Black Ember (2 page)

Speaking of which, she had to remember that she was Carrie now, not Caryn. Carrie Sawyer, looking for work in the fastest-growing economy in the country. An hour’s Google searching at the airport while she waited for her connection had told her all she needed to know about Conway: jobs were abundant, oilmen had money to spend, and Buddy’s Tavern was open seven days a week.

“You know what,” she said. “On second thought, I would love a ride.” She could worry about lodging later. For now, she might as well do exactly what she’d come to North Dakota to do: find out as much as she could about her biological father before she decided whether to get to know him or to take the next flight home to New York and consider this chapter of her life forever closed. And because of the care she’d taken to disguise her all-too-recognizable face and hair, with any luck, the tabloids would never find out either way.

#

“You know, there are lots of good job opportunities right here in town,” Sam said as they drove out of Conway.

“I know, but my friend said I could make good money in tips at Buddy’s,” Caryn lied. The same Google session had turned up the sad fact that Buddy’s was looking to hire a waitress, probably because Buddy was unable to work any more. It made for convenient cover.

“I’m sure the girls at the Black Swan make good tips,” he insisted. “And it’s a real nice place.”
 “I’m sure it is,” Caryn said, thinking Buddy’s must be even more of a dive than her mother had led her to believe since Sam seemed to think anywhere else would be better.

He turned down a narrow country lane, the tires jouncing on the worn, weedy tracks. At an intersection with another farm road, he made a slow right-hand turn into a dirt lot. The noonday sun poured down on a long, low cinderblock building. Neon signs in the windows advertised various brands of beer, but nowhere was there any indication of the bar’s name.

“Thank you so very much!” Caryn chirped as Sam idled in front of the door. It was hard not to offer him money to compensate for his time, but “Carrie” was broke, and she needed to stay in character. “I am so grateful for your kindness.”

“My pleasure, dear,” Sam said, tipping his hat. “Me and the wife’ll be praying for you.”

Caryn watched him leave, clutching the handle of her duffle bag tightly, as she realized that she couldn’t remember the last time a stranger had done something nice for any reason other than she was famous. She was still contemplating the complicated tangle of emotions that stirred in her when the door clattered open and an older woman with a beehive hairdo came out, cupping her hands around the cigarette dangling from her lips.

“Oh!” Caryn said when she realized the woman was struggling with the lighter. “May I help?”

She didn’t approve of smoking, but she understood that it was still common in some parts of the country, and besides, spending the entire morning in disguise had given her a whole new outlook on life. She was accustomed to people staring and whispering her name as she passed; the boldest would ask for autographs or tell her how much they loved her designs, or her stepfather’s latest film, or her mother’s work on her many causes. Caryn had a lifetime’s practice in graciously thanking her fans while subtly distancing them.

But as Carrie, the people in LaGuardia and the Minneapolis airport didn’t look admiring at all. Their frank, assessing stares made her regret the flimsy tank top and short skirt she had selected to go with her fake eyebrow and nose rings and the studded leather belt and cuff.

“Sure thing, doll,” the older woman said, extending her lighter with a shaking hand. “Damn tremors make it hard to get the damn thing lit.”

Caryn sparked a flame and held it while the woman inhaled deeply, then handed the lighter back.

“Thanks, sweetie,” the woman said. “I can see it’s my lucky day. Yours too.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re here about the waitress job, aren’t you? You’ll love it, I promise. And I could sure use the help since we lost Ellen.”

The pieces fell suddenly into place. This woman was an employee, not a customer. Which meant…could she be Buddy’s
wife
? She looked closer to seventy than sixty, but maybe she was merely weathered, as smoking was damaging to the skin. Or maybe Buddy had married someone older, after his disastrous affair with her mother.

Caryn glanced at the woman’s ring finger, where a tiny diamond sparkled on a thin gold band. Her bio-dad…
married
. Well, it made sense, didn’t it? What was he supposed to do, spend his life grieving a failed affair?

Don’t forget, he also left behind a baby
, Caryn chided herself fiercely as she felt herself softening toward the man who had fathered her. She was here to learn why he left, not to forget how badly he had failed her. And fate had delivered up the perfect chance for her to play private detective of her own life.

