At the end of a desolate block up a hill (whereas Coronado was flat, neat, a lovely island at sea, San Diego had so many hills), there seemed to be life. After a flurry of swift steps, she reached it; a lighted oasis, a blinking sign above the entrance cried Cold Draft Beer! She peered inside, squinting into the darkly tinted brown glass; a sprinkling of men sat at a bar altogether, and yet their aura suggested a loneliness deeper than anything Lia could imagine.
Presently, a young man swung open the barroom door and staggered out into the street. Her first instinct being protection, she ducked behind a metal newspaper dispenser not yet filled with Sunday’s San Diego Union Tribune. Would there be any word about Ryan in there the next day?
The man who’d left the bar seemed young, narrow-s
