Sam took a deep breath. “The cars all look like typical college kid rides, don’t they? I mean, the lot isn’t filled with motorcycles and I didn’t see any rough types hanging outside the door.”
“One can hope.” Kelly checked her purse for the pepper spray she always carried. “What’s the plan? If the evening should go south, maybe we need a signal or escape word for each other?”
“You’re asking me? I spent my high school years in an itty-bitty Texas town where the Dairy Queen was the social life, and I escaped that as soon as I could for a pipeline camp in Alaska. Since then it’s been Taos, first with a baby to raise and then a bakery where the hours begin at o-dark-thirty. I’m not exactly an expert at this.”
“Okay, let’s play it by ear. I’ll let you know what vibes I get.”
They bumped fists and got out of the car.
Chapter 28
Sam felt old the moment she stepped inside. Everything from the bouncer to the floor-vibrating music set her nerves on edge. Maybe handling the box ahead of time was a bad idea—every sensation was magnified. Kelly handled it better and took the lead. Her outfit, cobbled together from what she’d packed, was in line with what most of the kids were wearing—tight jeans or short skirts, fitted tops, big earrings. The guys were also in jeans, T-shirts on the ratty side.
They stared through the crowd. A couple dozen people were gyrating under the flashing lights on the dance floor. Tables ringed the room, including an upper level accessed by cement steps and separated by a pipe railing.
A blonde girl, wearing ripped jeans, a lowcut tank top, and a short denim jacket, approached them. “Are you Sam and Kelly? I’m Devon. Serg called earlier and said friends of Danny’s from Taos were coming tonight, and you looked … um, sort of … lost.”
Kelly laughed, the curls she’d pulled up on top of her head bouncing. “Hey, Devon, yeah I guess we kind of are.”
“Serg said you’re trying to help Danny, and that makes you a friend of ours. He’ll be along soon. There’s our group up there,” she said, waving vaguely up the steps. “Come join, if you want, and I’ll introduce you around.”
They followed Devon up four steps and wound their way to a table in a corner. The music volume dropped when the DJ took a break and put on some canned recording, and at least half the dancers wandered off the dance floor. Devon turned as soon as they reached the table.
“Hey, everyone, this is Kelly and Sam. Ladies—this is the gang. Chad, Josh, Michael and Emily, Abby.”
The names went by fast and Devon’s vague finger pointing left Sam unsure who was who, but they all smiled politely enough.
“Oh, and here’s Sergio now,” Devon said, turning to look behind Sam.
The young man reached out a hand to shake when she turned to face him. “Sam and Kelly—good to meet you.”
Manners. Refreshing. He reminded her of Danny in a lot of ways, although shorter and stockier, with a wrestler’s build. Sam thought she remembered Danny saying his buddy worked at a lumber yard, and he looked as if he was built for hefting sheets of plywood. His open face exuded honesty—or that might be an observation from handling the box first—and his wide smile was genuine.
“Grab a seat,” Devon invited. “We’ll pull up more chairs if anyone else comes.”
Sam took the empty spot next to Devon, who introduced Josh across the table as her brother. That’s right, she thought, Danny had said they were twins. Their similar coloring and the way they smiled would have given it away. Kelly ended up at the other end of the table, seated between Sergio and a clean-cut preppie type.
“Chad Smith,” Devon whispered to Sam when she noticed her looking. “He and Patsy are our two college geeks. She’s going into law, and I think he’s studying business, planning to go into something with his dad. I’m not sure exactly what.”
Josh leaned across the table toward Sam. “So, somebody said Danny works at your ranch in New Mexico?”
“Yeah, he does. He seems to love it, especially working with the horses.”
“Would you have ever believed that?” Josh said to Sergio. “Danny the brain in high school, and now he’s turning into a rancher.”
Sam ignored the edgy tone.
Devon shot her brother a look. “Two beers and he turns into a jerk!” But her tone was teasing. She turned back to Sam.