“Yes,” Caryn said firmly. “I can start today.”

Zane was mashed between Chase and Jimmy in the jump seat of Matthew’s battered red pickup. The guest of honor rode shotgun and his future sister-in-law drove while treating them to an uninterrupted torrent of un-asked-for advice.

“Don’t forget to drink at least one glass of water for every ounce of alcohol you consume,” she fretted as she pulled into Buddy’s parking lot.

“You already said that,” Jimmy pointed out.

“Well, I’m saying it again. Remember that salted food will bloat you, and we all want to look our best for photos, don’t we?”

“Right,” Matthew said, opening the door the minute she rolled to a stop and jumping out. “Thanks Deneen, love you, bye.”

The rest of them beat their own hasty exit. Zane followed Matthew into the bar, hoping that Deneen wouldn’t have second thoughts and pursue them. She had interrupted their dinner to take pictures and make sure they weren’t getting too rowdy and then insisted on driving them to the bar, even though they had already been planning to get a ride from a friend.

Women
, Zane thought as his eyes adjusted to the dim lighting in the tavern. Buddy’s was doing a brisk Thursday night business, every seat at the bar taken and most of the tables as well. There was Opal, rushing around with a tray full of drinks, while Turk mixed drinks and wiped down the bar as though he had an extra set of hands.

“Are you drinking or just looking?” a female voice demanded behind him. “Because I don’t have all day.”

He turned to find himself staring at a woman with enough piercings in her face to set off a metal detector. Besides the hoops in her nose and eyebrows, she sported clips on both ears and a leather choker studded with brass nailheads. Her thick eyeliner had smudged, and her lipstick was a garish purple.

“Excuse me,” Zane said coolly. Naturally, his friends had moved through the bar to a table near the back, leaving him here to deal with the hostile biker chick. “I wasn’t aware that I was in your way.”

“You’re not,” she snapped. “I’m taking your order.” When he still didn’t respond, she added with a roll of her eyes, “I’m the new waitress.”

“Oh,” Zane said, surprised. Buddy had told him just the other day that he’d pretty much given up on finding another waitress unless he could compete with the signing bonus that The Black Swan was offering or the hourly wages that Wal-Mart was paying. Evidently, he’d had to settle for an incompetent and unfriendly candidate instead. “Well, then, I guess I’ll take a beer. No, wait, make that a couple of pitchers, to that table back there.”

He pointed to the back of the bar, but she was already gone, threading her way toward the bar. Jimmy watched her ass sway as she moved, thinking it was a damn shame that such a fine body was inhabited by such an unpleasant personality.

At their table, Chase was telling the story of how Jimmy came to join the football team during their junior year of high school. The story had already been told once earlier in the evening while they were enjoying massive rib eye steaks and baked potatoes at DuBonnet’s.

This second, drunker version of the Jimmy story went off on a wandering tangent punctuated by hoots of derision and comments that had nothing to do with the subject, but everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves, and that was what mattered. But when Chase changed the subject to a discussion of which of their middle school teachers had been the hottest, and the surly biker chick waitress still hadn’t shown up with the pitchers, Zane decided to go see what the problem was.

He spotted Opal, the waitress who had been working at Buddy’s ever since it opened, moving among the tables with a tray, dropping off a drink here and a tart remark there. Despite her age, Zane was pretty sure Opal could handle the place by herself on an ordinary night, but on weekends, the locals came out in force. Unlike the oilmen who frequented the bars in town seven nights a week, most of the folks who came to Buddy’s had been doing so before the oil boom ever started, and would be here long after it was over. There were ranchers and delivery men and truckers, cops and firemen and shop owners and even the mayor once in a while. The locals had been suspicious of the bunkhouse crew at first, but after a few months of beer and darts and small talk, Zane and his roommates had started to blend in. And now that Chase’s girlfriend Regina, a country music talent scout who lived in Nashville, was booking acts a couple of times a month, people seemed to have forgotten that they were ever outsiders.

