Harper Allen - Payback

His manicured fingers tapped peremptorily on the shoulder of a T-shirted man rushing by with a laden beer tray on one outstretched palm and a platter of ribs on the other. The man gave him a harried glance. “Sit anywhere you can find a chair, friend. Tell me now what your poison is and I’ll drop your drinks off when I go by again.”

Peters’s lips tightened. “A Manhattan, I suppose. Perrier for you, Dawn?”

“We’ll have two beers, whatever’s coldest, no glasses,” she said swiftly. “Those ribs as authentic as the music, mister?”

“Made to my dear departed mama’s recipe,” the man said and grinned. “Double portion?”

At her nod he raced off. Weaving her way through the jammed tables ahead of Peters, Dawn hoped the composure she’d assumed with the waiter had covered her sudden shakiness.

Aldrich Peters didn’t make small talk. His exchange with her just before he’d stopped the waiter hadn’t been idle conversation. She was as sure of that as she was that the jukebox was now blasting out Albert King’s version of “Born Under a Bad Sign,” but what she still needed to figure out was what had been behind his comment.

He’d admitted he’d been in denial for a time while she’d been AWOL. She was under no illusions that he meant he’d had trouble accepting Lee Craig’s death, so obviously there had been something else that Peters hadn’t immediately wanted to believe. But, as he’d just informed her, at some point during her absence he’d faced reality—faced it, and made plans to deal with it as expediently as possible.

Albert’s whisky-dipped rasp was pouring out of the jukebox, informing the patrons around her that if it wasn’t for bad luck, he wouldn’t have no luck at all. She knew exactly how the blues singer felt, Dawn thought numbly.

Aldrich knew she’d gone over to the Cassandras. This meeting had to be a trap…and she’d walked straight into it.

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