“I heard from Danny’s mom yesterday and she told me what happened. I can’t believe it—I mean, Danny would never hurt someone.” Devon’s eyes grew soft when she said Danny’s name.
“I agree. We’ve only known him a few months, but I don’t see him doing something like that, especially to someone he was close to.” Sam watched Devon’s face. “I’m guessing he and Lila were close, at some point?”
“Lila was … interesting.”
Sam looked around the group. Other conversations had picked up where they left off. Michael, Emily, and Josh were laughing loudly at something. She turned to Devon and lowered her voice.
“What can you tell me about them as a couple?”
Devon raised a slender shoulder. “I don’t know … It’s weird when you know someone a long time and they hook up with somebody who’s kind of a stranger.”
Sam sipped the rum and Coke she’d ordered and let Devon put her thoughts together.
“Lila just came on the scene kind of all at once. I mean, I heard that her parents split, and that’s hard on anyone. And being out of school, well that’s another thing. When you move and start at a new school at least you meet a bunch of potential friends at once. So, Lila was, like, twenty-four I think when she came here. So we all kind of met here at Thrashed. She was dating somebody, but that ended about five minutes after she met Danny.”
“A love at first sight kind of thing?”
“Love, lust—who knows? He was attracted. Every guy was attracted to Lila.”
“And she was …”
“Was she attracted to every guy?” Devon’s mouth pinched tight for a moment. “She flirted with them all, especially at first. But it seemed like once she settled on Danny, she stuck with him. Maybe didn’t want to mess it up. He’s pretty straightlaced, as you probably know. Not the kind of guy who would like his girlfriend playing around.”
She stopped short. “No—not that she was, or he would be so jealous that he’d—No! Not at all.”
Sam patted her shoulder. “That’s not the way I took it. Danny told us he wanted to break it off with Lila and that’s why he moved out of state.”
Devon seemed relieved. “I’m glad. That’s kind of the feeling I got, but I wasn’t sure.”
The girl on the other side of Devon, Emily, tapped her shoulder and whispered something. Sam turned her attention toward Sergio.
“Danny told me your husband used to be the sheriff or something like that,” he said.
Sam nodded.
“So, that, plus what Patsy told me about you coming here and talking to people who know Danny … Are you asking questions officially or something like that?”
“No, nothing official. I’m just scared for Danny and wanting to get any information I can that might take the heat off him.”
“I get that, man. I can’t believe it about him getting arrested.”
“Tell me what you thought about them as a couple. Was Lila good to him?”
“Lila was … hot …” He stopped. “Okay, yeah, you got me. She was one hot girl, and I don’t think there’s a real guy on the earth who wouldn’t say that.”
Sam remembered the flowing dark curls, the mysterious eyes, and the figure to die for. She smiled at Sergio’s description and nodded an acknowledgement.
He turned slightly sideways, eyeing the conversations around the table, and then spoke softly to Sam. “Yeah, and she was a bitch, a devious one.”
“What do you mean?”
“Danny showed me the texts. ‘Sweet dreams, my love.’ Gag me. She’d say stuff like that one minute and make a threat the next.”
“Threats. Like?”
“Like, ‘Don’t ever leave me or I’ll track you down.’ Once, he questioned her on that—‘you’d track me down?’ he asked. And then she laughed it off. I’m telling you, the girl ran hot and cold, and you could never tell what she’d say next.” He toyed with the paper coaster under his beer bottle, peeling little shreds from the wet edges. “That comment about tracking him down, I confronted her on that, asked her what she meant. She gave me this big wide-eyed look and said ‘I don’t know what you mean.’ Sam, I had his phone in my hand with the text message right there, and she denied that she’d sent it. Nut case.”
This was sounding a lot like what Sam had heard from Danny. She wondered if Sergio would be willing to testify about it. She was about to ask, but another couple walked in and the guy punched Sergio playfully on the arm.