 There was no live music tonight, though. Buddy had canceled all performances until he could find enough help to serve every thirsty customer. And it was a good thing, too, because from the looks of it, the bartender was being taxed to his limit.

 “Hey, Turk,” Zane called over the shoulders of the customers lining the bar waiting for their drinks. “I can see you’ve got your hands full, but our waitress seems to have forgotten our pitchers.”

 “I don't guess you mean Opal,” Turk scowled as he slapped a drink down in front of an older gentleman and pocketed the tip left by another customer.

 “No, it was the new girl. The, ah, forceful one.”

 “That’d be Carrie, aka Barracuda. Opal hired her this afternoon, though I think she’s beginning to have second thoughts. Opal tried to train her during happy hour and the gal didn’t even know what a well drink was. She said she was experienced, but that’s got to be a bald-faced lie because she didn’t even know how to write up a tab. By the time we got the basics drilled into her, place was filling up.” Turk shrugged. “And it’s been pretty much like this ever since.”

 “Huh. Buddy did say he was getting pretty desperate to find someone…”

 “Yeah, he really wants to keep his weekends free for Melanie, but if this chick doesn’t work out he won’t have any choice but to come in and help out.” Turk grabbed a couple of plastic pitchers from a cabinet and pulled the taps to fill them, angling the pitchers expertly to get the perfect foamy head on top. “Between you and me, Buddy could have hired Bullet, and he would have done a better job than that girl.” Turk’s old hunting dog was a regular fixture at the bar on slow nights; Turk had trained him to carry checks to customers, though he couldn’t be trusted around the popcorn and pretzels.

 “I heard that.”

 Zane turned to see the waitress elbowing her way to the bar. A faint sheen of perspiration shone on her forehead, and her hair looked even more disheveled than it had earlier. One of the buttons on her shirt had fallen off, revealing the skull design on the tank top underneath. Most bizarrely, rivulets of some dark brown liquid were tracing their way down her face and neck, staining the neckline of the tank top. It almost looked like she’d poured a glass of prune juice over her head—which, given the heat generated by the press of bodies, might not be the worst idea in the world.

 “Well, if you heard that, Barracuda, what stopped you from hearing that table in back wondering where their order was?” Turk groused. He pushed the pitchers across the bar at Zane, who started digging in his pocket for his wallet.

 Barracuda-slash-Carrie turned and glared at Zane. “Did you call me over to your table?”

 “Well, no, not technically,” Zane said, peeling off a handful of bills. “I sort of thought we’d do our chatting when you brought our drinks.”

 “I was getting to that,” she snapped. “As you can probably see, there are a lot of customers here.”

 “It might help if you didn’t keep messing up the orders,” Turk said, pushing the bills back at Zane. “Don’t worry pal, this round’s on the house. To make up for our employee issue.”

 The waitress stood up straighter, her eyes narrowing. “The only
employee
issue I can see here is that there aren’t enough staff. And, you’ve got a lousy business model if you’re giving product away.”

 She turned and stalked off toward a four-top where three men and a woman were belting out an old Willie Nelson tune along with the jukebox.

 “Man,” Zane said. “I don’t suppose Buddy knows about this yet.”

 “He knows Opal hired someone,” Turk said, his irritation giving way to worry, his leathery forehead creased. Zane knew that despite his long hair and beard, leather vest and tattoos, Turk cared deeply about his boss, who had served with him in Iraq. “But he doesn’t know what she’s gotten us into. And I’m not inclined to tell him until Monday…”

 “Yeah, I understand,” Zane said. “Anything I can do?”

 Turk snorted a laugh, already moving down the bar. “Two problems with that. First, you’re none too steady on your feet, son, and second, unlike Barracuda, you ain’t near pretty enough to make up for sucking at your job.”

 Caryn watched the tall, lanky customer head back to the table where his friends waited, sloshing beer the whole way. Beer which, Opal had made clear, Caryn would be mopping up before she clocked out for the night.

 She hadn’t exactly forgotten the group in the back; as she struggled to catch up on her tables’ orders, she just kept putting off bringing them their beer. It wasn’t anything personal, but she’d overheard them say they were celebrating a bachelor party, and that brought up some rather tender memories.