Gemma Halliday: Fearless in High Heels

To the right, the glass bar looked duller and decidedly more sticky than it had last night, a lone bartender standing behind it drying glasses with a white towel. He looked up as we approached, and I recognized him as the guy who’d poured our drinks the night before.

“We’re closed,” he said, spotting us.

“I know. We were actually hoping to ask you a couple questions,” Dana responded, putting her elbows up on the bar.

The guy raised an eyebrow at her. “And you are?”

“Dana Dashel,” Dana said, extending a hand across the bar to him. “My boyfriend, Ricky Montgomery is a part owner in this place.”

The bartender looked from Dana’s hand to her, then back at the hand. “Darwin Watts. But we’re still closed.”

“We were in here last night?” I jumped in, hoping to jog his memory into more friendly territory.

His gaze pinged to me, then narrowed.

“Yeah. I remember you. Cranberry juice.”

“Right” I said, pointing to The Bump. “Anyway, we’re looking into the death of Alexa Weston,” I supplied. Then added, “For the owners.” Or at least one-sixteenth of them.

Up went his eyebrows again, his gaze going from Dana to me to Marco (who had, in fact, insisted on stopping by his place for a pink trench coat, a leopard printed fedora, and a black turtleneck that covered his entire neck from collarbone to chin, “just in case”), clearly not totally believing that anyone would trust an investigation to a pregnant lady, a blond in a miniskirt, and gay-lock Holmes.

“Was Alexa a regular here?” Dana asked, pressing forward.

The bartender shrugged. “I wouldn’t say regular.”

“But she had been in before?” I asked, jumping on that tidbit of info.

He shrugged again, turning his back to us as he grabbed another glass that was clearly already clean and started polishing away. “Sure.”

“Sure?”

“I’ve seen her in once or twice before, I guess.”

“What about her friend?”

He gave me a blank look.

“The girl she was with last night? The redhead? Had you seen her before?”

He shrugged again. “Sorry. A lot of people come through here every night.”

I pursed my lips. This was getting us nowhere fast. “Do you know how she paid?” I asked, changing tactics. If we had the redhead’s credit card receipt, we’d at least have a name.

Predictably he shook his head. “Dude, how am I supposed to remember how every patron pays?”

“What if I could tell you the drink she ordered?” I asked. “Could you look up if anyone paid with a credit card for that specific drink last night?”

He looked from Dana to me. “You sure Ricky Montgomery’s your boyfriend? ‘Cause I thought I saw him in here with Ava Martinez last week.”

Dana’s jaw clenched, her eyes narrowed, her lips curling into a thin line.

Uh oh.

“Look, if you could just do a quick check, we’ll be out of your hair,” I said, eyeing Dana’s cheeks as they turned from sun-kissed peach to practically purple.

“That no good, home wrecking, little slut bag of a-”

“Easy, girl,” Marco said, putting an arm around her shoulders. “I’m sure it was just a friendly drink after work thing.”

Darwin looked from Dana to Marco, then back to me again, his desire to get rid of us suddenly overwhelming his aversion to questions.

“Fine. I’ll check,” he said turning to the register behind him. “But we sold hundreds of drinks last night.”

“She was drinking a Cosmo with a lime twist and two cherries,” I said.

Marco shot me a look. “Wow, you’re observant, girlfriend.”

“I’ve been drinking weak decaf and herbal tea for five months. I’m living my party life vicariously.”

The bartender turned back to the register, scanning over the charges made last night. “Okay, Cosmo narrows it down to two hundred.”

“You have a list of names?”

He shot me a look. “Look, even if she’s sleeping with one of the owners,” he said, gesturing to Dana, “that doesn’t give you clearance to all the receipts. I could lose my job if I showed you this.”

“Okay how about this: any of them on the same ticket as a martini with blue at the bottom, red on top, a maraschino cherry floating in it?” I asked, remembering Alexa’s drink.

Darwin looked back at his screen. “That would be our special Blue Blood Baby. And, yeah. There is one credit card charge with both.”

The three of us leaned forward.

“Name?” I asked.

“Sebastian Black.”

I felt my nose scrunch up. “Sebastian?” Unfortunately that didn’t seem to fit our mysterious friend.

“Maybe Daddy’s footing the bill?” Dana suggested.

“Or a sugar daddy?” Marco supplied.

I nodded. It was possible. Both girls had been young, pretty, possibly pampered. “You have an address to go with that name, by any chance?” I asked Darwin.

He nodded. “Give me a minute and I can get it,” he said, pressing buttons on the computer screen. Finally he grabbed a pen and jotted it down on a piece of receipt paper before handing it across the bar to Dana.

I looked over her shoulder. “Gardenia Way? Where’s that?” I asked.

“Let’s go find out,” Dana answered.

We thanked the bartender, and five minutes later we were in the Mustang again, firing up Dana’s GPS. Gardenia Way, as it turned out, was located in the Hollywood Hills, just off Laurel Canyon. And, twenty minutes and one pee stop at a Coffee Bean later, we were snaking our way up into the hills. On a winding road. A very winding road.

I couldn’t help a small moan escaping me.

“You okay?” Marco asked, looking at me in the rearview mirror.

“I think I’m gonna be sick,” I said.

“Lean out the window.

“Right. Fresh air is good.”

Dana frowned at me in the mirror. “It is. And if the fresh air doesn’t do it, can you kinda lean forward to do your business?”

“Your sympathy for my condition is overwhelming.”

“Sorry. But I just got this thing detailed.”

As crappy as I felt, I leaned, feeling like a dog out for a joy ride as I stuck my head into the wind.

I’m happy to say that by the time we reached Gardenia, I had managed to keep breakfast down. Though my hair was a windblown mess. I sighed in relief, doing a quick pat-down on my bangs as we pulled up to the address on the receipt.

“Whoa,” Dana said, turning into a long driveway paved in sleek grey pavers. “This place is massive.”

She was right. As the trees parted ahead of us, a wide, brick structure appeared. Wood beams crisscrossed over the façade, and two massive turrets rose up on either end of the building before it gave way to both east and west wings flanking the property. An oversized mahogany door with ornate carvings stood in the center, a stone carving of a raven hovering over it just below the eaves. It was a cross between California Spanish style architecture and a gothic fairy tale.

Dana pulled to a stop just to the right of the building. “Clearly our Daddy slash Sugar Daddy has money,” she said as we got out and clomped up the stone walkway.

I agreed, wondering which stick figure it was that had belonged to this place – the dead girl or the friend.

I knocked on the wooden door, hearing the sound echo through the interior. We waited a couple of beats before the sound of footsteps on the other side indicated we’d been heard.

The door swung open and we were greeted by a guy that was tall, well over six feet, dressed in a pair of black slacks with crisp pleats and a white dress shirt. Though the shirt was un-tucked, the top two buttons open, and his feet were bare as if we’d either caught him getting dressed or in the middle of unwinding from a long night.