Chapter 15: The Bar at the Regency

The door shut behind Zara, and the bell kept ringing in the quiet.

"She signed it," Bev said. "That girl signed a paper saying your husband drove."

"Thursday," I said.

"I'll hose her too."

I didn't answer.

I was thinking about what Zara had given away without meaning to.

They needed Eli to be the driver.

The only thing holding up that story was Preston.

If Preston said anything else, it fell.

"Bev," I said. "I need a favor, and you'll hate it."

"I love it already."

I told her.

She listened with her glasses pushed up into her curls.

When I finished, she took them off and let them swing on the beaded chain.

"Your husband's going to have a fit."

"I'll tell him tonight."

Eli did not have a fit.

He stood at the stove in the apartment above the garage, holding a wooden spoon.

He listened to the whole plan with no expression at all.

"No," he said at the end.

"Eli."

"He's frightened and he's drinking. A frightened man who's cornered doesn't talk. He swings."

"He's never hit anyone in his life."

"That's the danger. He doesn't know how. I saw him grab your wrist in that corridor."

I hadn't known he'd seen that.

"He'll only say it to me," I said. "Not to you. Not to his father."

"Why you?"

"He thinks I'm the one person who'd still forgive him."

Eli put the spoon down.

He was quiet for a long time, and then he said, "Where?"

"The Regency bar. Wednesday, seven."

"I'll be in the truck."

"You'll be in the garage. If he sees you, it's over."

His jaw worked.

"Bev stays on the phone with you the whole time," he said. "Open line. If she says a word, I come."

"Deal."

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