Aspen couldn’t afford it.
Not with only $82 in her account.
But couldn’t afford to not have friends, either.
“Great,” she said.
They milled through the crowd down the 16th Street Mall under a perfect Colorado sky and ended up at the Hard Rock Cafe, eating salads at the bar.
“So what’s the scoop with Jacqueline Moore?” Aspen asked at one point.
“Cruella?” Christina asked. “Don’t even think anything bad about her. She has radar. And definitely don’t cross swords with her. She’ll gut you like a fish.”
Aspen frowned.
“I may have already done that.”
“Already?” Christina said, slapping Aspen on the back. “Congratulations girl, that’s a new law firm record.”
“Lucky me.”
“Why, what’d you do?”
Aspen explained about how she contacted Dr. Beverly Twenhofel and then got a tongue-lashing from Moore, after which Christina said, “Yeah, you’re on her short list, all right. If I were you, I’d snuggle up to Blake Gray. He’s the only known antidote to Cruella.”
Aspen chewed.
“What’s the scoop with him?”
“Blake?”
“Yeah.”
“He’s a good guy.”
“He seems like a good guy,” she said. “He took me to lunch and told me his door’s always open.”
“It is,” Christina agreed.
“Really?”
She nodded.
“Yeah, you’d think it’s just empty bullshit, but it isn’t,” Christina said. “I had a case during my first year here, where I didn’t get our expert disclosed in time. The other side got anal about it and persuaded the judge to exclude his testimony. We lost the case and the client ended up paying about fifty grand, when we should have had a defense verdict.”
“Ouch,” Aspen said.
“Major ouch,” Christina agreed. “Anyway, there was some talk in the halls as to whether I had what it takes to be here. Blake stepped in and brought that to a screeching halt. Even more than that, he paid the client a chunk of change out of his own wallet.”
“Damn.”
Christina nodded.
“I’d be washing dishes right now if it wasn’t for him.”
The TV monitors over the bar interrupted the current programming with a newsbreak. Two more bodies had been discovered at the abandoned railroad spur north of town, bringing the total now to four. Footage of the Crime Unit working the scene filled the screen, and then switched over to reporter Jena Vellone interviewing a man.
The detective in charge, apparently.
Aspen had seen him before somewhere.
He had one of those faces you don’t forget.
“We’re very interested in talking to the person who called us last night,” Teffinger said. Looking straight into the camera, he added, “If you’re that person, please call us as soon as possible.”
Aspen dropped her fork.
“What?” Christina asked.
She tried to not appear shaken. “Nothing, just clumsy. Scary stuff, all those bodies.”
Christina made a disgusted face. “There’s no shortage of sickos in the world, that’s for sure.” She wiped her mouth and added, “I love that guy’s eyes.”
Aspen studied them.
“They’re two different colors,” she said.
“I know,” Christina said. “He should be in that Right Said Fred song, I’m too sexy for my eyes, too sexy for my eyes, that’s no lie.”
Aspen laughed.
But stayed focused on the news update to see if they mentioned that one of the new bodies was Rachel Ringer’s. They didn’t, probably because they still needed to verify it conclusively.
So, who was the fourth victim?
No doubt someone who had also disappeared in early April. With a little work on the Internet, Aspen should be able to figure it out in short order.
She paid for lunch, for the both of them.
$22.00, including the tip.
Meaning $60.00 left.
21
DAY FOUR-SEPTEMBER 8
THURSDAY MORNING
Draven was pissed that Gretchen smashed in the dumb-ass biker’s skull, not really needing to be connected to too many things like that right now. “I didn’t know I was going to do it until I did it,” she apologized. Then, to make up for it, she gave him a long, slow blowjob.
They hid out all night in the canyon at the Pueblo Reservoir.
Now, as the morning sun rose with a warm orange glow over the rocky ridge, Draven’s anger waned and they laughed about it.
“He did deserve it,” he noted.
Gretchen locked her arm through his as they hiked back to the car. “Screw him,” she said. “Now what?”
Good question.
One he’d been wrestling with all night.
“The biggest liability is my car,” he said, “in case anyone saw it parked in the area. I doubt that anyone got a license plate number, but they might have a general description. So I need to get it out of Pueblo, starting now.”
She squeezed his arm.
“Take me with you.”
He shook his head.
“You can’t break your routine,” he said. “That’ll draw attention. You need to get back to your hotel room and turn tricks like nothing happened. What’s today? Thursday?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you have some Thursday regulars?”
“There’s this one guy…”
Draven cut her off. “You need to be there then,” he said. “But here’s the most important thing. Don’t tell a single person about last night, ever. Do you understand?”
She did.
He stopped, grabbed her arms and made her look in his eyes. “Tell me.”
“I won’t tell anyone.”
“Ever.”
