dollar bills, made even the most tight-lipped people transform into effusive chatterboxes. If Raymond wouldn’t meet with her today, she’d find a time and place more conducive to a lengthy chat.
Assuming that loading docks were not unlike fishing docks, Olivia bypassed the front entrance and drove around to the back of the mammoth steel structure. Dozens of tractor-trailers were backed up to deep bays, and the industrious whir and bleeps of forklifts maneuvering around the loading areas reverberated against the metal walls.
Olivia decided to leave Haviland in the car, so she parked the Range Rover on the shady side of the building, opened the windows, and handed him one of his favorite treats: dried tendons from grass-fed South African beef. His eyes glimmered as she placed three more snacks on the console. “I know they’re high in protein, but take your time. I don’t know how long I’ll be.”
Ignoring her, Haviland took his prize to the back, sank onto his belly, set the tendon between his front paws, and got to work. His white teeth flashed, and the gleam in his eyes was that of a satisfied predator.
Shouldering her purse, Olivia walked into the nearest bay as though she frequented the business on a regular basis. She saw a middle-aged man with a kind face scrutinizing a sheet of paper on a clipboard and headed straight for him.
“Excuse me,” she said, giving him her most dazzling smile. “Could you tell me where to find Raymond Hatcher?”
“Sure thang, sweetheart.” The man ogled her appreciatively and then immediately caught himself. “Sorry. We don’t get fine-lookin’ women such as yourself in here every day.” He gestured at a pair of vending machines positioned near the back wall. “Ray’s gettin’ himself his tenth Mountain Dew of the mornin’. See him? He’s the big guy in the John Deere cap.”
Olivia thanked him and, skirting around idling forklifts and veritable mountains of boxes, she came to stand behind Raymond Hatcher. Her first impression was of his height. She was nearly six feet, but he probably had another five or six inches on her. He wasn’t lanky like many very tall people, but was as solid and heavily muscled as an NBA center. When he turned, she met his electric blue stare and momentarily felt at a loss for words. There was something familiar about his face, but she knew she’d never seen him before. His eyes alone were unforgettable, and one didn’t pass by a man in his midsixties of Raymond’s size without taking note.
“Hello,” she finally managed to say. “Are you Raymond Hatcher?”
He nodded, his gaze intense but not unfriendly. He said nothing.
“Do you have a moment? I’d like to talk to you about Nick Plumley.” She waited for the giant to react to the writer’s name, but he only cocked his head to one side like a curious bird. “I’m here because I’ll be ghostwriting the rest of the sequel to
Instead of answering, he popped the tab of his soda, raised it to his lips, and took several long swallows. “I can’t talk now,” he said after lowering the can to his side. He gave it a little shake and then absently squeezed the metal with his fingertips. “I don’t have a break for another two hours. You’ll have to wait until my shift’s over.”
“When would that be?” Olivia asked, trying not to let her focus waver; the subtle cracks of the deflating soda can filled the air.
Raymond glanced at his watch. “I came on at eleven, so I’ll be here ’til eight.”
“Okay, then why don’t I buy you a beer? Are you familiar with a place called Fish Nets in Oyster Bay?”
He nodded. “I’ve been there a time or two.”
“How’s nine o’clock?”
One of the nearby forklift engines roared into life, startling Olivia. Raymond watched her jump to the side, and the shadow of a grin curved his mouth upward. “All right, but it’s not the kind of place I expect you visit much. Are you sure you wanna go there?”
“Trust me, I’ve been to Fish Nets more times than I care to remember, but I happen to know the bartender. She’ll take good care of us.”
Raymond slipped a finger beneath the brim of his baseball cap and scratched his temple, his grin widening a fraction. “You can call me Ray.”
“I’m Olivia,” she said and held out her hand. He shook it carefully, nodded at her, and then walked away. Several men observed his progress and then turned their attention toward her, clearly interested in why this beautiful, sophisticated woman had paid their coworker a visit.
Olivia was accustomed to being the object of people’s stares. They did not trouble her. What did trouble her was that she considered herself an astute judge of character. She believed she had a gift for reading people and that everyone had a tell. Raymond Hatcher was an exception, however. Olivia couldn’t glean the slightest sense of his personality. She didn’t like that. In fact, it made her nervous.
Inside the Range Rover, Haviland was obediently pacing himself and still had a full beef tendon left to eat. Olivia let him be. Turning on the car, she commanded her dashboard phone to dial Millay’s number.
“You demonstrated a great deal of skill Saturday night,” she told her friend. “I hope you’re prepared for an encore performance.”
Olivia paused to listen to the bartender’s confident answer. “This one’s different,” she warned Millay. “We need to tread carefully.”
Chapter 11
Had Ray Hatcher shown up at the crowded bar of The Bayside Crab House, the patrons would have done a double take upon seeing his formidable figure. Then they’d have carved a path for him, staring at him out of the corner of their eyes as they drank exotic martinis or microbrews in chilled pint glasses.
In Fish Nets, Ray was just another guy. A few people cast mildly curious looks his way when he first walked in, but their attention quickly returned to their bottles of Bud, shots of whiskey, and games of darts or pool. Smoke hovered in the air like early-morning fog, and Hatcher’s head cut a swath through the white wisps as he moved toward Olivia.
She noticed that one or two locals greeted Hatcher with a nod or a brief clap on the shoulder. This welcome gave Olivia cause to relax. If the hardened fisherman and laborers of Fish Nets knew Raymond Hatcher, then he posed less of a threat to her. Olivia’s father had been one of these men, and as his child, she had a keen sense of the rhythm of their existence, of motoring to the deep waters well before dawn, of the backbreaking work beneath the unrelenting sun, of the thousand tiny cuts to the arms and hands from serrated fish scales. Every face in the bar was marked by the sea, the sun, and the struggle to make ends meet.
Olivia felt as comfortable among these locals as she did mingling with the wealthy and sophisticated diners at The Boot Top. In a sense, she was a child of both worlds, but her father’s confederates would defend and protect her in a way that none of her grandmother’s circle would. The upper-crust members of society that made up her grandmother’s set had been self-serving and remarkably uncharitable. They only rallied around one another to avoid scandal or the loss of assets. Olivia shared her grandmother’s love of the finer things, but she also felt a deep kinship with those whose lives depended on the fickle ocean. It was as though this community who breathed in the salty air and bathed in the cool water for countless years were set apart as a different species of human.
“Damn, you didn’t tell me you were meeting with Sasquatch,” Millay stated in admiration as Ray made his way to the empty barstool next to Olivia. “Good thing you left Haviland at The Boot Top. This could get ugly.”
Ignoring Millay, whose hair was gelled into a cresting wave of black and silver down the center of her head, Olivia greeted Ray and asked him what he’d like to drink.
“You buyin’?” he asked, his mouth curving into the hint of a smile.
Olivia nodded. “That was part of the deal.”
