Dead to the Last Drop Read online

  Abby laughed, and they finally settled down—all except Stan, who launched into a Miss America drumroll. “Step right up, son, and accept the prize for The Best Half-Blind Jazz Musician to Play the Table in a Washington, DC, Coffeehouse, hooah!” The room fell silent, and he grinned at Abby. “At last, my life is complete.”

  “All right, you got me.” Abby returned Stan’s smile. “I never thought of it like that.”

  “Well, you should,” Stan said. “There is a massive metaphysical difference between striving to be THE best and striving to be YOUR best.”

  “Darn right.” Jackson held out his fist and Stan bumped it. Then Theo did.

  But Gard didn’t join his band. Instead, he folded his arms.

  “You don’t agree?” I asked.

  “I do. But let’s face it, most of the public doesn’t.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Stan challenged.

  “It means, as much as I hate to say it, Abby’s point is valid. The public’s been conditioned to think of every art form as some kind of sport.” He exchanged a glance with me. “Or political race.”

  Abby nodded. “Sometimes it feels as though everyone and everything in this country is rigged to be in some kind of competition.”

  “Not everyone,” Stan insisted. “And not everything. True art is not about competition. It’s about expression.”

  I leaned toward Abby. “That’s exactly what the people in my New York coffeehouse community believe. If art feeds something inside you, then you should practice it. That’s it. That’s the only measuring stick you need.”

  “Look, I can see you’re all trying to help me with this, but . . .” She shook her head. “Coming here was a real leap for me. Gard and Stan and the other Open Mike musicians have all been really supportive, and I’ve been so happy playing. But this can’t be part of my real life.”

  “Why not?” I pressed. “I’m sure Gardner is dying to give you a paid performance slot.”

  Gardner nodded. “That’s true.”

  “Come on, you guys know why I can’t do that.” Abby glanced around the whole table, then at me. “You know who I am, Ms. Cosi.”

  “I do now.”

  “So you know I’m not a private person anymore. I live in a bubble and I have a responsibility to my family, my country, and someone else, too. I can’t embarrass them. They know best, and they want something better for me.”

  “What on earth could be better for you than something that makes you so deeply happy?”

  My blurted words appeared to cast a serious shadow across Abby’s face.

  For heaven’s sake, I thought, how could the simple idea of being “deeply happy” bring on such darkness in a bright young woman?

  Then Abby’s hand slid down her tattooed arm, and for the first time I noticed something that shook me up—and shed some light.

  Raised white scar lines marred the tender skin of Abby’s left wrist. The girl was right-handed and those scars were unmistakable. Abby had attempted suicide.

  There was one more thing I noticed: the lines were vertical.

  When Abby tried to end her life, she meant business.

  Five

  I said nothing, but I couldn’t stop the shock from crossing my face.

  Thankfully, Gardner spoke quickly to cover my reaction. “I think what Ms. Cosi meant is that you’re very talented, Abby, and it bothers us all to see you belittling your gift.”

  “Really, you’re fussing too much. I’m nothing special.”

  “But you are,” Gardner fired back. “The people in your past who decided you weren’t good enough were judging you by the wrong music. You told me you’ve been studying jazz on your own, and it shows. Replacing Bach with bebop is exactly what you needed.”

  “It does feel good. I mean, I love the improvisation with jazz, you know? It’s so freeing.”

  Gard nodded his approval. “Just keep up your playing with other musicians—instead of all alone in that dorm room—and you’ll be a shining star. You aren’t going to ‘embarrass’ anyone, if that’s what your family is worried about. They should be proud.”

  “If you were my daughter, I’d be proud,” I assured her. “Consider us your musical family—and if you ever want to perform a full evening of jazz, we’d all be thrilled to host you.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really!” Gard and I practically shouted together.

  “I can’t promise anything, but . . .” Abby chewed her bottom lip. “I will think about it.”

  “No,” Stan said.

