and keep her out of your hair. Where’s the problem?”
Mr. Hennings pressed his lips together and a minuscule, seriously minuscule, part of Brent pitied the man. If he didn’t agree with his wife, his life would be a pile of manure.
Mrs. Hennings shot her husband a meat cleaver of a look, then turned back to Brent. “My husband will call you about this tomorrow. How’s that?”
With limited options, and being more than a little afraid to argue because, hey, he was no dummy either, he grinned at Mr. Hennings. “That’d be great. Thank you.”
* * *
JENNA SLID ONTO one of the worn black vinyl bar stools at Freddie’s Tap House, a mostly empty shot-and-a-beer joint on the North Side of Chicago.
How the place stayed in business, she had no idea. On this Wednesday night the sports bar down the block was packed, while the only people patronizing Freddie’s were an elderly man sitting at the bar and a couple huddled at a table in the back.
The bartender glanced down the bar at her and wandered over. “Evening. Get you something?”
You sure can.
“Whatever’s on tap. Thanks.”
He nodded and scooped a glass from behind the bar, pouring a draft as he eyed her black blazer and the plunging neckline on her cashmere sweater. “Haven’t seen you in here before. New in town?”
As much as she’d tried to dress down with jeans, she hadn’t been able to resist the sweater. When dealing with men, a little help from her feminine wiles—also known as her boobs—never hurt. “Nope. New in here, though.”
“You look more Tiffany’s than Freddie’s.”
Already Jenna liked him. “Are you Freddie?”
“Junior.”
“Sorry?”
“Freddie Junior. My dad is Freddie. I took over when he retired.”
He slid the beer in front of Jenna. Once more she looked around, took in the polished, worn wood of the bar, the six tables along the wall and the line of empty bar stools.
“Slow night,” Freddie said.
Lucky me. She opened her purse, pulled out a fifty and set it on the bar. Next came the photo taken the week prior by a patron in this very bar. He glanced down at the fifty, then at the photo.
“I’m not a cop,” Jenna said. “I’m an investigator working for a law firm.”
“Okay.”
She pointed at the photo of two men with a woman in the background. Jenna needed to find that woman. “Have you seen her in here?”
He picked up the photo and studied it. “Yeah. Couple of times. When a woman like that walks into a beer joint, there’s generally a reason. Kinda like you.”
Figuring it was time to put her cleavage to work, Jenna inched forward, gave him a view of the girls beneath that V-neck and smiled. Most women would love the idea that a fifteen-pound weight gain had gone straight to their chest. Jenna supposed it hadn’t hurt her ability to claw information from men—and maybe she used it to her advantage. But she also wanted to be recognized for extracting the information and not for the way she’d done it.
Did that even make sense? She wasn’t sure anymore. All she knew was her need for positive reinforcement had led her to using her looks to achieve her goals. That meant wearing clingy, revealing clothing. Such a cliché. But the thing about clichés was they worked.
“Any idea what her reason for being here was?”
Freddie took the boob-bait and leaned in. “No. Both times she met someone. Why?”
All Jenna could hope was he’d gotten the woman’s name. “My client is being held on a robbery charge. He says he was in here the night of the robbery and he met this woman. Her name is Robin.”
“Where’d you get the picture?”
“Friends of my client.”
He dropped the picture on the bar and tapped it. “Birthday party, right?”
“Yes. My client and six of his friends. Any idea where I can find her?”
“Nah.”
“Did she pay by credit card?”
If she paid by credit card, there would be a record of the transaction, and Jenna would dig into the Hennings & Solomon coffers and pay Freddie a high, negotiated sum for a look at his credit card receipts. From there, she’d get a name and two calls later would have an address for Robin-the-mystery-woman.
“Cash.”
Shoot.
Freddie may have been lying. Jenna studied him, took in his direct gaze. Not lying. At least she didn’t think so. Again with the wavering? Didn’t she have a good sense about these things? Yes, she did. For that reason she’d go with the theory that Freddie seemed to be a small-business owner who wanted to stay out of trouble while trying to make a living. She dug her card and a pen out of her purse, wrote her cell number on the card and placed it next to the fifty on the bar.
“How about I leave you my card? If she comes in again and you call me, there’s a hundred bucks in it for you.”
Freddie glanced at the card. After a moment, he half shrugged. “Sure. If I see her.”
Jenna took one last sip of her beer, slid off the stool and hitched her purse onto her shoulder. “Thanks.” She nodded toward the fifty. “Keep the change.”
At 9:00 a.m. the following morning, Jenna stepped into the Hennings & Solomon boardroom and found her boss, the man known around Chicago as the Dapper Defense Lawyer—Dapper DL for short—sitting at the end of the table. Not a surprise since he’d called this impromptu meeting by sending her a text at 7:00 a.m.
Not that she minded the text. When that happened, it meant he needed help, and that little boost—that feeling of being the one that Gerald Hennings, defense lawyer of all defense lawyers, called on—never got old. From the beginning, he’d had faith in her. Even when her application to the FBI had been denied and she’d taken a job at a PI firm as their quasi receptionist-turned-investigator, he’d seen potential and had hired her as one of his two full-time investigators. She’d always be grateful for the opportunity to prove herself.
She’d also be grateful that he’d never—not once—hit on her. Most men did. Simple fact. As a former Miss Illinois runner-up, part of her success came from men wanting to sleep with her. And, let’s face it, some men were idiots. When those idiots wanted to seduce a woman, they started talking.
A lot.
“Sorry for the sudden meeting,” Mr. Hennings said.
“No
