The image wouldn’t leave me, though all I saw was darkness.
Travis running in his suit on the tarmac, waving his bow and arrow. Howling. Shouting. Completely mad. Taking aim at me, his eyes full of hatred. Then his body thrown back and incinerated all at once by a giant blast.
My smoke-seared eyes were closed as I lay on a stretcher next to an ambulance in the parking lot in front of the terminal building, chilling, willing my nerves to settle. I was fine, really. They’d patched up the cut on my leg. My throat was a little sore from the smoke. An eyebrow was a little singed.
There was chaos all around as those with injuries were treated and police combed the airport for would-be terrorists. The sounds were muted; my ears felt like they’d been in the front row of a metal concert. Neil had gone to check on our crew, so I’d accepted the offer of the stretcher and was trying to find a calm center again.
I ruminated over the craziness of the past few days. Travis manipulating everyone, playing the long game to scare off Dash. Hijacking the whiskey—probably after bribing the delivery driver to report mechanical trouble to explain the late arrival—and doctoring it and hiring Tuba Guy to “deliver” it again. Leaving Snaiquiri to go back to La Bonne Vie, lucking into the lost hat and arranging the boomerangs. “Losing” the hat at the cemetery to throw us off when he attacked with the arrows, later meeting Nicki for their date. Then hooking up with another fair-haired damsel the next night—Raquel, no doubt. Draining the distillery bank account. Hiring the goon to intimidate me. And if the goon gave the “tripod”/bow and arrows to Alastair to bring in before the event tonight, the bag wouldn’t have gone through security.
I flexed the wrist wrapped in the makeshift shark-tooth bracelet, feeling weirdly lucky.
“I need a drink,” I croaked to no one in particular.
A low chuckle greeted me, and I opened my eyes to see Neil hovering over me. He took my hand.
He mumbled something. Or at least it sounded like mumbling.
“What?”
He grinned. “You’re a sight for sore eyes,” he said, more loudly this time.
I looked down at my dress, ripped and soot-stained and speckled with a dash of crimson near my injured leg. “More like a sore sight for eyes.”
“Do your eyes hurt? I can see them better now.”
“They feel weird without the glasses.”
He bent closer, soaking in my gaze. “They’re kind of a misty green, aren’t they?”
“Lichen,” I eked out.
“I like them too.” Was he teasing me?
He squeezed my hand. His gray eyes—shining a little—invited me for a swim in his deep thoughts. He barely looked ruffled in his formal wear. More to the point, he exuded a steady tranquility I couldn’t help but envy.
I smiled. And then I frowned. “The bartenders?”
“They’re good. There were no significant injuries outside of the ones you know about. Even the man shot with the arrow should pull through. Everyone’s fine, more or less. Or will be.”
I reluctantly released his hand and sat up, running fingers through my hair, brushing out ashes. “Except the Reynolds cousins.”
“Dash is pretty shaken up, that’s true.”
“Dash?” I gazed at Neil in disbelief.
“He’s the one who called 9-1-1. I happened to be out here with Alastair and the ambulance, and the radios all lit up. Just as they were issuing the dispatch, Dash called me. I grabbed security, and we came out to find you just as the real explosions started.”
“And here I am.” Dazed only began to describe my state at the moment. “Is he really OK?”
“Dash? I’ll let him tell you.”
And then there he was, Dash, walking up to us, rumpled and pale, his fair hair limp and half-falling into his eyes. A couple of cops stood nearby, keeping an eye on him. I had a feeling his night wasn’t over.
I slipped off the cot, stood and gave him a hug. He held on tight. I could swear a tremble went through him.
“How—?” I asked after I’d released him.
“Brutus got sick of me struggling, I guess. He slammed me to the deck to take the fight out of me. My hat popped off, and while I was on my hands and knees, I had a second to pull out the knife.”
“The what?” Neil’s eyebrows were at full height.
“Pepper’s knife. She lent it to me, stuck it in my hat. I never thought I’d use it.” Dash looked at me. “Sorry. The police took it along with the hat. The knife was still in Brutus’s chest when he toppled over the railing.”
“You carry a knife?” Neil asked at the same time I said, “Holy shit.” My campaign to tamp down my cursing was not going so well.
“A cocktail knife,” I explained to Neil. “And that’s fine,” I told Dash. “I really don’t want it back. And I’m sorry you had to use it.”
Dash swallowed. “Travis …”
“I know.” I rubbed his arm. “You have a lot to straighten out now, don’t you?”
