Arrow's Rest, Joel Scott [best book club books TXT] 📗

to prison. Danny had been released a month before him, and when Jared’s time was up Danny was waiting at the gates and took him home to the spare room in his family’s house in the East End. Within a month Jared was closer to the First Nations family than to the austere remnants of his own. That was over a dozen years ago now, and he hadn’t been in touch with his grandparents since he left their house for the last time on his way to prison. It was the way they all wanted it.

Danny was a little heavier now than when they first met, and had maybe a thread of silver showing here and there in his thick black hair, but he still moved like warm grease and was as dangerous a man as you could hope to find. With a Scots father and First Nations mother he was light complexioned and sometimes taken for Asian in the cosmopolitan city of Vancouver. But his loyalties ran deep, and in some ways he was more traditional than even his Haida brothers. Family was always first in Danny’s book.

“How is your sister doing?” he asked Cat.

“Better, I think. She still doesn’t remember much of anything though. Not surprising, I guess, given what she’s been through. She does remember hearing a constant noise. Like an engine running in the background. And loud music playing the whole time; opera, she thinks, although she’s not really sure of anything, she was in and out of consciousness. Maybe from the drugs Clarke mentioned, as well as the viciousness of the assault itself. Bastards. We have to find them. Have you heard anything?”

“Nothing worth mentioning as yet. I’ve put the word around, but it’s still early days,” Danny said. “I’ve spoken with Clarke; it seems damned strange about the drop-offs on the benches around Stanley Park. Why make such an obvious connection between the incidents? Unless it’s just pure arrogance and whoever it is figures he’s above it all and can’t be touched. That would certainly go along with this crowd. Check out all the high rollers in here. I’m amazed that they even let you through the door, Jared.”

“C’mon,” Jared said. “They let in Indians, for Christ’s sake.”

“Jared!” Cat said in a shocked voice. She still didn’t get the two of them sometimes . . .

“My bad. I should have said First Nations.”

“Well, there is that,” Danny said. He turned to Cat. “I need a recent picture of your sister, something I can show around, and maybe a few others to hand out as well. The more information we put out there, the better our chances of finding something out.”

“I printed a bunch up,” Cat said. She pulled some photos out of her purse and laid them on the table. Danny picked one up and studied it.

“Pretty lady,” he said. “Beautiful even. People will remember her. I know the manager here; I’ll talk to him and find out who was on duty that night. Maybe he saw something he didn’t tell the police. Sometimes people don’t want to get involved. Then there’s the video from that night to check.”

“Clarke told us the police have already done that,” Cat said.

“Yes, but I’ll lay odds they didn’t see the inside surveillance. The video the club will swear on stacked bibles they don’t have because that would be an infringement of their patrons’ privacy. That lead I mentioned?” Danny leaned towards them and dropped his voice. “Erin’s son has a friend who sometimes helps out behind the bar on busy nights and does early cleanup the following morning. She’s coming in later on tonight and he says she’s okay about talking with us. In the meantime let’s have a few drinks, do some crowd watching.”

It was a typical midweek bar scene with couples chatting comfortably at tables and most of the singles lined up along the bar and regularly changing places in a shifting complex social pattern. If you watched closely enough, you could see the winners and the losers, the acceptance and rejection, and the studied casualness that overlaid the desperation of it all. The music was loud and catchy, the flash of teeth was everywhere, and none of it seemed much like fun.

“God, it’s all so depressing,” Cat said after a while.

“Even Jared must look pretty good to you compared to that sad shuffle,” Danny said, nodding towards the bar.

“Let’s not get carried away,” Cat said.

“Screw the pair of you,” Jared said amiably.

Cat smiled and put her hand over his. “Never mind, luv, another few drinks and I’m sure you’ll look just fine. I might even let you take me home if you get me drunk enough. Oh bugger, here comes some of the studio crowd.”

A half dozen overdressed people swept up to the table and grabbed Cat up in a blizzard of hugs and kisses. A small exquisite blonde stood apart from them, frowning at the scrum. She looked slightly familiar, and Jared thought he had seen her picture somewhere. She couldn’t possibly be over fifteen years old, and he doubted she weighed ninety pounds. The gamine was dressed in a matelot sweater, white slacks, and a pair of distressed combat boots. Given the company she was with, he didn’t doubt her outfit had cost more than his entire wardrobe.

“What the fuck are you staring at, mate,” the urchin uttered in a nasal Kiwi accent.

“Sorry,” Jared said, startled. “I was wondering how you managed to sneak into the club.”

“I’m plenty old enough, sport. You one of those pervs that likes the young ones then, are ya? Not in your wildest dreams, you sick bastard. You fancy a quick kick in the goolies then?” She shuffled her booted feet.

Jesus Christ.

The words coming out of that angelic countenance were so incongruous he was almost speechless. “I’m with Cat,” Jared stammered.

“Oh, you’re the one with the old wooden sailboat,” she said, her expression changing. She grabbed Jared’s arm and pulled up a chair beside him. “Sorry about