Agent Ren Bryce Thriller Series Books 1-3: Blood Runs Cold, Time of Death, Blood Loss

Billy smiled. ‘I’m sorry. That wasn’t very nice.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘So, what are you reading?’

‘The Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon.’

‘That is one of my favorite books.’

He nodded. ‘Me too. It’s just so strange. And so beautifully written.’

‘Show it to me.’

He frowned. ‘OK.’

He walked toward her and lay the book on the bar. Ren leaned in to look at it, but whispered to him: ‘Could you take our friend’s beer bottle, so I can run his prints?’

‘Sure,’ said Billy. ‘Now?’

‘Well not, like, right now, no.’ She smiled. ‘But yes – tonight.’

‘Sure.’

After finishing his beer, the guy finally left. Billy waited a while, then went to his table. He put a napkin around the top of the bottle and took it into the back room behind the bar. He stayed back there a while. Ren started flicking through the book. When she turned around, she realized the bar was empty. She could hear Billy rolling kegs of beer somewhere. She caught a glimpse of him through the doorway. The last confidential informant she’d dealt with had been an ever-moaning man – five-foot nothing and fought the world to gain a few more inches in height.

‘Are you OK out there?’ Billy shouted.

‘Yes. I’m fine.’

‘I’ll be out in a little while,’ he said.

Why am I still here? ‘OK.’

She wandered around the bar, looking at the photos on the wall, the madam’s ‘girls’ dressed up to look older and primmer than they may have been. She started to read the yellowed newspaper cuttings about them being run out of Boston to Denver and finally settling in their famed out-of-town spot by Quandary Peak. Billy came down to join her when he was done.

‘Can I ask you about Mark Allen Wilson – the missing guy?’ said Ren.

Billy frowned. ‘Sure.’

‘What happened the Saturday night between him and Terrence Haggart?’

‘Wilson came in here in the afternoon and started drinking. A couple of hours later, Terrence Haggart came in – he was a regular.’

‘What was he like?’

‘Terrence Haggart thought the world owed him a living. He’d get aggressive with lottery tickets that didn’t have the right numbers printed on them.’

Ren smiled.

‘He was always disagreeing with people about sports or work or women. He would just pick the opposing view of whoever he was talking to. I’d see it played out in front of me every time. I used to hope he’d meet someone who would take him from his bar stool to a booth, so I wouldn’t have to listen to his bullshit. He was ignorant.’

‘Can I guess that you served him hard liquor?’ said Ren.

‘What – as opposed to soda?’

‘No. I just heard he was charming, depending what kind of alcohol was coursing through his veins.’

Billy rolled his eyes. ‘Sure, whatever. I guess in the early stages of an evening, yes. But it was the later stages that left the lasting impression on me. I mean, he had a party guy rep, but he’s not the kind of guy I’d want to party with.’

‘And what was Mark Wilson like?’

‘A heavy drinker, but a harmless one, from what I saw. He’d only been here once or twice before the night he disappeared.’

‘So what happened that night?’

‘I got the impression they knew each other. So it was all friendly until Haggart had one of his lottery-ticket meltdowns. Wilson started laughing at him. Haggart went ballistic and said if Wilson hadn’t owed him so much money, he wouldn’t have been in such a desperate need of a lottery win.’

Ren rolled her eyes. ‘God, alcohol sucks people into the most petty bullshit.’

‘Tell me about it,’ said Billy. ‘Anyway, they start punching the crap out of each other. I try and get between them. I break it up for a little while. Then Wilson starts calling him Terrence Jackpot Haggart. Haggart loses it, pushes him out into the parking lot, kicks the shit out of him and leaves him there. He comes back in for a few drinks. And a couple days later, we hear Wilson’s disappeared.’

‘How come you let Wilson leave alone when he was clearly so drunk, he had been beaten up, and it was a freezing cold night?’ said Ren.

‘Have you ever worked in a bar?’

‘Yes … when I was in college.’

‘Well, was it a nicer bar than this?’

She smiled. ‘It was in a five-star hotel. But … all bars serve alcohol. And last time I checked, alcohol has a pretty similar effect on people with pockets full of cash and people with pockets full of unobliging lottery tickets.’

Billy smiled. ‘OK. But at least you will acknowledgeit was a bar, not a day-care center.’

‘I will.’

‘And no matter what, the pretty girl serving the drinks on a tray doesn’t have to subdue the drunks,’ said Billy.

‘Ah, but I worked the door,’ said Ren.

‘What?’ said Billy.

She nodded. ‘So maybe you could have done with me that night.’

‘Maybe I could have,’ he said. ‘So, are you working the Wilson case?’

‘No,’ said Ren. ‘I said I’d look into it as a favor. I’m keeping track of my man-hours, so if it goes over a particular number, I will stop.’

‘How many hours?’

‘About one point five.’