Cold Dark Heart by Julie Kriss

Twelve

Andie

I didn’t getto the Wild until noon. The early-shift bartender, Cory, was behind the bar, pouring drinks for the daytime regulars. “Where’s Jimmy?” I asked him. It was Thursday, which was payday for a lot of people and almost as busy as Fridays and Saturdays. We usually had two staff in on Thursday afternoons.

Cory looked a little uneasy. He was thirty, with hair he dyed black for some reason I couldn’t fathom. If he was going gray, he’d look perfectly fine. “He’s in the office.”

That didn’t make sense. I trusted Jimmy, but what was he doing alone in the office? I circled behind the bar, turned the corner, and opened the office door.

Jimmy wasn’t alone in the office. Damon Blake was sitting behind my desk, wearing a faded gray T-shirt. His longish brown hair was brushed back from his face. He had scruff on his jaw. His arms were lean, strong, and tan. Jimmy was sitting in the chair across from the desk, and both men were laughing. The laughter wound down when they saw me.

“Morning, boss,” Damon said. He looked comfortable in that chair.

“It’s afternoon,” Jimmy pointed out.

Damon glanced at his watch, a leather one that gleamed on his masculine wrist. “So it is. Afternoon, boss.”

I watched his forearm flex, and I was suddenly reminded that before I was distracted by Terry and then by the problem with Miles, I had fantasized about getting naked with Damon. I felt heat creep up my neck and I shifted my weight. I was wearing my usual jeans and ankle boots, topped with a loose black sweater. Was my makeup okay? Why was I suddenly self-conscious? This was stupid.

“What’s the meeting all about?” I asked. “And why wasn’t I invited?”

Damon didn’t seem to notice my sharp tone. “Close the door,” he said, motioning with his hand. “Jimmy, pull out that chair.”

Jimmy did as he was told, pulling a second chair from where it sat against the wall. I should kick Damon out of the chair behind the desk, but that would look pretty stupid, since I didn’t know what we were talking about. I sat down.

“I’m interviewing Jimmy,” Damon explained, seeing how uneasy I was. “We needed somewhere private, so we came in here. We didn’t want to use the employee break room, because we didn’t want anyone listening.”

“Why are you interviewing him?” I asked, momentarily stupid. “He already has the job.”

“More like a police interview,” Jimmy said. He sat up straighter in his chair. “We’re going over how things work at the Wild, some of the stuff that has gone on recently. That kind of thing.”

Damon watched me steadily with his gray eyes as Jimmy spoke. “You didn’t tell me you’d had a break-in,” he said gently.

I tensed. “I was going to tell you. And it was nothing. They didn’t even get in.”

“Still, it’s important. From what Jimmy tells me, it might have been an inside job, at least partly. I’m going to get background checks on some of the former employees.”

I felt stress shoot through my body, just as if someone had injected me with a needle. It seemed like every day had yet more stress these days. “You think we employ criminals?” It came out like an outraged screech, so pathetic I wanted to call the words back in.

“Not currently, no,” Damon said, still unruffled by my overreaction. “Cody checks out, and so does Jimmy here, as soon as he pays his alimony and clears that shit up.” He narrowed his gaze on the older man.

“I’m on it, boss,” Jimmy said. Then, realizing who he’d spoken to, he turned to me apologetically. “I mean—Sorry, boss.”

“It’s fine,” I said. Somewhere in the back of my brain, I marvelled that Damon could win over someone as street smart as Jimmy so easily. But I didn’t really care who Jimmy called boss and who he didn’t. I was still stuck on the criminal thing. “You think someone who worked here tried to rob us?” I asked Damon. “Why would they use a baseball bat on the windows instead of just taking money from the till during a shift?”

“Oh, they likely took money from the till,” Damon replied. “They also likely blabbed to one too many of their dirtbag friends about how easy it could be to rob the place, which is why someone made a try with a baseball bat. Or, option B, they attempted the robbery after they’d been fired. They could try again, or someone else could. Which is why I’m getting some personnel history.” He picked up a pen from my desk—my desk—and spun it effortlessly over the tip of his finger, his gray gaze still unwaveringly on me. “We need to make the Wild safer. We have work to do, Andie.”

I felt my cheeks flush. It was the sound of him saying my name that did it. So stupid. “Which is why I asked you for a list.” I shot back at him.

Damon seemed to find this amusing. “You’re not getting a list. I’m not a list guy. I’m more of an action guy. In the time it takes someone else to write a list, I’ve already gotten shit done. I’m going to have to spend a little money, though.”

“How much money?” I still sounded alarmed. “I’m still going through the books. The Wild doesn’t make much profit from what I can see. And Terry left unpaid bills.”

“That’s because Terry was a shit business owner,” Damon said, anger simmering in his voice for the first time. “As well as a shit husband and, apparently, a shit father.”

My jaw dropped open in shock.

“Um, should I leave?” Jimmy asked. He was still wide-eyed in his chair, where we’d both forgotten about him.

“What do you know about what kind of husband and father Terry was?” I asked Damon, ignoring Jimmy. I realized we were using was as if Terry were dead. It was technically incorrect, but satisfying.

Something flashed across Damon’s expression before he tamped it down. “I know enough,” he said, his voice tight.

“What does that mean?”

“I gotta go,” Jimmy said, getting up from his chair and squeezing past me to leave the office. The door clicked shut behind him.

That was when I knew they had talked about Terry before I’d arrived. “What did he say?” I asked Damon. “What did Jimmy tell you?”

Damon didn’t even try to deny it. He ran a hand over his face, as if the thought of telling me was making him tired. “Don’t we have an appointment with one of your suppliers to get to?” he asked.

My jaw clenched. I wanted Damon to answer my question. But—and this wasn’t a surprise—I also didn’t want him to. Whatever it was, was bad; that much, I already knew. I was already dealing with Miles, and this bar, and Terry had already left. Once I signed his stupid addendum, we were divorced. He was with his girlfriend in Florida, and he would never be my problem again. Why did I need even more bad news?

If you don’t know about it, it can just go away,a voice in my head said. It was a familiar voice, one I’d been hearing for years now. I never acknowledged it, but I always followed its advice.

If you keep your head down, if you keep your eyes shut and your ears plugged, you can just keep going without being dragged down. Because knowing everything isn’t always best, right?

“Yes,” I gritted out after a moment of tense silence. “We have an appointment.”

There was another moment of silence, just as tense as the first one. Then Damon nodded.

“Okay then,” he said. “Let’s go.”