Just Desserts (20 page)

Sadie bit her tongue so hard she tasted iron.

“Yes. That’s what many people say,” Alan said.

Mike turned toward her. His jaw clenched. “At least bus drivers don’t talk back.”

Sadie gave him her best fake smile and then tapped the bench to get Alan’s attention. “Excuse me. Do you think you could drop me off on Clark Street?”

He nodded.

“Hey, hon. I thought you were going to stick with me. Go catch the Foo?”

The cab pulled over to let her out.

“No.” She handed Alan a twenty-dollar bill. “Does this cover it?”

He gave her a friendly wink. “Plenty.”

“Thanks.” Sadie bolted out of the cab. “Interesting meeting you, Mike.”

“Whatever. Good thing you had cash. I didn’t have enough for the two of us.”

The cabbie looked back at him. “You still owe. The nice young lady didn’t pay for you.”

The cab’s tires squealed as the cab took off. Sadie waved at the man looking at her through the rear window. “Goodbye, jerk.”

Sadie unpinned the broach that held the velvet scarf on her hips and threw it in her bag. Freezing, she wrapped the scarf around her shoulders and clung tight to it with both hands, to stop shivering. The rain had died down, but the wind kicked up. She headed west. She could make it back to her place in an hour and she felt much safer, on foot, than in that cab with
Mike
.

Creepy snob
.

So much for finding the Foo Fighters. She wasn’t about to head to the Wrigley Club to find out if they were playing in concert. Knowing her luck, she’d run into Mike.

Sadie’s cell rang. She didn’t want to stop walking to get her phone, so she dug to the bottom of her leather messenger bag as it bounced against her hip. She was so cold her hand trembled. It stopped ringing before she could answer it.

Quinn’s name lit up the screen.

She threw the phone back in her bag and kept trudging down Fullerton Avenue. She was soaked and freezing and didn’t need to compound the situation with tears. She just wanted a long hot shower. At that thought, her eyes welled up and she couldn’t contain them. She started to cry.

When she made it to her street, she jogged the last block. Out of the rain and in the vestibule, she searched for her keys on the bottom of her messenger bag.
What the hell?

She dumped out the contents of her bag onto the floor. The stuff swam around in the puddle at her feet from her wet ballerina slippers and the dripping umbrella. Her apartment keys were missing.

She shoved it all back in the bag and pushed the intercom button to buzz the guys who lived across the hall. It was Saturday night; they had to be there. No response. She pounded on the door and yelled. “Eric? Rob?”

The entryway’s outer door opened. Her heart skipped. She clutched onto her umbrella and slowly turned around.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Quinn had cut his speech short. And when the museum director’s tour of the exhibit detoured to another hall, his friends pushed him toward the closest exit.

“Go. You have to fix this,” Suze and Kate had said in unison.

As Quinn had jogged out of the exhibit, he ran into Ellen. After calling him every name in the book, she acquiesced and told him Sadie might have gone to see the Foo Fighters.

His phone, lying on the passenger seat, rang. He answered Jake’s call and slowed down. The Porsche was a ticket target when he tipped over forty miles per hour driving on Lake Shore. “What’s up?”

“Are you at the Wrigley Club yet?” Jake asked.

“No,” Quinn scoffed. “I tried calling Sadie. No answer. I should have told her that I was going to be at the gala.”

Suze’s voice came on over the phone. “You were worried the gala would scare her. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

Quinn checked his blind spot and veered off Lake Shore onto Armitage. “Speaker. Nice. Kate? Are you there, too?”

“Present,” Kate’s voice rang through.

“Last night at the game. She was upset and edgy,” Jake said.

“I know.” Quinn kept his eyes on the road. “Not even sure if Sadie will be at the club. It’s another damn reminder of my name. Wrigley owned. I’m swinging by her place first and then heading to the Foo.”

“Good plan,” Kate said. “We’re on our way back into the ‘burbs. The mommy-to-be needs to get to bed. She’s not feeling well.”

“Ssh. I’m fine. Just a mild case of indigestion,” Suze said. Her voice sounded reedy.

“Where on Earth did Sadie get the idea that Kate was my date?” Quinn asked.

“Um, because maybe you didn’t warn her ahead of time. Don’t be so dense. Did you want me to wave my hand around to show off my wedding band?” Kate said.

