She looked drop-dead gorgeous in a black pencil skirt, short-sleeved white shirt with a scoop neck, and the hottest pair of high heels he’d ever seen—black, with a strap that wrapped around her ankle in a way that had him thinking all sorts of naughty, decidedly non-platonic-neighbor thoughts.

“I knew it,” she said at his silence. “It looks like I’m trying too hard, right? I hate dressing for first dates—even fake ones.” She held out her hands reassuringly. “Don’t worry. I have a backup outfit.”

She turned around, but he caught her hand and stopped her.

Over his dead body would she change that outfit.

“Leave it.” His voice was so low it sounded like a growl.

Her lips quirked in a smile. “Okay,” she said, imitating his growl. “Let me just grab my purse.”

Seemingly, a comedy routine was going to be part of their amateur sleuthing tonight.

In his car, they went over their plan as they drove to the bar. Ford managed to mostly keep his mind out of the gutter, except for one brief moment when she crossed her legs, hiking up her skirt and exposing several inches of bare thigh.

“So I’m supposed to pretend I’m nervous about a blind date and trying to get intel on the guy before he shows up.” She pointed to the traffic signal ahead. “Green light.”

The cars behind Ford laid on their horns.

Christ. He hit the gas, forcing himself to concentrate on the task at hand. “Yes. Act chatty. Casual. Tell the bartender your date mentioned that he’s been to the bar a few times, so you thought he or she might be familiar with him and could give you some insight.”

“Let’s say worst-case scenario here. What if the bartender is friends with him, and he’s like, ‘I don’t remember Peter saying anything about having a date tonight.’”

Ford shrugged. “Play it off. Say you just texted him back confirming the date a half hour ago. Or, act flighty and say you must’ve gotten the day wrong. A male bartender isn’t going to think you’re suspicious. Men are always clueless about what’s really going on in a woman’s head.”

“True enough. But what if it’s a female bartender? What if I say I’m meeting Peter Sutter for a date and Peter Sutter is her boyfriend?”

He thought about that. “Then you’d better run.”

“Run?” She looked appalled. “That’s your suggestion?”

“And you’re not going to get far in those heels, so I hope you know how to throw a decent punch.” He grinned when he caught her look. “I’m kidding. Look, think about what we do know about Peter Sutter. He’s good-looking, and he’s the kind of guy who ditches a woman while she’s sleeping after picking her up at a bar. Sounds like a player to me—odds are, he doesn’t even have a girlfriend.” Seeing a parking spot on the street about a half block away from their destination, he pulled to the side and reversed in.

He turned off the car and angled in the seat to face her. “Don’t be nervous.”

“I’m not nervous. Just . . . out of my element.”

He smiled, having a feeling that was a rare occurrence for her. “You’ll do great, Victoria.”

She tilted her head to the side, as if considering this. “Probably, yes.” Then she gave him a little smile to say she was joking. “Okay. Let’s do it.”

They both got out of the car, and he walked over to feed the parking meter. She leaned her hip against the hood, watching as he put the receipt on the dashboard.

“I’ll walk in ahead of you and find a spot away from the bar,” he told her. “Wait for my text, then you go in. If the bartender does know Peter Sutter, you’ll have to improvise a bit. Don’t seem too eager, but try to find out where he lives. Anything that we can cross-reference against our list. Say something like, ‘I think he mentioned that he lives close to here,’ that kind of thing.”

Victoria blew out a breath of air. “Okay. I just thought of another worst-case scenario.”

He hid a smile, thinking she was kind of cute when out of her element. “Technically, I think there can only be one worst-case scenario.”

“What if I walk in and ask about Peter Sutter, and the bartender points to some guy and says, ‘Sure, that’s Pete, right over there!’”

Hell, they should be so lucky. “Not exactly sure what’ll happen then. But it’ll probably include me saying a few four-letter words to the dickhead.”

That settled, Ford strode off in the direction of the bar.

* * *

LOCATED IN THE heart of the River North neighborhood, Public House, a so-called gastropub according to the online research Ford had done, was bigger and trendier than most sports bars he’d frequented. Sure, there was the requisite wood paneling and TVs on the walls, but the crowd seemed more “urban professional hoping to hook-up” than actual sports fan.

He told the hostess he was meeting someone and asked for a quiet booth away from the bar. Once seated, he surveyed the scene. There were two bartenders working that evening, a man and a woman, and only a couple of open seats at the bar.

A waitress stopped by his table to take his drink order. Bypassing the self-serve beer taps built right into the booth, he ordered a bottle of Robert the Bruce.

All set, he texted Victoria after the waitress left. Take the open seat on the left side of the bar. From there, he would have the quickest access in case he needed to step in, in the highly unlikely event that anything went awry once she began asking questions about Peter Sutter.

Moments later, she walked in.

Ford pretended to be distracted by his phone, but out of the corner of his eye he watched as she took a seat at the bar and crossed one high-heeled leg over the other.

The female bartender approached Victoria and took her order. After she walked away, Victoria checked out the other patrons seated at the bar, pretending as though she was looking for someone. After her drink arrived—something in a cocktail glass—she began chatting up the bartender. Ford couldn’t hear what was being said, but from Victoria’s smile, and her gestures, and the way the female bartender chuckled and nodded along, the conversation appeared to be going well.

He guessed the moment Victoria mentioned Peter Sutter’s name, judging from the way the bartender furrowed her brow as if thinking and then shook her head. Then the female bartender gestured for the male bartender to come over, and there was more gesturing and explaining the situation, and more smiles from Victoria, and then the male bartender shook his head.