Page 153 of Sunset Beach
“What do you say to Miss Drue?” Yvonne said.
Aliyah beamed. “Thank you.”
Yvonne walked Drue to the front door. “Tell your daddy I said I’m still his client,” Yvonne said. “And about that man with the potential? You tell him for me that I said he needs to step up and do right by a nice girl like you, got a good job and a car of her own and a pretty daddy.”
62
Drue was sitting in a back booth at Mastry’s Bar when Zee walked up. He slid onto the bench opposite hers, already looking distinctly uncomfortable. She’d ordered a chardonnay for herself and a beer for him.
He took a long pull on the beer. “Brice tells me you’ve agreed to the new job. That’s good news for both of us, right?”
“It is,” Drue said. “Thanks for the recommendation.”
She hefted a cardboard box onto the tabletop and pushed it toward him. “I brought you something.”
“You didn’t have to do that…” He opened the box, and lifted out the black binder. He rifled through the pages, nodding. “Where’d you find it?”
“In a crate of Dad’s stuff, up in the attic at the cottage,” Drue said. “I think I know why you took it, but I can’t figure out how it ended up there.”
“I put it there, and then I completely forgot about it.”
“When?”
He scratched his chin as he pondered the question. “It was the year after I retired, while I was living there.”
“You lived in my cottage?” she said, taken aback.
“Technically, it was still your mom’s cottage back then. I was, as you might say, between relationships at the time, so I rented it for six months, before I bought my condo at Bayfront Towers.”
“I had no idea,” Drue said. “Dad never said anything, and Mom sure didn’t. But then, there was a whole lot she never told me.”
Zee took off his sunglasses and swung them by the earpiece. He settled back in the booth. “Brice told me you had a lot of questions about Colleen Hicks. So that’s what this meeting is about?”
Before she could answer, a hand gripped her shoulder. Brice stood there. “Mind if I join you?”
The waiter appeared and Brice ordered a double martini.
When they were alone again, Zee opened the box and showed his friend the contents.
“Son of a bitch,” Brice said.
“Yeah,” Zee agreed. “She found it in the attic at the cottage.”
“So you did take it,” Brice said, nodding. “I wondered.”
“I’ve read most of the file,” Drue said. “And I talked to Vera Rennick, who has her own theories, but I’d appreciate it if you two would just please tell me the truth.”
“You might not like it,” Zee warned.
“I’m a big girl. I think I can handle it,” Drue countered.
Zee sipped his beer. “Yeah, you keep telling me that.”
“I told Drue I was having a thing with Colleen,” Brice said. “She’d already guessed that much.”
“Vera told me Colleen’s husband was abusive,” Drue said.
“That’s putting it mildly. Allen Hicks was a sadistic drunk,” Brice said.
