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an Army vet who’d opened the bar with his savings after deciding not to re-up decades earlier when the trouble in Panama was starting to heat up. He’d packed on a few pounds and lost a few steps since his military days, but Quinn had seen him in action a few nights earlier when another loudmouthed drunk had taken the angry young man’s bait and lived to regret it.
“He’s askin’ for an ass-kickin’, Joe!” the man named Toby complained, shooting a baleful look at Hunter Bragg. “I don’t care if he is a damn war hero.”
“I’m no hero,” Bragg growled, the feral grin never faltering.
“Bragg, I don’t want to kick you out of my bar, I really don’t,” Joe said. “But if you don’t shut your damn trap and stop picking fights, I’m gonna. You think your sister needs any more trouble?”
Bragg’s gaze snapped toward the bartender at the mention of his sister. “Shut up.”
Breslin held up his hands. “Just sayin’. She’s already got enough on her plate, don’t she?”
“Shut up!” Bragg howled, the sound of a wounded animal. Chill bumps scattered down Alexander Quinn’s spine and, on instinct, his hand went to the pistol hidden under his jacket.
Toby took a couple of staggering steps backward until he bumped into the wall, dislodging some darts from the board that hung near the pool table. “You’re crazy, man.”
Bragg’s head snapped back toward Toby, barely leashed violence throbbing in his tight muscles. Quinn wasn’t sure if the man had come to the bar armed or not; Joe Breslin wasn’t the sort of proprietor who made people check their weapons at the door. And so far, Bragg had never used anything but his fists in a fight.
But things could turn disastrous in a heartbeat, Quinn knew. He’d seen it happen too many times.
He crossed the room with quiet speed, inserting himself into the arena of conflict. As he’d hoped, his mere presence put a big dent in the tension, as both men turned their wary gazes toward him.
“Gentlemen,” he said with a polite nod. “Are you still using this table?”
Toby stared at him as if he were crazy, but Bragg’s eyes narrowed, his head tilting a notch to one side.
“I know you,” he said.
Quinn nodded. “We’ve met.”
“In Afghanistan?”
Quinn shook his head. “At Landstuhl.”
Bragg’s face blanched visibly at the mention of the military hospital in Germany where combat-injured American troops were treated until they were stable enough to return to the States for further treatment.
Bragg had spent over a week there after an improvised explosive device, or IED, had obliterated his troop transport vehicle, killing everyone else in the Humvee and leaving Bragg with a mangled leg and a head injury. Surgeons had saved the leg, though when Quinn had seen the man in the hospital in Germany, there had been some question as to whether he’d have much use of the limb again.
Now, it seemed, it was the head injury that should have caused the doctors more concern. Bragg’s limp was barely noticeable these days. But he was no longer the good-natured practical joker his fellow soldiers had nicknamed the Tennessee Tornado.
“You brass?” Bragg asked warily.
“Civilian,” Quinn answered.
The green eyes narrowed further, little more than slits in his stormy face. “Spook?”
Quinn just smiled.
Bragg’s eyebrows rose slightly, opening his eyes enough that Quinn could read the sudden recognition in the younger man’s gaze. “You’re the guy who runs that new PI joint over in Purgatory.”
Quinn removed his hand from his jacket pocket, producing a simple, cream-colored business card. “The Gates,” he said, holding out the card.
Hesitantly, Bragg took the card from Quinn’s outstretched hand. “I’m not in the market for a private eye.”
“I’m in the market for employees.”
Bragg handed the card back. “I’ve got a job.”
“You sweep floors at the Piggly Wiggly.”
“It’s honest work.”
“So’s this.” Quinn held up the card.
“I’m not looking for excitement.”
Quinn merely lifted one eyebrow, shooting a look toward Toby, who stood next to the dartboard, watching Quinn and Bragg with a confused expression on his whiskey-slackened face.
Putting the card on the green felt surface of the pool table, Quinn looked back at Bragg. “If you change your mind.”
He left the bar without looking back to see if Bragg picked up the card. He couldn’t make the decision for the man. He could only offer an option that might channel his anger in a more productive direction.
He wasn’t in the business of saving people from themselves, no matter what the good folks of Purgatory seemed to think.
“Damn it!” Susannah Marsh looked with dismay at the jagged chip in her French-manicured thumbnail and mentally calculated whether or not she could work in a trip to the salon over the next seventy-two hours.
Nope. Not a hope in hell.
“What’s the matter?” Marcus Lemonde looked up from his desk in the corner of the small office, the expression on his narrow face suggesting the query was more about politeness than interest.
“Broke a nail, and I won’t have time between now and the conference to get it fixed.”
“Can’t you just file it down or something?” Even his feigned attempt at interest disappeared, swallowed by mild annoyance.
She sighed, knowing she’d be just as annoyed in his position. It hadn’t been that long ago she’d have rolled her eyes at a manicure mishap herself. “Yeah. I’ll do that.” Because a perfect French manicure was so easy to achieve, especially when one nail was now considerably shorter than the rest.
How on earth had she managed to choose a career where things like manicures and stiletto-heeled shoes practically came with the job description? Lord, if the kids she used to run around with back on Boneyard Ridge could see her now...
She dug through her purse for the manicure kit she always kept with her, but it wasn’t there. Had she left it in another purse? No, she distinctly remembered getting it out of yesterday’s bag that morning.
And leaving it on the breakfast bar in her apartment.
Damn it, damn it, damn it!
The resort had a gift shop at the far end of the hotel that carried things like nail files and other items hotel guests might have forgotten to pack. But she barely had time to get to her meeting with the Tri-State Law Enforcement Society’s representatives, who were meeting with her and hotel security to go over last-minute plans for the conference that would start on Friday.
With a glance at Marcus to make sure he wasn’t watching, she dipped her hand into her purse and grabbed the slightly bulky Swiss Army knife she also kept with her at all times. Its attached file was a bit rough for a good manicure, but it would do for the meeting. Then she could run down to the gift shop for a nail kit to do the job right.
Flipping open the nail file as she hurried down the corridor, she bit back a laugh. All this drama for a broken nail!
For the first sixteen years of her life, she’d chewed her nails to stubs and never thought twice about it. She’d owned one purse at a time, which she carried only when absolutely