“I’d better play it safe,” Luke said. He looked good with glasses on, not entirely unlike the troubled star of A Bullet Affair, but different enough. “A Bud for me.”

“Coke. Lots of ice,” Kitty said. She wanted a beer, too, but didn’t have her ID, and without makeup on and her hair done up, she looked about seventeen.

Savannah wheeled away to get their drinks. Luke angled his phone toward Kitty, showing her the photo on-screen. It was from the Stray Bullets PictoShark account: staff and customers posing happily at the bar. Savannah was among them, and so was the bat-faced man.

“She knows him,” Luke whispered.

“Maybe,” Kitty said. “But play it cool, remember?”

“Cool. Yeah.” Luke dragged a hand across the back of his neck. “I’ve got this.”

“Are you sure? You look . . . tense.” Kitty bunched her fists to illustrate Luke’s body language. “That might send up a red flag. You want me to do the talking?”

“I’m fine.”

Luke didn’t want to reel off a string of questions. His plan was to get talking to a member of the staff, then casually steer the conversation to the bat-faced man—using the snaps on PictoShark—and find out about him that way. Kitty had agreed that this less direct approach would be more effective.

He forced another smile as Savannah returned with their drinks. “It’s happy hour,” she said. “Next one’s on us. And it’s free refills on soda.”

“I knew we came to the right place,” Luke said.

“Where you from?”

“Colorado.” Luke swigged from his bottle, then continued: “Little town called Mancos. We’re here on a research trip.”

“I’m here on a research trip,” Kitty cut in. This was the story they’d agreed on, preferring to blur any Luke-and-Kitty-sized footprints. Better safe than sorry. “I’m writing a term paper on the Mojave people, and how COVID affected their livelihoods.”

“My sister’s kid,” Luke said, still with that hitch in his voice. “I offered to bring her, figuring that, while she’s researching the rez, I can research a few of the local casinos.”

“I hear that,” Savannah said. Her lip rings flashed in the bright lights around the bar. “We get a lot of people through here, either spending their winnings, or, more often, drowning their sorrows.”

“Well, hopefully I’ll be in the first camp.” Luke took a quick, clumsy drink, then wiped the spillage off his chin. “I’ve heard about this place. You get some famous bands play here, right?”

“On occasion,” Savannah said. “We’re part-owned by Tyler Edwin. He’s one of the big record company guys out in L.A.”

“Ah, so he’s got the connections.”

“Right. And the bands dig it—they enjoy playing these smaller, intimate venues every now and then. Connects them to the fans.”

“That’s what it’s all about.”