  No? Stunned at Stan’s discouraging word, I opened my mouth to argue until I saw the young man’s hand reach across the table to affectionately squeeze Abby’s fingers.

  “Don’t think about it,” he said. “Because jazz isn’t about thinking—”

  “—it’s about feeling,” she joined in, finishing the saying in unison. “About taking what you know and letting go.”

  As the pair laughed together, Agent Cage redirected her frown from me to Stan.

  Abby didn’t appear to notice. She just continued laughing. Then she started talking with Stan about a duet they were working on. I noticed how animated she became and felt myself smiling—until she brushed away an errant strand of dark hair and I caught another glimpse of those pale white scars.

  I didn’t know much about the First Family. President Parker had been a centrist senator for years, rising in his party, and taking the White House without much drama. During the election cycle, it was Abby’s handsome, outspoken older brother, Kip, who’d been the media darling. Abby had remained far in the background—quiet, studious, private. The photos I did recall of her had little in common with her current look, and I couldn’t remember any stories, positive or negative, about her personal history.

  My thoughts were interrupted by Luther, our older assistant chef, who appeared with a big smile and a generous tray of savory selections from the kitchen: Sticky Chicken Wings glazed with his special sweet and tangy Carolina Mustard Barbecue Sauce; hot, crispy steak fries; fat, crunchy onion rings; Mini Meat Loaves with Smashed Baby Reds and Roasted Garlic Gravy; Sweet-Hot Honey-Chili Chicken; and, for dessert, Coffee Cups of Warm Apple Crisp with an Oatmeal Cookie Crumble Top, each waiting to be finished with a scoop of his No-Churn Cinnamon and Vanilla Bean Ice Cream.

  I wasn’t surprised that Abby and the band had chosen items from Luther’s Wednesday chalkboard specials. Most of our customers were doing the same, and I didn’t blame them, given the items on our young executive chef’s fussy, pricey standard menu—

  Pork Belly & Octopus on Black Rice; Honeycomb Tripe in a Chorizo-Pimento Nage; Oslo Creamed and Pickled Herring; Tuna Burger with Wasabi Mayo; Olive Oil Gelato with Rosemary Shortbread . . .

  Not that I had anything against bacon and seafood, cow’s stomach, Norwegian delicacies, or a tuna puck with green mayonnaise. And truth be told, the man’s olive oil gelato was absolutely delicious.

  But receipts didn’t lie.

  While five years ago Manhattan’s food critics may have crowned Chef Tad Hopkins a “culinary prodigy,” here and now, in our Georgetown Jazz Space, the man’s gourmet fare was a resounding flop.

  The only nights that our kitchen made a profit were Tuesdays and Wednesdays, the chef’s days off, when Luther ran the kitchen—and whipped up his down-home daily specials.

  Several times I tried to speak to our executive chef about his menu, but he refused to listen. So tonight, I’d come in to hear customer feedback with my own ears.

  In the meantime, I noticed Stan talking into Gard’s ear. A few minutes later, my co-manager swallowed the last of his sticky wings, wiped his lips of the tangy-sweet goodness, and cleared his throat.

  “So, Abby, what do you think of coming back next Saturday night? To perform, I mean?”

  “But there’s no Open Mike on S
aturdays.”

  “Our headliner canceled, so this would be a paid gig. Besides, Sticks insisted I ask.” Gard nudged the drummer until Stan grinned behind his Captain America eye patch. “I think he’s hot to play that duet you two have been working on.”

  “Oh, that would be awesome!” Abby cried, then turned to Stan. “But are we ready? There are still some rough spots.”

  Stan shrugged. “So we’ll practice every day. We have a week.”

  I could see the excitement in Abby’s eyes. “I’d like to . . .”

  “Then do it,” Gardner said. “You’ve got the chops—”

  “And the butts,” Stan added.

  Abby blinked. “Butts?”

  “Butts in the seats!” He leaned close. “You have fans, girlfriend. If Gardner puts up a sign downstairs that Abby Lane will be playing a full set next Saturday night, these folks—and more—will be back to hear you perform.”

