It didn’t. “Now you’re saying Dwa-aayne.”

“Maybe I have a speech impediment. Did you ever consider that?” I slid off my stool and looked around the room. In a far, dim corner I spotted the faint gleam of blond spikes. Redfern. The uniformed OPP officer must be the investigator. Both sat with their backs to the wall, cop-style. A third man with a thinning spot on the top of his head faced them.

Wineglass in hand, I sauntered over to their table. Redfern saw me coming but didn’t give me a welcoming smile or wave me to come on over, dash it, and meet the boys.

Coffee cups and an empty carafe shared the tabletop with a basket of chicken bones.

Standing beside the balding man, I realized it was the doctor from the emergency room. My nose throbbed at the memory and I felt my lips. They were still swollen and I had used a lot of cover-up to hide the scratches on my face. But Dr. Doom was wrong about my eyes turning black without an immediate application of ice.

A folder lay open in front of the doctor. Redfern reached across the table and closed it, but not before I caught a glimpse of the photo.

I was tempted to go back to the bar and pick Larry up. Not for the night, but just to see Redfern’s reaction. “Hi, Chief. How about introducing me to your friends?”

“This is Dr. Ed Reiner, our coroner.”

“I met him this afternoon.”

Dr. Reiner nodded and kept his hands pressed against the folder in case I ripped it away and ran out into the night with it.

“He’s also a gynecologist,” Redfern added. Maybe it was the light from the smudged overhead chandelier, but I’m sure I noticed a malicious gleam in his eye. Note to self: never tell your personal fears to your boyfriend. He may forget your birthday but never that you have an aversion to examining tables and stirrups.

I edged away from Dr. Reiner. The OPP investigator looked familiar but I couldn’t place him at first. He was good-looking in an exotic, Mediterranean sort of way, with olive skin, black hair and eyes, and the longest lashes I’d ever seen. Well, except once on a camel at the Toronto Zoo. I knew him from somewhere. I usually let my subconscious do the memory work, and now it set to covering the face with stubble, growing the hair into long, greasy strands, dressing the body in dusty leathers …

I had it. “Sn—”

“Tony!” Redfern snapped at me. “This is Sergeant Tony Pinato. He’s an OPP investigator and will be working on the case with me.”

In a lower voice, he added, “Forget what you think you know, Cornwall. This is Tony.”

Tony chuckled, a raspy, damaged sound I had grown so used to hearing last summer when I lived in fear for my life in Hemp Hollow. Tony had been an undercover cop but I didn’t find that out until later. At the time, I thought he was a real biker, dangerous yet strangely attractive.

“You’re looking good, Miss Bliss. I hope we’ll have time to sit down and have a drink together before I leave town.”

A long, thin scar ran up the side of his throat, ending somewhere under his chin. Now, I realized that gravelly voice was actually caused by an injury, maybe from a knife wound, rather than from years of smoking, as I had thought.

“That would be lovely, Tony.” I aimed my best smile at him and ignored Redfern. Dr. Reiner’s intense scrutiny made me squirm. I wondered if he was measuring me for a speculum. I pulled my pink sweatshirt firmly over the rump of my new, tight jeans and moved closer to Tony.

“Well, we won’t keep you, Cornwall. I’m sure you have other friends at the bar to visit.” Redfern sent me a wintry smile, one that didn’t reach his eyes.

I pointed at the basket of bones. “What, you boys didn’t have salad? Good nutrition helps the little grey cells work, you know.” At least three chickens had given their lives for this meal.

Tony laughed and Redfern smouldered. What?

I yanked the folder out from under the doctor’s hands. Before anyone could stop me, I opened it and tapped the top photo. Two cone-shaped objects with a numbered identification tag lay against a white background, a ruler beside them. They were six inches high. “I guess you boys know what these are?”

Nobody spoke.

I slapped the folder closed and slid it back to the doctor. Picking up my wine, I turned to leave, tossing my braid and throwing two words over my shoulder. “I do.”

CHAPTER

fifteen

My faux fur looked like a mangy groundhog had crawled up onto the stool to die. I don’t know what I had been thinking when I bought it. Fang slouched lower on the bar with half a glass of beer in front of him. I considered buying another white wine, but Dwayne’s and Thea’s presence convinced me one was enough. They were off-duty, but Dwayne undoubtedly carried a Breathalyzer and a radar gun in his private vehicle. Unless doing so would be against regulations, in which case he wouldn’t dream of it.

The door opened and a couple swept in and paused for a moment on the threshold. When no one clapped or cheered, they let the door close and waited for the waitress to seat them at a table for two in the middle of the floor, where the overhead light shone the brightest. The Weasels visited local establishments once or twice a week. They liked to be seen spending money and enjoying the fine cuisine. The first Monday of the month must be Wing Nut night.

The waitress returned with glasses of red wine, took their orders, and bustled away. I picked up my almost-empty glass and moved in. On the way, I snagged an empty chair from a nearby table.

I plunked my glass on the table and sat down. “Good evening.” I smiled pleasantly at one face, then the other.

They reared back. Andrea’s throat made a strange clicking noise while the Weasel eyed me like I had a wart on the end of my nose. God, what was wrong with everyone tonight?

Andrea recovered first. “What do you want, Bliss?” She picked up her wine and sipped.

The Weasel’s hard eyes narrowed and he swirled the wine in his glass like it was a rare vintage rather than the house plonk. I looked at his hand clenched around the stem. Geez, overreaction or what?

“I just wanted to say hello.” I turned sideways at the little table and crossed my legs.

Andrea looked at my boots. “Prada?” Little lines appeared between her eyes. The last botox injection had worn off.

I turned my foot so she could see the gold-coloured, double-buckled skulls at the ankle. “Alexander McQueen.”

She sucked in some more air. “That’s … they cost …”

I waited, but Andrea went mute, so I volunteered. “About fifteen hundred.” I looked at her black shearling-lined boots with the adjustable side straps. “Jimmy Choo.” It was a statement, not a question. I know my boots.

She nodded, and I confided to the Weasel, “A bargain at only twelve hundred. Or thereabouts.”

He paled. “For one pair of boots?”

“They’re Jimmy Choo, Mike,” I told him, then turned back to Andrea. “I have a pair of Jimmy Choos, too. Last summer when I was knocked off my bike into a ditch full of water, my boots were ruined. So when you two kind people revisited my divorce settlement and came to the right decision, I bought a pair of Jimmy Choo biker boots. Just a little personal treat, you know, after living in a trailer park and almost starving for two years.” Andrea had knocked me into that ditch, but her legal training prevented her from throwing herself at my feet and begging forgiveness.

Mike had gone ominously quiet and, to keep the conversation going — a conversation that had taken a different turn from what I had intended — I told him, “The biker boots are about twelve hundred as well. I really wanted the perforated suede pair, but I didn’t think they would be practical for riding a motorcycle.”