly dangerous look. Then he raised his
eyes to scan the booth and she felt their impact clear to her toes.
    Sophia wriggled in her seat, trying to still the