  “Say yes,” Gard urged. “My band can back you, right, guys?”

  “Heck, yeah!”

  Abby grinned and silently nodded. Yes!

  “See that, Clare, my booking problem is over . . .” Then Gard gave them a taste of their future introduction. “And now, ladies and gentlemen, the world premiere of Abby Lane with ‘Three’ on the Floor!”

  As the boys applauded, I joined in. Only one person in the room lacked any cheer—Agent Sharon Cage.

  The wider Abby grinned, the deeper the Secret Service agent frowned.

  Six

  “AND you only learned about Abby that night?” Mike Quinn pressed, eyes on the road. “You weren’t aware she’d been coming to your Jazz Space for weeks?”

  From the passenger seat, I shook my head. “My primary management responsibility was the coffee shop trade—early in the morning to late afternoon. I was only there that night to help Gard sort out the problems with our dinner menu.”

  “It’s hard to believe nobody recognized her.”

  “No, it isn’t. Not with those big, retro glasses. And her hair was so different. In the few photos I remember from her father’s campaign, she had curly blond hair. As Abby Lane, her hair was straight and ebony black . . .”

  As I paused to clear my throat, I tumbled into a tailspin of coughing.

  Quinn reached a hand into the backseat and produced a clear plastic bottle. “Sip this, Clare. You’ve been talking nonstop since we left Washington . . .”

  The stark glare of the setting sun rays revealed the deep lines etched into his face. Brown stubble, a shade darker than his sandy hair, now dotted his jutting chin. I knew he was getting tired, but his steady blue gaze never left the windshield.

  I stared at the bottled water he’d given me. “I’d really prefer a double espresso with my primo Sulawesi.”

  “If you crave caffeine, we can stop at one of those places.”

  Quinn jerked his head in the direction of a billboard for the most ubiquitous coffee and pastry franchise in the USA.

  I frowned. “You said making a stop would be dangerous. In this instance, I agree.”

  He cracked a smile and then the window, filling the vehicle with the cool whistling wind of fresh country air.

  I unscrewed the bottle and took a gulp. The water was lukewarm, but it soothed my talk-tired throat. Quinn must have been reading my mind.

  “You want to give your vocal cords a rest for a couple of minutes?”

  “What I want is for you to do some talking.”

  “Me?”

  “I’ve shown you plenty of trust. How about you return the favor?”

  On a long exhale, Quinn nodded and finally gave me a briefing on our situation. And brief was the word.

  In a nutshell, I was a wanted woman.

  Now most women my age would consider that a compliment. I would, too, if it didn’t involve the possibility of a “Wanted” bulletin being issued to every police precinct in the country. To be painfully specific, Mike learned that I’d become the primary suspect in a case of cold-blooded murder.

  And that was the better news.

  “What else?” I pressed. “You’re holding something back.”

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart, but the feds want to bring you in for ‘questioning,’ too.”

  “On what? The DC murder?”

  “No. Conspiracy to kidnap the President’s daughter.”

  “What?!”

  We discussed the situation for many more minutes. But the bottom line was an ugly truth—the local charge would reinforce the fed’s belief that I was a “bad guy.”

  “If it were only the homicide charge, I would have brought you a top lawyer,” Quinn said, “but the federal involvement makes it too heavy. Once they take you in for something like that, I’d have no chance of contacting you, helping you sort out the real truth, and . . .”

  “And? And what?”

  He took a breath, blew out air. “I know the kind of tactics they’d use to loosen your tongue.”

  “Aggressive interrogation?”

  “I can’t let you go through that. Or let them railroad you on a set of circumstantial evidence.”

  “They’re going to find us, Mike. They’re going to track us down. You know that, right?”

  “I know. But this little flight of ours will buy us time.”

  “Enough time to find answers? To hand the authorities the truth instead of me?”

