“Ever.”
He found no lies and continued walking.
When they got to the car, they drove north on I-25 for fifteen miles, until they came to a rest stop. Draven pulled in and killed the engine. An identical rest stop sat on the other side of the freeway. They used the facilities and then found a shady spot with a picnic table.
“Here’s the plan,” he said. “Be sure there are no cops around, then go over to that other rest stop and get a trucker to give you a ride back to town. Then just follow your normal routine.”
Her forehead wrinkled.
“What about you?” she asked.
He laughed. “Me? I’ll be fine.”
“No, I mean, when will I see you again?”
He thought about it and said, “I got some stuff going on, but I’ll be back as soon as I can, probably within a week, two weeks max. Be at the hotel where I can find you.”
She squeezed his hand.
“Do you promise you’ll come?”
“Yes, I promise,” he said, and meant it. “As soon as I can.” He gave her his cell phone number and said, “That’s for emergencies only. If you have to call, do it from a payphone, preferably one with no security cameras around.”
A pack of Harleys-ten or more-flew past the rest stop, heading north toward Denver with a serious twist on the throttle. No biker-bitch passengers meant they were on a mission-probably headed to Draven’s.
He and Gretchen held each other for a long time and then parted.
He drove north on I-25, taking more hits of Jack than he should, keeping an eye in the rearview mirror for bikers or cops.
Shit.
Now everything was screwed up.
One of the main goals of coming to Pueblo, namely nabbing Mia Avila-the tattoo woman who inked the warrior band on his arm-had slipped away. Still, he and Gretchen now had a history, and he wouldn’t trade that for six miles of women, tattooed or otherwise.
He flicked the radio stations.
The music shook his brain away from the fact that Gretchen would be sucking other men until he got back.
Maybe he should turn around before it was too late.
An exit popped up and he pulled off. A gas station appeared and he instinctively checked the gauge, surprised to find he was riding on fumes. “Damn you’re an ass.” He pulled in, filled up with 87, and then went inside to pay.
A toothless old lady worked the register with agonizing slowness while truckers three deep bit their lips and tried their best to not jump over the counter and rip her arms off.
Draven stepped to the end of the line and shifted from foot to foot, watching the old woman’s every move. A cheap black-and-white TV monitor in the corner caught his eye. A newscast reported that the number of bodies found at the old railroad spur north of Denver now numbered four.
Who could possibly give a shit about something so trivial?
“Hey! Hurry it up, will you?” he said.
The trucker in front of him turned, as if ready to get in Draven’s face, but looked in his eyes and didn’t say anything.
The gas bill was $36.50.
Draven stepped to the front of the line, threw two wadded-up twenties on the counter and said, “There, you happy?”
Then he stormed out.
Someone mumbled something behind his back. He walked back in and looked everyone in the eyes, one by one. No one made a sound.
“That’s what I thought,” he said.
Then he left.
22
DAY FOUR-SEPTEMBER 8
THURSDAY
Teffinger was still working the crime scene at the railroad spur when Davica called. “I saw the news,” she said, “about finding two more bodies. So I’m ready to accept your apology for thinking I was involved with any of it.”
Teffinger smiled.
“Who is this?”
“Not funny,” she said. “Come over tonight. I have something to show you.” She hung up before he could say anything.
Sydney showed up a few minutes later, walking toward him with a Cheshire Cat grin on her face. “Good news,” she said, handing him three pieces of paper-black-and-white printouts of a young woman talking on a payphone. “That’s your anonymous caller.”
“You sure?”
“Positive,” she said. “This is definitely the phone used for the call, and the time on the security camera tape exactly matches the time of the call, from start to end. Plus she looks stressed.”
Teffinger was impressed.
“Good work,” he said. “I suppose now you think I owe you lunch or something.”
She punched him in the arm.
“Lunch? Dinner at a minimum,” she said. “Got some more news for you too. The head definitely belongs to Rachel Ringer, like our caller-friend said.”
“Any word yet who the other one is? The one without the eyes?”
“Nada.”
Teffinger studied the caller’s face again.
“Let’s get a press conference set up ASAP,” he said. “I want her photo on the five o’clock news. She’s up to her eyeballs in this and I want to know how.”
Sydney shook her head.
“If all I’m getting out of this is a lunch…”
“You’re also being paid, don’t forget.”
“Right, but I would be extra motivated if there was a dinner involved.”
Teffinger held his hands up in surrender.
“Okay,” he said. “Fine. But this is blackmail, for the record.”
She smiled. “Black female, actually. I choose the restaurant.”
Ouch.
“Just be sure they have a two-for-one special.” He looked at his watch for the first time in hours: 3:25. Shit. “I got to run,” he said over his shoulder. “Be back in an hour.”
He headed over to see how Marilyn Black was coming along. It was turning out that she was more alone in the world than he first thought. Her father skipped out when she was just a baby. Marilyn ran away from home when she was fifteen and had been on the streets ever since.
When he walked into her room she was asleep.
He held her hand for a half hour and then told the orderly, “Be sure she knows I was here.”
On his way back to the railroad spur, Teffinger called Leigh Sandt, Ph. D., the FBI profiler who had proved to
