Damage Read Online Free Page B

are in town, so she's going out to dinner with them. Walter only shows up if Toni's coming because he's trying to get in her pants, so he won't be here. Anita has play rehearsal tonight, Mac's at his son's hockey game, and no one can get hold of Scott."
    "And Charlie?"
    "He said he doesn't feel like it," she said in a mocking tone.
    They sat in silence for a few minutes. Becky finished the last drops hiding underneath the ice in her glass while Ray stared at the bottles behind the bar and recalled details from the groundbreaking he could use when writing the article for Monday's edition of the Citizen-Gazette.
    "I think I got some good shots today," he absentmindedly said.
    "Did you use the new camera?" Becky asked.
    "Yes."
    More silence.
    "Can you go for another drink?" he asked.
    "Yes," she said, nodding cartoonishly.
    "Should we just go ahead and get good and drunk?" he asked.
    Becky slapped her hand down hard to signify her approval, startling the young blonde bartender who had been sitting on a stool hunched over a paperback novel at the far end of the bar.
    "Two more of whatever that was," Ray ordered, pointing at Becky's empty glass. He turned back to Becky. "Keys."
    They each took a set of keys from their coat pockets and placed them on the counter. Ray worked his fingernails into the coiled metal to remove the thick car keys from both rings. Once finished, he reached over the bar and dropped them into an oversize martini glass where they joined one other lonely key. Ray glanced around again and saw only the one couple still seated at their table eating nachos.
    "Did somebody forget to come back for their car?" Ray asked the bartender when she presented their drinks.
    "Huh?" she asked, then looked in the glass. She shrugged and leaned back to yell into the kitchen behind the bar. "Marco! Do you know whose key this is?"
    A short man with receding hair pulled back in a long ponytail poked his head through the open doorway. He smiled when he saw Becky and Ray, and stepped out to greet them. His young bartender towered over him.
    "Yeah, yeah," he said. He turned the key over in his wet hands. "This is all I have to show for hiring that alcoholic you recommended to me. That's why I had to bring her in." He twitched his head toward the blond girl standing next to him. He snapped the key down in front of Ray. "Hard to run a bar without a bar manager."
    Back about seven or eight months earlier, Ray talked Marco into interviewing his high school friend. Jake had been clean for almost a year at that point and had committed to cleaning up and living a productive life. Even Ray's cousin Billy, the sheriff's deputy, had reconnected with their old fraternity brother. Through the fall, Jake could often be found at Billy's home on the weekends, helping out with projects, watching football, or playing cards with Billy and his wife, Amy. Jake finally seemed to be taking charge of his life instead of following his addictions.
    Then, five days ago, he vanished. Marco immediately panicked and took inventory of his liquor supply, but Jake hadn't stolen a single bottle. Even his till, up to the last night he worked, balanced out to the penny. There was no sign of theft, or embezzlement. No sign Jake had fallen off the wagon. He simply didn't show up to work. Since then, as far as Ray knew, neither he nor any of their mutual friends had been in contact with Jake.
    "Drunk bastard shows up here yesterday, just like that out of nowhere, and asks me to open a tab for him," Marco said.
    "You were supposed to call me if you saw him," Ray said, voice heavily laced with annoyance. He held up the key. "How did you get this off him?"
    "That cop friend of yours..."
    "You mean Billy?" Ray asked.
    Marco shrugged. "Whatever his name. He shows up, too, and takes that drunk bastard home. I already took his car keys from him, so he don't kill nobody on the road. I pulled it around back last night so it don't junk up my parking lot."
    Ray stared at the key,