  “And me. We’re in this together now. I’m helping you evade the police. Whatever they think you did, they can call me an accessory . . .”

  I squeezed my eyes shut, wanting to scream. Instead, I filled my lungs with the fresh country air.

  I hated that Mike was putting himself in jeopardy like this. But I trusted him. If we were on the run, then we needed to be—and there was no easier way to straighten out this colossal tangle.

  When my eyes opened again, I felt calmer, though there wasn’t much to see. A lonely stretch of trees and guardrails. A small town came and went. Weeds, guardrails, and more weeds—fitting, since we were in them. Then a sign appeared, and Quinn made a turn.

  “What’s our destination?”

  “Baltimore.”

  “Baltimore?!”

  We’d been on the back roads since we left DC. Certainly, the Baltimore–Washington Parkway would have been a much easier route. I mentioned that to Quinn.

  “Easier to be found, too,” he said. “Remember, this isn’t my vehicle, and that should keep us off the radar. But the feds have facial recognition tools and ungodly tracking resources. If they see us on a highly traveled highway, we could be tracked by helicopter, traced by a Stingray tower, or pursued by a drone.”

  At a red light, Quinn turned to me. “They’ll be looking for us on those main highways. It’s the last place we should go.”

  Quinn continued to stick to the roads less taken.

  “So what’s in Baltimore?” I finally asked.

  I heard a crack as Quinn stretched his neck.

  “Rest and a change of vehicles—”

  “Speaking of which, whose SUV is this, anyway? I hope to heaven you didn’t steal it.”

  “Borrowed. A co-worker had to take personal leave unexpectedly—flew to another state to be with a sick parent. I agreed to get his vehicle out of the shop for him, so I had his keys. No one else knows.”

  “We’re car thieves, too?”

  “I fully intend to get his property back to him.”

  “Without bullet holes, I hope.”

  “That’s the idea.”

  “Is that all we’re after in Baltimore? Rest and a new vehicle?”

  “There’s a good lead, too, I think . . .”

  He took back the bottle and drained it.

  I touched his arm. “The tension is tiring you. Why don’t you let me drive?”

  “What I want is for
you to grab another water from the backseat, and tell me more.”

  “About Abby?”

  “About the second time you saw her. When was it exactly?”

  “A week and a day after I met her. Remember Nox Horrenda? Well, this was that horrible night.”

  “What night of the week was it?”

  “Thursday—and it didn’t start off badly. Gard and I had talked all day about Abby’s big headliner debut on Saturday. We were ready, except for the fact that our menu was still a major problem, which is why I broke into my own coffeehouse.”

  “You what?”

  “Okay, technically I didn’t. But I did.”

  “What happened? Did you forget your keys?”

  “On the contrary, I brought every passkey with me.”

  Quinn shot me a glance. “Okay, Cosi, I’m officially intrigued. Better take it from the top.”

  After a long swig of water, I did.

  Seven

  WEARING black boots, black jeans, and a black trench coat, I disarmed the security system and slipped through the front door.

  The table and chairs on our deserted first floor appeared cobwebbed with shadows, but I avoided turning on any lights; and when a Metro DC police cruiser rolled down Wisconsin, I hid in the gloom until it slipped out of sight.

  While I had a perfect right to enter the business I managed, tonight I didn’t want witnesses. So I moved with extreme stealth until a noise on the second floor froze my feet.

  First came laughter. Then a few bright bars of jazz . . .

  Gardner and his bandmates must be having an after-hours jam session.

  Explaining to Gard what I was doing here would be uncomfortable, but it was far better than another shouting session with my hotheaded chef, who I prayed was long gone.

  Moving to DC seemed an exciting change, and I naively assumed that things would go swimmingly. They might have, too, except for one giant shark in the tank—a beady-eyed shark with a blond buzz cut, a juvenile smirk, and a great white jacket.

  It was Chef Tad Hopkins who pushed me to this new low in my management career—snooping around my own coffeehouse.