Page 43 of Licks

“I can’t picture your mother drinking.”

“I can’t picture her smiling or laughing or dancing. Drinking is tame compared to that. And this isn’t about her, anyway. I couldn’t care less what she was like. None of it changes the woman I knew.”

Her defensiveness said otherwise. Not that she’d listen to me. Gwen was stubborn like that. My fingers slipped through her hair in slow strokes. She clasped my wrist, stilling the movements. “I think this is our next clue, where we should go. If this guy knew the owner and he’s still around, we might get answers.”

Ted Mercer, I almost blurted. That’s your father’s name.

He’d lived in Oakland, only twenty minutes from his daughter. I hadn’t dug deeper, no point after learning he’d passed, but I had the name she’d sought her entire life.

I nearly spoke it aloud, but I clamped my mouth shut. Not because of my guilt or knowing my deception could obliterate our fragile footing. Not fully, at least. There were too many coincidences piling up: her mother’s letter to me, my choice to delay, Mary’s death, her luggage. A journal offering more insight into that woman than Gwen had gleaned in twenty-eight years. Like everything was happening for a reason, including learning about Mary Hamilton.

Gwen could pretend these scraps of information meant nothing. I saw how her eyes had widened when peering at that dancing photo in the TASC center, how she’d sucked in an amazed breath when Loretta Walsh had called Mary and her sister the Sunshine Girls.

Not knowing her father had always been a thorn in Gwen’s side, but living with a frigid mother had been the larger bruise on her childhood. This journey could help her understand what had stripped the light from Mary Hamilton’s world, lead Gwen to accept the woman Mary had been. That type of closure was invaluable. Plus, the odds of Gwen actually learning her father’s name before I left were slim to none. I’d have time to explain after.

“If that’s our next clue, then we better get on it,” I said.

“Badass PI partners?”

“As long as you don’t go telling anyone else I get the shits.”

She cackled. “I make no promises. And”—she held the napkin flat and read the writing on it—“looks like our next stop is the Blue-Eyed Raven.”

I reared back, stunned into silence. Three rough swallows later, I found my voice. “The Blue-Eyed Raven?” Please tell me I heard her wrong.

She nodded. “In Haight-Ashbury.”

Just my twisted luck. Another coincidence, this one as pleasant as chewing rocks.

Of all the bars in all of San Francisco, Mary Hamilton had to have set up camp where my twin brother now worked.

10 p.m., 26 Hours…

Gwen

According to August, the Blue-Eyed Raven was a Haight-Ashbury fixture, the sprawling bar once home to performing greats like Neil Young and Joni Mitchell. In its heyday, smoke had curled through the three-hundred-seat supper club, guitar licks rippling in the hazy air, weed and booze plentiful. Women had danced with women. Couples had swapped spouses.

Another of Mary Hamilton’s shocking hangouts.

“Is it still popular?” I asked as I parked near the venue.

“Yes.”

“Have you played there?”

“No.”

“Do you want to play there?”

No answer.

I turned off the ignition but didn’t release the key. We’d taken my car, and August had kept his hand at the back of my neck during the drive, his thumb rubbing mindless circles. As nice as the contact had been, the mindless part had been the antithesis of nice. The closer we’d gotten to the club, the quieter he’d become. The louder I wanted to scream.

I opted for confrontation. “What happened to your let’s savor our seconds pact? Because the imposter in this car is freaking me out.”

This entire situation was a giant pile of freak out. I’d shut down on him in my apartment, kept yo-yoing between the consuming desire to touch him and continuing my Popsicle routine, freezing him out. I wanted to thaw, but defrosting could end with me as a gooey, blubbery mess.

August released my neck and massaged his chest like it pained him. Streetlamps and passing cars cast buttery slices of light through the darkness. One spilled through the windshield, emphasizing the broody angles of his face. Without a word to me, he undid his seat belt, pushed open his door, and slammed it shut behind him. My seat vibrated. I vibrated. I wanted to be vibrating with August’s hard length thrusting inside me, not because I was a defrosting Popsicle.