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Tate. Thank you for your time.”

Chapter 8
    Gabby dabbed a little lip-gloss on. Okay, good to go. Rachel would be over to pick her up in just a few minutes, and they’d meet Rachel’s friend, Cherri, and the possible new client at a bar downtown. The bar scene didn’t appeal much to her, but the possible paycheck did.
    Walking to the living room, she glanced out the window and saw Rachel pulling up in her white Mercedes convertible. Why the woman drove a convertible in the Northwest where the sun shone for only a few months a year, Gabby didn’t understand. Shaking her head, she grabbed her umbrella and stepped onto the porch, turned, and locked the door. She popped the umbrella open and ran to the car, the rain pouring down on the plastic dome, making it difficult to even hear her own thoughts.
    “Hey,” she said, sliding in next to Rachel.
    “You’re going to wear that?”
    She peered at her white, button-down shirt, grey slacks, and black boots.
    “And hello to you, too. What’s wrong with this?” she asked as she took in Rachel’s blood-red dress, black stilettos, and a different black leather jacket than she’d worn the night before. Huge silver hoops dangled from her lobes, and lipstick matching her dress glowed on her lips under the car light.
    “You look like you’re going to a church function, not a bar.” Rachel pulled away from the curb.
    “I’m going to a business meeting,” she stated, staring at the falling rain swooshing across the windshield.
    “You’re going to a bar.”
    “To potentially get business,” she gritted, her tone harsher than she’d intended.
    After a few minutes, Rachel sighed. “You know, you need to start thinking about moving on.”
    Gabby shut her eyes. They’d had this conversation more than once, but she wasn’t ready. Would she ever be? Maybe someday in the far-off future, but not now. In her heart, she hoped Lucas would come back; yet, in her soul, she worried he hadn’t left on his own accord.
    She certainly didn’t have any proof of that, but the thought niggled at her mind every now and then. In her fantasies, she secretly hoped he’d been kidnapped by some entity from the government she didn’t know of for some reason she couldn’t even begin to fathom.
    Yes, she tended to have an overactive imagination.
    “He’s not coming back, Gabby,” Rachel murmured into the darkness.
    Even if he wasn’t, she lacked the desire to move on. She still wore her wedding ring; she still kept pictures of them up around the house. Although, her resolve waned and she admitted she’d grown lonely, she wouldn’t give up on Lucas or their marriage until she saw a body or heard otherwise from him. She simply didn’t believe they were truly over.
    The monthly visits by the military had never sat right with her, especially since he’d been discharged. It just didn’t make any sense. Why would they want to call on him so often, especially when he no longer belonged to the military anymore? She’d asked him many times, but he hadn’t been very forthcoming in his answers.
    They remained silent until Rachel pulled into the bar parking lot. They’d arrived early enough they could get a close parking space. “Let’s go meet your new client,” Rachel said, stepping out of the car with her umbrella.
    Gabby did the same.
    They ran into the half-filled bar and looked around at the patrons as they folded their umbrellas. The bar had been done in dark, shiny wood trimmed with gold. Chocolate-brown booths lined both sides of the space, while high-back bar stools hugged the edges of the bar itself. Classy and comfortable would be words Gabby would use to describe the establishment.
    “There they are.” Rachel pointed to a large circular booth in the back.
    Gabby followed her, gazing over at Cherri and her potential new client. She’d met Cherri once about a month ago. The woman stood around five-foot-tall with short blonde hair and an almost sickly, rail-thin body.  She