“Yeah. The money he stole, for one thing. It’ll probably be hung up in court for a while. And the police will wonder why your fingerprints are on the knife and why you gave it to me in the first place.” He looked over at the cops, and one in plainclothes with a badge started walking toward us. Dash lowered his voice, and I leaned in to hear. “It’s time for me to tell my story. And they very much want to talk to you, too. Tell the truth. Tell them about the cemetery. But if they don’t ask about the whiskey, they don’t need to know, do they?”
I pursed my lips and turned to Neil, who nodded at me almost imperceptibly. I wasn’t sure why I felt like I had to get Neil’s approval, but what Dash asked wasn’t unreasonable. Travis was dead. The crime was done.
“I’ll make sure Barnie’s OK,” Dash said, anticipating my next question. “He’ll always have a job if he wants one. And I’ll cover his medical expenses. I owe him that.”
“Mr. Reynolds? We’d like you to come with us now,” the detective said.
“Questions,” Dash reassured me. “Nothing to worry about.”
“Ms. Revelle?” The detective had turned to me. “Would you like to give your statement now or in the morning?”
“Now, I think.”
“We’ll take you downtown,” the detective said.
Great.
“Here.” Neil held up my fat gray canvas messenger bag. It had an arrow sticking out of it. “You might want this.”
Turns out The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood saved me from being punctured like a balloon. The detectives took the book, more out of curiosity than anything, but let me keep my bag. The Savoy Cocktail Book was unharmed.
That night, I told them what I knew, describing the cemetery attack, the threatening note, how I gave Dash the knife, Travis’s final rant, and the statue guy who was really Brutus—who was definitively dead, though whether the knife or the fall had killed him wasn’t clear yet. They never asked about the whiskey, which meant they hadn’t heard the rumors. At least not yet. I figured they had more than enough wackiness to handle and ample motive and evidence to explain the deaths they were investigating.
From what I gathered from their questions and the little they would tell me, Raquel Tocks told the cops she knew the cousins casually and had only pursued the purchase of the distillery because Travis had suggested it was for sale. She knew nothing of Brutus’s involvement.
Or so she said. She was a sly one, and I wanted nothing to do with her. But with her interests in Bohemia, I had no doubt we’d see her again.
By the time I’d taken a cab from the police station back to the hotel, I was as flat as a club soda that’d been left out for three days. But at least I could hear a little better.
It was two thirty in the morning, and the hotel lobby was still buzzing with Cocktailians, no doubt excited about their wild night.
Me, not so much, though I was relieved that I didn’t have to worry about a killer in my room. Probably. I had no doubt I’d be checking my closets for a while.
I hesitated a moment there amid the revelers, letting them swirl around me. A few glanced at me askance. OK, so I looked like I’d been shredded in a blender with bad tequila. I wasn’t exactly fit for the bar, but I wondered if I should get a nightcap to help me sleep. As exhausted as I was, I dreaded the nightmares I was likely to have. That’s if I got to sleep at all. And Tuba Guy, who’d had a full night playing with the band at the party, wasn’t even honking outside. Weirdly, I would’ve welcomed that familiar lullaby tonight.
There was a buzzing in my bag, and I dug around until I found my phone.
A text from Neil: “You back yet? You still want that drink?”
“You read my mind,” I texted back. “Bar?”
“Come up to my room. I’ve got the good stuff.”
Oh, yeah. He had the good stuff. Only he was talking about liquor.
“Give me ten minutes,” I replied. I stopped by my room first and doffed the ruined dress. I unwound the gator-tooth necklace from my wrist and set it on the bathroom counter, silently thanking it for whatever luck it had given me. Then I took a lightning-fast shower to wash off the grit and smoke, did a quick blow-dry and fluffed my hair.
A few minutes later, clad in pink jammy pants with martinis printed all over them and a soft black Nola T-shirt from my bar back home, I stepped across the hall and knocked on Neil’s door. I guess I felt pretty comfortable with him if I was letting him see me in my comfy jammies, no makeup and no glasses, again. Being in danger tended to accelerate a friendship.
“Mmm, you smell good,” he said as he let me in. He’d changed out of his formal wear, too, and wore gray pajama pants with white stripes and a white T-shirt.
“If I no longer smell like a firecracker, that’s a good thing.”
“But you’re still a firecracker.” He smiled and gestured to the end of the bed, which was made, of course. All very innocent.
Fine. I sat on the edge of the mattress, too tired for shenanigans, lacking the energy to throw myself at him. Although there was something about the way his T-shirt clung to him that perked up parts of me that should have been asleep. I swallowed and remembered I was thirsty. “What are you making?”
“I thought you could do with a French 75.”
“Oh my gosh!” I clapped a hand over my mouth for a second. “You still haven’t gotten there, have you?”