Right before Sadie had retreated into the kitchen, he saw her eyes. They were glistening with tears.
Damn.

He heard a low moan emanate from his phone. “Everything all right?”

There was no answer.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Quinn asked as he downshifted the car and turned onto Sadie’s street. Her building was dark and dead. He couldn’t even make out the overgrown succulent in the basement window.

Quinn put the car in park and scanned the foyer. There was a soft glowing light in the entryway, but no sign of life.

Jake’s voice broke in and interrupted Quinn’s concentration. “Bro, we’re taking a detour. Picking up something for Suze’s stomach. Call us back when you find Sadie.”

“Suze? Is my brother telling me the truth? Are you okay?”

“Yes,” Suze said. “Go find your honey. She needs you to sweep her off her feet.”

Quinn heard Kate laugh in the background. “Call us as soon as you two connect.”

“Will do.” He tapped the phone off.

Quinn revved the Porsche’s engine. Dropping his head back against the headrest, he rubbed his eyes and loosened his tie. The tux wasn’t helping matters.

Quinn scanned Sadie’s house one more time for any sign of life or shadow in the window. He thought he caught a glimpse of light in the other basement window. To get a better look, he leaned across the passenger seat and squinted, but it was cave-dark. It must have been his imagination.

Quinn put the car in gear and drove off.

Ellen must have been right; Sadie needed a Foo concert to make her feel better. The Foo had to fix what he, her asshole boyfriend, had broken. Her heart.

He felt like a moron. Why hadn’t he just taken her to the Field Museum with him? They would have had a great time.

Quinn vowed that he’d never again do anything to make her cry.

At the club he jumped out of the Porsche and threw the keys at the valet. There was a line of people waiting to get inside. Word must have gotten out that the Foo was playing under the cover of 606.

Quinn shook hands with the bouncer standing under the awning. “Is Emily here?”

“Yeah. I think she’s upstairs on the roof. Since the rain stopped she wants to clean and open it up. Let more people into the place. Go in.”

Quinn went into the club and inhaled the sharp scent of clove. He scanned the clusters of people sitting at the pub tables smoking Djarum cigarettes. Some of them were passing a tobacco hookah to one another. Sadie wasn’t among them.

Shoving his fists into his tuxedo pants, he made his way through the crowd to get to the bar. He stepped into the only clear space, the waitress station carved out by a pair of railings. The bar was loaded with people, shoulder-to-shoulder. In the dim lighting of the red paper lanterns hanging overhead, he could distinguish male from female, but not one teary-eyed redhead.

The bartender was serving at the opposite end of the copper top bar that stretched the entire length of the club. Where it ended, there was a makeshift stage. Three microphones and a drum set were on the wooden platform. The bass drum didn’t display an “
FF
” but a silhouette of Freddy Mercury’s face with mirrored sunglasses. The Foo was somewhere near the club.

“Excuse me sir, but this is for waitresses only.”

Quinn backed out and let the young waitress get to her station. “Sorry. Do you know if Emily is still on the roof?”

“Oh. I didn’t recognize you, Mr. Laughton. In the tux and all. You look pretty…are you here to see the Foo Fighters?” She looked him over head to toe. “I didn’t know you liked them. You’re into rock?”

“Yeah. My Foo albums are right next to my Little Feat and King Crimson.” Quinn refrained from rolling his eyes and tempered his snide comment. He didn’t want to be a chump and he needed to find Sadie. But he was the only one in the place with a tux. “Any idea where my sister is?”

“I think she’s in the stock room,” she said, as she waved at the bartender.

Quinn wove his way through the aisle between the bar and tables, bumping shoulders with everyone. He scanned the tops of heads for red hair, from left to right. Maneuvering slowly, he caught bits and pieces of conversations.

He heard Dave Grohl’s and Taylor Hawkins’ names repeated so often he wondered how long it would be before the fans would break into a chant. When he made it to the stage, Quinn stepped up onto the platform to scan the crowd another time. He saw orange, purple, and green hair and some cherry red, but no Sadie.

He jumped off the stage and went to find his sister in the stockroom downstairs. In the dim hall that passed the restrooms and led to the basement steps, the air smelled from the fresh rain. The rear service door was open. A few women were in line for the bathroom. As he walked by, one lanky blond tried to introduce herself to him. He smiled and kept walking, but then stopped and pivoted around. “Excuse me, but could you do me a favor?”

