Simone grabbed her sister’s arm and said, “Come on, Jenna, let’s go,” and started leading her toward the door.

I shook my head and stepped in front of the door, my hand already in my jacket as the football player made his move. Another hero. Probably a member of the auxiliary fire department. His right hand was heading toward my shoulder and his mouth was open, a gruff voice saying, “Hey, asshole, leave the women alone.” Before he reached my shoulder, my hand cleared my jacket and whacked his arm away and brushed my gun against his lips.

I said, “Excuse me?” and dug the muzzle of the gun hard against his upper lip.

He looked at the gun. He didn’t say anything.

I didn’t move my head, just kept my eyes on the barroom, looked everyone in the eye who’d meet mine. I felt Angie beside me, her gun steady, her breathing shallow. She said, “Jenna, Simone, I want you to get in your car and drive to the house in Wickham. We’ll be right behind you and if you try to take off, believe me, our car’s a lot faster than yours and we’ll end up talking in a ditch somewhere.”

I looked at Simone. “If I wanted to hurt you, you’d be dead now.”

Simone gave off some sort of body language that only a sister would recognize, because Jenna put a hand on her arm. “We do what they say, Simone.”

Angie opened the door behind me. Jenna and Simone passed by and walked out. I looked at Football Player, then pushed his face back with the gun. I felt the weight of it in my arm, the muscles beginning to ache, my hand stiffening and sweat popping out of the glands all over my body.

Football Player met my eyes and I could see he was thinking about being a hero again.

I waited. I leveled the gun and said, “Come on.”

Angie said, “Not here. Let’s go.” She took my elbow, and we backed out of the bar into the night.

NINE

“Sit down, Simone. Please.” Everything Jenna said came out as a weary plea.

We’d been back at the house for ten minutes and had spent all our time dealing with Simone’s ego. So far, she’d tried to push past me twice, and now she was walking toward the phone.

“Man don’t come into my house, tell me how to act,” she told Jenna, then looked at Angie. “And the man ain’t going to shoot me with the neighbors awake upstairs.” She’d started to believe that by the time she reached the phone.

I said, “Simone, who’re you going to call? The police? Fine.”

Jenna said, “Put the phone down, Simone. Please.”

Angie looked bored and antsy. Patience is not one of her prime virtues. She walked over and pulled the phone cord out of the wall.

I closed my eyes, then opened them. “Jenna, I’m a private investigator, and before any of us decides to do anything else, I have to talk to you.”