“Hey, Matt.” Sergio stood and gave the guy and his girlfriend hugs. “Sam, this is Matt and Taylor.”
Quick hellos and they edged down to the other end of the table where two empty chairs sat. Sam made eye contact with Kelly, guessed everything was going okay there, and knew they would catch up and compare notes at the end of the evening. The DJ was back and the music ramped up again.
She turned back to Devon. “Doesn’t look like I’ll get to talk to everyone tonight. Do you think they’d mind if you gave me their numbers so I can reach out later?”
Devon, sweetheart that she was, pulled out her phone and sent Sam the contact info for everyone at the table.
Michael and Emily jumped up and headed for the dance floor. At the other end of the table Chad grabbed Abby’s hand and pulled her in that direction too. Kelly was suddenly sitting relatively alone and she caught Sam’s eye. Time to go.
Chapter 29
“I was about to beg you to shoot me,” Kelly said as they got into the car. “If I’d had five more minutes of Chad Smith’s bragging about his grade point averages and how he’s going to take over his dad’s mega-big business after he graduates this spring … ugh, I’d have shot myself. Especially when it came out that this fantastic job means running a car dealership. I suppose there’s a lot of money in it, but seriously? You’d think he was about to become CEO of Google or something.”
Kelly suddenly burst out with the giggles. “I can’t believe how strange that was.” She settled into the passenger seat and let Sam take the wheel.
“What? You mean, the club … Kel, how many drinks did you have?”
“Two! That’s what I mean. Two drinks, an hour of conversation with, oh my gosh, the very people I used to be … I’m so out of it now.” Her voice descended into a whine. “I’m not thirty anymore.”
“And I’m not fifty anymore. It’s called real life, hon.”
Sam steered out of the parking lot, happy to be away from the crowded place, although handling the box had left her energetically charged. By all logic, she should have been out there on the dance floor, raving it up with the twenty-somethings.
“Oh, I’m not complaining. I am so thankful!” Kelly said, melting back into her seat.
“Me too. And I am completely not sleepy now. We need to work off this energy from the boxes. At home I always went to the bakery and pulled an all-nighter.” Which wasn’t always easy to explain to the help when they came in and found racks of finished pastries and shelves filled with complicated cakes. “Let’s park the car and just walk. Like, miles if we have to.”
“Yes!” Kelly leaned her head back and smiled. “On the other hand, Matt and Taylor seemed nice, and Abby was a real sweetheart.”
Sam gave a little head-shake at the abrupt switch in topics, but she let the GPS guide her back to the hotel. There, they left the car in the parking garage and pulled out shawls they’d left in the back seat.
The evening was cool and the Riverwalk foot traffic had subsided quite a lot from earlier in the day. Most of the retail shops were closed, but the bars and restaurants were hopping. Strings of fairy lights sparkled in the tree branches, and tour boats cruised quietly along, filled mainly with couples who cuddled together on the bench seats.
Sam set a fairly strong pace and they walked along briskly. “So, you told me about the self-centered Chad. Who else did you talk to?”
“Matt and Taylor said they’ve known Danny since grade school. I guess they all grew up in the same neighborhood. They both like him a lot. About Lila, they didn’t say a whole lot. Matt said she was gorgeous, but when Taylor gave him the eye he backtracked and added that she completely wasn’t his type.”
“I kind of got the same from Josh. Guys are funny—what they notice and then how they interpret.”
“Abby, the girl across from me … she seemed super genuine. A bit of a hippie, maybe. Anyway, I got the vibes from her expression and, you know, just what I was noticing in my own heightened state, that she didn’t care much for Lila at all. Different personalities, yeah. But there was more. She exuded distrust.” Kelly turned toward Sam. “Is it always this way, after handling the boxes? This … being able to notice how people are feeling, what they’re thinking?”
“I suppose so. I’ve had that experience.”
“Okay, whew! I was afraid it was the drinks and the nightclub, in which case I’m not sure I’d trust my perceptions.”
