Her eyes instinctively shifted. Tim, across the room, had just sent a steel-tipped dart toward the board. It landed in the center ring. Bull’s-eye. But he didn’t react by so much as a laugh or a high five with Randy.

Because he was listening. The tension in his ramrod-straight back made that clear.

Angry and protective of her brother, despite being here in an official capacity, she sneered at Dick. “Oh, don’t you worry; I’ll be tracking down a whole bunch of your regulars and talking to them. After I do a little background checking on them, of course.”

The man visibly paled, realizing his jab had done nothing more than dig him in deeper. He wiped his hands with a dirty cloth and mumbled, “Honestly, Sheriff, I don’t remember that far back. I can make some guesses, though.”

Dean, who’d been silently watching the exchange, covering her back, interjected: “What about credit card receipts from that night?”

The tavern owner snorted. “I don’t think a soul in this place could get one.”

“But you can still check,” the special agent insisted, his voice low and steady, the very confidence of it enough to scare the hell out of any man who had something to hide.

Or to arouse the feminine instincts of any woman with a hint of estrogen.

“All right,” the man muttered. “Not that it’ll do any good.”

“Thanks for your cooperation,” Stacey said, knowing she sounded steely and anything but grateful.

“Not a problem. Surprised you don’t already know who was here that night. Didn’t you have deputies watching the place around then?” Dick attempted a weak smile. “I know you were trying to sting me, sending underage kids in here, but I don’t serve nobody without ID.”

Stacey frowned. Though the idea wasn’t half-bad, she wasn’t naive enough to think Dick would fall for it; he was far too crafty for that. Besides, he knew the names and ages of just about every teenager in the county. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Well, last spring, a couple times kids came in here thinkin’ they were gonna be able to score beer.” He scratched his grizzled chin. “Now that I think about it, there was a ruckus the night the Zimmerman girl went missing. Had to have that Flanagan kid hauled outta here.”

Flanagan. Mike Flanagan. Why was she not surprised?

But even as she discounted the idea that teens trying to buy beer might have anything to do with Lisa’s murder, she realized she needed to talk to Mike. Because if he’d been tossed out, he might very well have lurked around outside. Kids like that wanted to get even. She wouldn’t put it past him to flatten a tire, break a window, do something to throw a young man’s fit at not getting what he wanted.

And if he’d been hanging around, maybe he’d seen something.

“Only other thing I recall is that Lisa’s stepdaddy called here lookin’ for her around midnight, mad as hell about his missing car.”

That was something she hadn’t known. “Stan Freed? Did you tell him she was here?”

The man’s scrawny chest puffed out and his voice increased in volume. “Nah. I don’t go tellin’ tales. Didn’t let on she was here.”

Had Stan gone out looking for her, by chance?

“Oh,” Dick added, as if suddenly remembering something. “And Warren was on a rant about the gov’m’nt conspiring to keep gas prices up, part of their ‘master plan’ for the rich to take over the country.”

More unsurprise. Her list of interviewees was getting longer by the minute.

That should have been a good thing. More leads meant more chances to solve this case and stop the brutal crimes.

If only one name hadn’t been on the list. Because questioning her own belligerent brother was going to be anything but pleasant. And frankly, it would be worse if she tried to talk to him here. He would swagger and puff up, not wanting anyone in the place to think he was at all intimidated by his cop sister.

She’d talk to Tim herself, but she might ask Dean or his fellow agents to deal with Randy. The man made her teeth hurt. He seemed to bring out the worst in her brother in terms of recklessness and overblown testosterone. They had done some stupid stuff as teens, Randy even getting arrested for theft before he had gotten his girlfriend pregnant and Tim had left for the military.

What a nice contrast to be with a man like Dean, who oozed masculinity, yet had no problem with the fact that Stacey had been the bold one in the car. He had to have self-confidence by the boatload to go with that intelligence and strength. It was an incredibly intoxicating combination.

A lack of self-confidence was one trait her brother shared with his best friend. Tim because of his injuries and scars. Randy because, well, probably because of his whole disappointing life.

“Want to split up?” Dean asked. “Work our way through the room faster?”

Stacey shook her head. “I don’t think so. I know these guys. Some of them will do better with you-I’ll let you know which-but some won’t give you the time of day.” Not that they’d do much more for her. But at least she knew their weaknesses.

Spying a couple of the men Dick had named during her original investigation, a pair of roughnecks who lived downstate but came here to do their drinking and raise their hell, she strode to their table, pulled out a chair, and sat down. “Afternoon, gentlemen.”

They both eyed her sullenly. The smaller of the two, a weasely sidekick by the name of Lester, tried to act tough. If his big buddy weren’t sitting beside him, he would already be spilling his guts. “You looking for some company, pretty lady? You need a couple of men to remind you what you got between your legs-and what you ain’t?”

Feeling an almost tangible burst of heated fury from Dean, who stood beside her chair, Stacey shook her head once. Eyes narrowed, she dropped her elbows onto the table and stared, hard, into Lester’s bloodshot eyes. “You don’t want to compare balls with me, boy. Remember, I busted your naked ass for public indecency last year. So I know how small the chances are that you’ve got anything I’d be interested in.”

His companion, a big, hard-looking dude who rode one of the choppers outside, snorted at the put-down. “You better shut up while you can,” he told his friend.

Lifting his mug of beer to his lips, he drained it. Streams of amber liquid and foam slid down either side of his mouth to soak his thickly bearded chin. When the mug was empty, he slammed it down, the table shaking beneath the force of the blow. As if both fortified and confident of the manly display he’d made of his supermacho ability to chug a beer, he nodded at Stacey. “Go ahead,” he said. “Ask whatever you want.”

“But-” Lester interrupted.

“If you ain’t smart enough to remember what she can do with that club on her hip, I am.” The man rubbed his head, obviously remembering when Stacey had stopped him from breaking any more furniture right here in this room during a bender last fall. The big man’s fierce frown faded. “Besides, I know what you want to hear about. That little Zimmerman girl was messed up, but she was a sweet young thing once upon a time. And if somebody really murdered her, chopped her up, and fed her to some wild pigs, I hope you fry the bastard.”

Hearing Dean’s disgusted sigh, she contemplated correcting the crazy story. But it was already too late. The rumor mill was hard at work, and no matter what she said, the stories would persist, growing wilder, until Lisa’s remains were found and the cause of death made public. And even then the conspiracy theorists would continue to embellish.

“I might not be on your side most of the time,” the burly guy added, “and I might hate your guts. But I’ll help if I can. For that little gal’s sake.”

“Fair enough,” she said.

She flipped open her notebook, not entirely surprised at the man’s reaction, because even tough guys had a code. His line between right and wrong might be wider than Stacey’s, but he knew enough to recognize when it had been crossed.