Rowan blew out a puff of smoke. “Well, something was keeping her from dating anyone at Hollister. I mean, it’s not like she didn’t have plenty of guys asking her out.”
“Surely, someone would know,” I suggested. “Are any of her best girlfriends here?”
Rowan glanced at the crowd. “Some of her ex-best friends are here.”
“Ex-best friends?”
“Yeah, she started hanging out with a different crowd.”
That was an intriguing morsel of news. If she’d had a falling-out with her friends, maybe they were the ones starting rumors about her. And maybe—just maybe—they did something worse than that. But I could check on that later. Right now I wanted to delve into Rowan’s relationship with Ashton a little more.
“I guess you weren’t too happy about some of those rumors,” I said. “If it was me, I’d be pretty mad.”
“I’m sure you would be,” he said. “I, on the other hand, have plenty of other interests to keep me occupied.”
“Is that right?” I said. It was a lame comeback, but it’s kind of hard to be snappy when you’re talking to a guy who looks like a mad aristocrat from a Brothers Grimm story. Audrey came to my rescue, though.
“What about the day Ashton went missing?” she asked, stepping into Rowan’s personal space. “Were you pursuing one of those other interests, or don’t you have an alibi?”
“An alibi?” He laughed and looked at Nash. “Really, Nash, these people are too funny. I’ll have to give you points for finding them.”
“Yeah, we’re real funny,” I said. “We’re the kind of comedians who don’t like it when an ex-boyfriend goes looking for revenge against the girl who dumped him. So maybe you can just answer a simple question and tell us where you were.”
“That’s a good one,” Rowan said. He took a drag from his cigarette and blew the smoke into my face. “You are a comedian. Apparently, you’ve mistaken me for the kind of people you’re used to hanging out with, running around in their sweaty muscle shirts, getting into arguments over welfare checks, hitting each other in the face with toasters, and chasing women around the apartment complex with steak knives.”
“Hey,” Randy interrupted. “We’re not on welfare.” As if that was the worst part of Rowan’s picture of us.
“Come on, Rowan.” Nash stepped up, pressed his hand to Rowan’s chest, and eased him back. “These people are my guests. They aren’t accusing you of anything. They just want to help find Ashton. I know you want that too.”
“Yeah, they’re just routine questions,” I said, and immediately realized I sounded like the cops who quizzed me about the Hector Maldonado case. Whether that was a good thing, I wasn’t sure.
Rowan looked away, then back. “You’re right, Nash.” He turned to me. “My apologies. I’m not really the ass**le you might think I am. I have my role to play. But you’re wrong if you think I’m not worried about Ashton. Everyone here is. You may think these little recreational activities of ours are in poor taste with Ashton missing, but we have to do something. You can’t just sit around feeling black. If you hurt, you have to take some kind of medicine, you know?”
“I never said otherwise.” Suddenly, I felt bad about using the cop routine on him. It was probably true—he probably really was hurting. Maybe he still loved her.
“So,” he said, patting my shoulder, “no hard feelings. I hope you three musketeers will mingle and have fun until ten o’clock.”
“Ten o’clock?”
“Uh, yeah,” Nash said. “It’s a Gangland members-only thing after ten.”
“Now, if you’ll excuse me.” Rowan made a slight bow with his head. “I have to make the rounds and see to it that everyone’s having a good time.”
When he was gone, Randy goes, “That guy’s a real dick.”
“I feel sorry for him,” Audrey said. “I’d hate to have to put on that act all the time.”
“I got the impression that, underneath, he really is pretty broken up about Ashton,” I said. But at the same time I realized he’d left without ever answering the most important question: Where was he when Ashton Browning disappeared?
CHAPTER 15
Nash left us to try out our mingling skills on our own, but Audrey and I weren’t exactly advanced in that department—especially around an upscale crowd like this—so since there weren’t any tables or chairs, we lagged back by the wall, sizing everyone up. Audrey even snuck in a few photos with her cell phone. Randy, on the other hand, poured himself right into the mix, his idea being that “these rich girls would love to hang with a real guy instead of the snakes they’re used to.”
Most of the crowd had broken into small groups that paid no attention to the band, but a couple rows’ worth of people actually crammed together near the front of the stage, I guess judging whether Colonoscopy was worse than Nash’s band the Rat Finks. Everyone looked like they were having a good time without putting out much effort. Kids at my school had to strain to have a good time. They had to grab a good time by the hind legs and wrestle it down. There was that kind of desperation to it. Not here. Fun floated on the air like a light fog, despite the Ashton Browning situation.
“You know,” I said to Audrey, “I’m not so sure about what that jerk Rowan said. These people don’t look like they’re partying down to forget about their good friend Ashton. They look more like they already forgot about her.”