In Search of the Dove by REBECCA YORK Read Free Book Online Page A

few moments allowing her eyes to adjust to the dim lighting. It was a shock to see that the interior matched her mental picture almost exactly—right down to the scarred wood furniture. She could even locate the booth where Aubrey had been sitting.
    At this hour there were only about a dozen patrons. Most were rough-looking men garbed in jeans and T-shirts gathered around the far end of the bar. They might well have been dock workers.
    Several gave her appraising glances as she crossed quickly to the booth her brother had occupied and sat down. She was careful not to make eye contact with anybody, lest they think she wanted company. Instead she reached for the plastic-encased menu stuck between a half-full catsup bottle and a heavy glass sugar dispenser.
    After a few minutes a stoop-shouldered, apron-clad man appeared and swiped a gray cloth over the Formica tabletop.
    “You want to order something, sweetheart, for here or to go?” he asked, glancing out the window at the waiting cab.
    “A burger and fries.” That was probably safest. At least they’d be cooked fresh.
    “We have Jax and Miller Light on draft.”
    “I’ll have a Coke.”
    The man grunted and shuffled away.
    While she waited for the food, several customers left. Maybe this would be a good time to approach the bartender. Sliding out of her seat, she moved into his line of vision, not speaking until she caught his eye.
    “What can I get you?” he finally asked.
    “I’m looking for a friend who used to come here.” Quickly she described her brother.
    The balding man shook his head. “Don’t remember him. But we get a lot of kids down here looking for excitement or trouble on Saturday nights.”
    “Thanks anyway.”
    Jessica found she was drawing attention from the few patrons who remained. For a moment she considered trying her question on them. Instead she returned to the booth to find that her Coke but not the food had arrived. It was sitting on a napkin identical to the one she’d found in the apartment, except that the doodling and numbers were missing. Picking up the napkin, she smoothed it with her fingers, feeling nothing in particular.
    It was funny, she thought. Now that she was physically at Harley’s, she had less sense of the place than when she’d seen it in her mind.
    When the waiter brought the food, she cleared her throat. “Say, I was looking for someone I know down here,” she began, getting ready to describe Aubrey again. But to her own surprise, the words that tumbled out of her mouth were not a description of her brother but of the man with the scar who had been sitting across from him in the booth.
    The thin waiter shook his head, but she caught a flicker of recognition in his muddy green eyes.
    “You know who I mean, don’t you?” she challenged, giving him an unflinching look. Just for a second she caught an image from his mind. It was of flapping white wings and a bird soaring against a leaden sky.
    “Dove,” she whispered. “He’s involved with the dove.”
    A look of incredulity flashed across his pasty features to be replaced by fear. He turned and quickly glanced over his shoulders. “If Lonnie knows you’re talking about Dove in here—” Instead of finishing the sentence, he drew his finger graphically across his throat.
    Jessica shuddered. She didn’t even know what the dove image meant.
    “Here, let me write up your bill.” He changed the subject abruptly, taking a pencil stub from his pocket and licking the end before scribbling on the pad.
    He wasn’t going to talk, Jessica thought. There was nothing to do but eat her hamburger and go home. When she took a bite, it tasted like greasy sawdust in her mouth.
    The waiter left the check facedown on the table. Picking it up, she saw that her meal had cost her five dollars and change. Then her eyes widened. Scribbled at the bottom was an address on the cross street a block away from the bar. The number was 3489—the same as the one she’d seen on the