“No, I think you’re on track. I was getting some of the same feelings from the others.”
“When I asked Abby outright for her impressions of Lila, she listed two words: slick and conceited.”
“Devon added bitchy and devious. And from reading those texts she sent to Danny, I think that can be summed up as self-centered,” Sam said. “I also got the impression, a strong one, that Devon has a major crush on Danny.”
“But you know what was kind of weird, too? Matt and Chad both kind of hinted that Danny has some of those traits—a little bit devious, a little self-centered. Of course, if I were back in psychology 101, I’d probably be learning that we all have some of that.”
Sam chuckled. “Well, I have felt somewhat devious at times since the box came into my life and I haven’t shared everything I know with Beau.”
Kelly gave her a look. “No one tells their spouse everything. Besides, if you did, then where would be the mystery or the romance?”
“I think we’re getting off the subject we came here for. What have we learned that could point to someone else as Lila’s killer?”
They had reached a point where the activity along the river was waning and the sidewalk was dark in places. It seemed like the right spot to turn around. Kelly flipped the end of her shawl over her left shoulder and looked up. A man was standing in the doorway of a closed souvenir shop, watching them.
“Mom …”
“Yeah,” Sam whispered. “Just keep going.”
They edged toward the river but before they’d cleared the doorway of the darkened shop the man stepped out, blocking their path. Of medium build, with wide shoulders, dressed in dark colors, he kept his hands in the pockets of his jacket, his feet spread apart.
“You’re asking questions where you shouldn’t be.”
Sam had expected something like “hand over your purses” and she had to ask him to repeat.
“Stop asking about the Contreras girl. It’s none of your business.” His voice was low, barely above a whisper, but the threat was obvious.
“What are you talking about?” Kelly raised her voice to draw attention. “Who are you?”
The stranger made that odd little gesture with two fingers pointing toward his own eyes, then at them. I’m watching you.
Then he pushed past them, bumping Sam hard with his shoulder, and dashing off into the darkness behind them.
Sam stumbled toward the river and teetered on the edge of the concrete embankment before Kelly grabbed her arm and pulled her back. The two of them stared into the dark space, lit in the distance by a few stray lights, but there was no sign of the man.
“What the hell!” Sam sputtered.
Kelly’s earlier bubbly giggles had completely vanished. “Let’s get ba
ck where it’s more crowded.” She took Sam’s arm and began speed walking toward the nearest restaurant with outdoor tables.
“He must have overheard our conversation and followed us. But how—?”
“How did he know which Lila we were talking about?”
“And that warning—it’s none of our business—what prompted that?” Sam’s mind was reeling with possibilities. Had he been following them since they left the club? Or even before that?
Music from a mariachi band came wafting out of a Mexican restaurant where sidewalk tables held pitchers of margaritas and were occupied by people laughing and talking without a care. Sam pulled Kelly inside and asked the hostess for an indoor table near the windows.
“I need to see if that guy comes back,” she said as they took seats and ordered guacamole and chips.
“Would you recognize him again?”
“Right now, probably. By tomorrow, in the light of day and in a different place … I’m not sure.”
Most of the foot traffic was coming from the other direction, and although they watched for the next half hour, there was no sign of the man who’d threatened them. When a boisterous group from another table got up to leave, Sam pulled money from her pocket and left it on the table; they blended with the others to walk the distance back to their hotel.
The man obviously knew the area well enough to know another way out. He might also be familiar with the hotels, and could have followed them since they parked.
Sam didn’t relax until they were safely behind the locked door of their room.
Chapter 30
Late-morning sun was streaming in around the dark curtains when Sam stretched and came awake. She and Kelly had been up half the night, energized still by the boxes, thoughts flying about all they had learned from Danny’s friends. Not to mention the warning from the stranger who now seemed somewhat phantomlike. In the bright light of morning, Sam wondered if she could have imagined his voice and the threatening tone.
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