The blond and her friends giggled. “For you, anything. You’re sweet.”

“Can you look for someone in the ladies’ room for me?” He asked and then smiled widely.

All three nodded. “Sure.”

“I’m looking for a redhead. Tall. About your height. She’s wearing a gold scarf. I think.”

A dark-haired guy came out of the men’s room and crashed into him. Quinn bumped against one of the women in the narrow passage.

“Watch it,” the guy said. Then he snickered. “Nice tux.”

The woman, who Quinn nearly toppled over, scanned the guy over. As he lumbered back toward the bar, she shouted, “Asshole!”

The guy flipped them the bird without turning around.

Quinn stepped back and away from the woman who reeked of cigarette smoke. “Sorry for banging into you. Are you all right?”

“Not a prob. You can bang me anytime.”

He started off to get to the stockroom. He would ask Emily to check the ladies’ room for Sadie.

“Hey. Where ya going? I thought you wanted us to look for somebody in the toilet?” the woman shouted after him.

“No. Thanks.”

“Hey. Did you say a gold scarf?”

He turned back. “Yeah.”

“She ain’t in the toilet, but I saw a scarf like that. Up on the roof.”

Quinn strode back into the bar and this time, making his way through the crowd, he pushed and shoved to make it through the crowd. He caught a lot cussing as he made it to the staircase that led up to the rooftop. He took the steps two at a time and jammed open the door.

No one but Emily was on the roof. She looked up at him, surprised, as she wiped down one of the patio tables. “Hi. What are you doing here?”

“Damn.”

“Hello to you too,” she said. “Are you here to swear at me? Or can you help me clean up the chairs? I need to open this area up. Didn’t you see the line out front?” She looked him up and down. “Why didn’t you change your clothes after the museum thingy?”

“Have you seen Sadie?”

“It’s been a madhouse all night. I couldn’t tell you if I saw the pope or the president. I wasn’t even sure if the Foo Fighters were coming until an hour ago. I still don’t know when they’ll show up.”

He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “I get it.”

She came up to him. “You look like hell. And you’re wearing a tuxedo. That’s bad. What’s going on?”

“I need to find Sadie. That’s all. I thought she would be here.”

Emily looped her arm through his elbow. “It’s still early. Maybe she’s on her way. Go down into my office. There’s a ten-year-old bottle of Glenlivet I keep stashed in the desk.” She handed him a ring of keys. “Help yourself. I’m finished here. I’m going to break up the crowd downstairs and tell people to move up here. I’ll look for her.”

“More whiskey. Don’t think it’ll make a dent, but thanks.” He strode back downstairs and made it back into Emily’s office.

Quinn locked the door behind him and sat in Emily’s Queen Anne chair behind her dainty antique desk. He found the whiskey and downed a glass. He thumbed through messages on his phone’s LED, half-hoping for something from Sadie. Her somber expression rose in his mind. The faint image rendered him speechless. He had to prepare what he’d say. What words would make Sadie smile at him. Again.

Love you? Sorry? Let me explain?

There was a knock at the door. He ignored it.

“Hey Emily? Can you get out to the bar?”

Quinn recognized the shaky voice. It was the petite waitress. “What’s going on? Is the band here?”

“No. But there’s a jerk who’s bothering a bunch of women at the bar. Making crude comments. A real creeper. The bartender wants to call the cops, but we need Emily’s okay and can’t find her.”

“Did you check the rooftop?” Quinn asked as he opened the door.

“She’s not there.”

“Let me see what I can do.” He grabbed the office keys, locked up and followed the waitress back out to the bar. The crowd had thinned, so Emily must have opened up the rooftop.

“There he is.” The waitress pointed to the dark-haired asshole that had bumped into him in the hallway. The guy was slobbering over a couple women sitting at the bar a few feet away.

“That guy? Call the cops. I’ll play proxy for my sister.” He turned to go back to the office and caught a glimpse of red and gold in the mirrors behind the corner booth. Quinn blinked to get a better view. There was a group of beefy men who filled the back booth beyond the pool table. Seated in the corner and obscured by them, he caught sight of Sadie. She was surrounded by men and laughing.