Craig Leone might be able to help. Leone himself, who seemed to think the woman in my photo was named Kim.

I thanked her, wished her well and before I lost my courage, I grabbed my beer and gave up my seat. I wandered over to the pool tables first, to give Leone time to settle in. I assessed the players and hoped the guy in a black leather jacket and faded jeans was the boyfriend. Because as I watched, he cleared the table.

The music changed to something by the Rolling Stones that everybody but me seemed to know. A guy with bad teeth and hair edged by and pinched my butt before I could move away. “Start me up!” He winked, but he was so drunk his eyelid only made it to half-mast.

I shoved him away. “Pinch me again, and I’ll start you on your way to Seabank General.” I punctuated with a word I rarely say. The guy beside him jerked him toward the other side of the room. I had a feeling he had to do that often.

I reached Craig without further incident. The seats around him were taken, but there was a space just large enough for me to squeeze into. “Hi, you Craig?”

He turned and looked me up and down. Up close he was even more intimidating than he’d been in his yard. “Yeah.”

“Somebody over there told me you might know where Kim is tonight.”

He didn’t answer, so I pulled out the photo I’d shown the others and held it out. “This Kim.”

His gaze dropped momentarily. “Who are you?”

“A friend.” I pulled out the second photo as evidence. Wendy and I were arm in arm, the sun shining brightly all around us. My father had snapped it the last time we were all together. I held it up for him to see. “I’m supposed to meet her here, but I don’t see her. I hate to wait if she’s not coming. Know anything?”

So much time passed before he spoke that I nearly walked away. But finally a darker expression crept over his face. “I haven’t seen her. But if you happen to? Tell her no more games. She can go—”

I didn’t blink at the stream of profanity that revolved around an anatomically impossible act. I waited until he finished. “Apparently if you two were together, you aren’t anymore?”

“You want to talk to somebody who might know, lady? Somebody who cares?” He pointed to the far end of the bar, just shy of where Santa was chuckling in his beer. “Go talk to him.” He got up and pushed past me. I grabbed his seat and set down my glass. Then, as if I was just examining my new surroundings, I finally looked in the direction where Leone had pointed.

The guy next to Santa was lean but broad-shouldered, his skin darkly tanned from the sun. From his profile I noted that his nose was long, and his cheeks sported neatly trimmed stubble. Maybe I hadn’t gotten a great look at the man who’d attacked me on the town house front porch, but now I stopped breathing.