Chapter 4: What Dahlia Was Paid

Sasha Thackery tended bar on South Alamo, and I had not been inside it in a year.

I walked in at noon with the blue folder under my arm and my suitcase still on my mother's bed at home.

Sasha looked up from the lemons she was cutting and put the knife down.

"You look terrible," she said. "Sit."

"I need a lawyer who works for free."

"You need a drink and a sandwich first."

She set a grilled cheese in front of me before I had picked a stool.

I told her everything between bites, flat and in order, the way I would have read a list at the library.

She did not interrupt once. Her jaw got tighter with each part.

When I reached the red dress she said, "I'm going to hurt him."

"You can't. He's got a suit."

"I've hurt men in suits."

"Sasha."

"Fine. Keep going."

I got as far as the contract before she held up a hand and nodded past my shoulder.

"Don't turn around fast," she said. "There's been a woman at the end of the bar since we opened. Red lipstick. She asked for you by name."

I turned around slowly.

Dahlia Bascom sat on the last stool with a glass of ice water and a leather folder of her own.

She wore jeans and a gray sweatshirt. Without the lipstick on her mouth being the first thing you saw, she looked younger than thirty.

"I found this place in his phone," she said. "He has your friend's bar in his maps. He calls it your hiding spot."

"Get out," Sasha said.

"I will. I want to say something first."

She stood up and walked down the bar and stopped an arm's length from me.

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