Free Empire of Lies by Andrew Klavan

stuck the hand out and I shook it. Her palm was cool from handling the glasses, but I could feel the heat of her underneath.
    "Good name," I said. Even here I had to raise my voice to be heard above the music. "Anne Smith. No-nonsense."
    She wrinkled her nose. "I hate it. It's too plain. I gotta marry a guy named Zucabatoni or something."
    "I like your ladybug."
    "Oh, thanks. It speaks highly of you, too."
    She hit me with another of those smiles. I had to force myself to change the direction of the conversation.
    "Listen," I said. I leaned toward her so I wouldn't have to speak so loudly. "I'm looking for someone. The daughter of an old friend. She left home, and her mother's worried about her. Her mother says she comes in here a lot."
    I had a photo Lauren had given me, a snapshot of three friends she had taken from Serena's room. I laid it on the bar.
    "She's the one in the middle," I said. "Her name's Serena."
    Anne leaned on the bar and bowed her head over the snapshot. I used the opportunity to smell her hair. It had a rich, earthy smell.
    Her elbows still on the bar, she raised her face. Now it was close to mine. "Yeah, she comes in here all the time. Every night, almost." She glanced at the neon clock on the wall to her right. It was about ten thirty. "Usually around now. Another half an hour, maybe. I'll tell you when I see her."
    "Great, Anne. I appreciate it."
    "She'll be messed up, though, if you're gonna try and talk to her."
    "Drunk, you mean?"
    She lifted the soft, broad, bare shoulder with the ladybug on it. "Drunk. High. You know."
    She was called away again to draw a couple of beers. I slid the snapshot off the bar and slipped it back into my jacket pocket. I tipped my own bottle back a time or two, stealing glimpses of Anne
as she pointed at customers, took their orders, poured their drinks. Now and then, she glanced my way and caught me looking and sent me a corner of a smile. After a while, she wandered back.
    "How's your beer? You ready for another?"
    "No. I'm good. What do you do?" I asked her. I was curious but I was flirting with her, too, riding the current. "When you're not here, I mean."
    "How do you know I do anything? Maybe bartending is my life."
    "Yeah, I'll bet."
    "I go to school. Up at the university."
    "Figured. What're you taking?"
    "Cultural Studies."
    "Cultural Studies? What the hell is that?"
    "Oh, just books. You know. Like writers."
    "Oh, yeah. We used to call that English. I majored in it," I said. "What writers do you like?"
    She named some writers, the sort they teach in universities now. You know, mediocre, unimportant types no one will read in a generation, but since one was a black woman and one was an Arab and one a Mexican, everyone was supposed to pretend they were better and more interesting than they were. Cultural Studies.
    "How about Shakespeare?" I asked her dryly.
    "We haven't done him yet." She brightened. "But I think one of my professors is gonna lecture about him this week." Then she said, "There she is."
    I followed her gesture, looked behind me. Serena was just coming through the door. She was in the middle of a small cluster of boys and girls. The boys looked to be in their twenties, the girls in their teens. Serena looked younger than any of them.
    Even from across the room, through the dark and the flickering lights and the dancing shadows on the walls, I could see how
drunk she was. Drunk in that way people sometimes get where they feel hard done by and sullen and, damn it, they want to do what they want to do for once in their lives, so leave them alone. She moved peevishly out of her cluster of companions. Frowning, she stumbled sideways a step. One of the boys took hold of her elbow. She yanked free, shaking her head, slashing her hand in front of her as if to say, "No, no, no." Whatever was on the schedule, she didn't want any. The boy rolled his eyes, giving up on her.
    "Wow," I shouted back at Anne over the music. "Is she always like that?"
    "Lately,