“Maybe we’ll have time at the end of the day tomorrow,” he said, measuring the ice, a very nice gin, simple syrup and lemon juice into a shaker as he spoke. “After the competition. Are you up for it?”
“The contest? I’ll be there to cheer you on.”
“No, I want you to do it with me. The competition, I mean,” he added.
“Really?” I smiled at his clarification while he tucked the smaller tin upside-down into the larger one to form a seal and shook vigorously. “What about the rest of the team?”
He stopped shaking and gently unstuck the tins. “I’ve agreed to lend the boys to Alastair since he hurt his hand. I texted Dash as a courtesy to make sure he didn’t mind, and he texted back a few minutes ago that it would be OK.”
“Is Dash done with the police, then?”
Holding the two tins together to control the flow, Neil poured the mixture from the shaker into two champagne flutes, filling them partway. “He said they would probably talk with him again, but they let him go for now.”
“He must be heartbroken.”
Neil nodded thoughtfully as he peeled the foil off a bottle of champagne and twisted the muselet to free the cork. “The little he told me earlier suggested he had regrets.”
“What did he say?”
He held a towel over the cork as he worked it out of the bottle to prevent an explosion. Careful and professional, as always. There was a pleasant pop. “He wasn’t sure whether he should have brought Travis fully into the company earlier or maybe somehow seen that he needed help, headed off the crisis.”
“He shouldn’t blame himself.”
“I agree. Still, with what happened to Barnie and the harm Travis has done, he can’t help feeling guilty. Guilt is something I understand.”
“Oh?”
Neil only smiled and topped off the flutes with the champagne, then added lemon twists to each glass. He handed me a sparkling cocktail. “You still haven’t told me whether you’d help me out in the competition tomorrow.”
“Melody won’t mind?” I didn’t want to get on the wrong side of any of the bartenders. I liked this team too much.
“She thinks competitions are dumb. Plus she’s trying to get out of her job at the hotel, and she doesn’t want to bring glory to a bar program that thinks hot-pink frozen drinks are the height of mixology.”
I laughed. “Then I’d love to.”
“Great.” Neil sat in the desk chair and raised his glass. “To surviving Cocktailia.”
“Yeah. Had no idea how hard that would be.” We gently clinked our glasses. I took a deep sip and closed my eyes as the fresh, bright lemon, the floral gin and the tangy-sweet champagne bubbles played over my tongue. The potion seeped into every cell at once, relaxing me as nothing had yet this evening. Except maybe being here with Neil.
Did I nod off there for a second?
When I opened my eyes, he caught them with a penetrating gaze. “Do you like it?” he asked softly.
“A lot.” My voice came out almost as a whisper. He was working that magic over me again whether he knew it or not. I took another gulp to avoid saying more.
We drank silently for a couple of minutes, avoiding each other’s eyes, as something like tension filled the room. Sexual tension. At least it was a welcome change from the tension of thinking about crazed killers and cops and …
“Pepper?” Neil had finished his drink and sat next to me on the bed.
Deja vu. I shivered as he took my empty glass and set it next to his on the desk. He slipped a hand behind my head, pulled me close and kissed my neck.
Oh my gawd. The sizzle that shot across my skin was a hundred and eighty proof, and I swayed drunkenly as he wrapped his other arm around me, trailing kisses up to my jaw. Then he pressed his warm mouth against mine.
Ahhh. Heat and champagne and lemon. And intent. So much more than before. As his lips tasted me, he slid one hand up my back, under my shirt. He let out a soft moan when he felt nothing but smooth skin. I mean, heck, I wasn’t going to wear a bra under my sleep shirt, was I?
I broke the kiss, and he looked at me in surprise. Then I scooched backward up the bed and beckoned to him. He crawled after me, and as I fell against the pillows, he nestled his hard body against my soft one, running one hand up my leg and hip and slipping it just under my shirt, caressing my belly, dangerously close to my breasts. Then he crushed his mouth against mine.
This was what I’d wanted. I floated on a cloud of citrus and champagne and desire and that intangible thing that was Neil. I didn’t know why I was so crazy for him, but I couldn’t deny it as I hooked one leg over his and opened my mouth to his tongue.
His body was so hard. The pillows were so soft. This was a really good bed. And I was so tired. I closed my eyes and drifted.
Kisses. Pillows. Was this just a dream?
“Pepper?” Neil’s voice sounded far away. “Pepper? Poor little Pepper.” Suddenly his arms weren’t there, and I missed them, but the pillows welcomed me, and the blanket he tucked around me was so nice.
His chuckle followed me into darkness.