Jay kicked out the stool just as she reached him, as if he’d sensed her presence.

“Nice trick,” she said, and he lifted his glass toward the bar and the mirror behind it, where her reflection stared back at her.

She slid onto the stool. “And for a second I thought maybe you were clairvoyant.”

One side of his mouth twitched upward. “If I was, then I’d know what the hell it is you want from me, now, wouldn’t I?”

“I guess you would.” To the bartender wiping up a spill, she said, “I’ll have a beer…light. Whatever you’ve got on tap.”

“Coors?” the bartender asked, tossing his wet rag into a bin under the bar.

“Yeah. Fine.” Forcing a smile she didn’t feel, she met Jay’s brutal gaze. “Bet you were surprised that I called.”

“Nothing you do surprises me anymore.”

The bartender set a frosted glass in front of her and she placed her ID and several bills on the bar.

“That’s a tip,” Jay said to the man behind the bar. “Put her drink on my tab.” To Kristi, he added, “Come on, let’s talk in the dart room where it’s a little quieter. Then you can tell me what this is all about.”

“And beat you at a game.”

“In your dreams, darlin’,” he said, and her stupid heart did a silly little flip. She wasn’t falling for his charms. No way, no how. There was a reason she’d broken up with him all those years ago and that hadn’t changed. Worse yet, he was wearing a three-day’s growth of beard, the kind of pseudo-chic look that she detested. Of course it just made him look cowboy-rugged. Crap. The least he could do was look bad.

She grabbed her beer and again serpentined through the tables and crowd to a booth where a busboy was busily picking up near-empty glasses and platters bearing the remnants of onion rings, french fries, and small pools of ketchup. With a nod from the busboy, Kristi slid into one side of the booth while Jay sat opposite her.

Once the table had been swabbed down and they were alone again, Kristi decided to cut through all the uncomfortable small talk. “I need your help because you’re on staff here and have access to files I can’t see.”

“Okay…” he said skeptically.

“I’m looking into the disappearance of the four girls who went missing from All Saints,” she said, and before he could protest she launched into an explanation about her concerns, Lucretia’s worries, the lack of anyone seemingly interested in what happened to the coeds, and the fact that they could have all met with foul play.

Arms crossed over his chest, Jay leaned against the wooden backrest and stared at her with his damnable gold-colored eyes as she laid it out to him.