He wrinkled his forehead.
“She had a big heart,” he said, “on top of being a brilliant attorney.”
Aspen agreed.
“I can’t help but think about one of the projects she had me working on back then,” Aspen said.
“Oh? What’s that?”
“It was for a psychologist,” she said. “I can’t remember her name right now, but the gist of the matter was that she had some kind of an impromptu conversation with some man who wasn’t a formal client. She took him to be a killer. Apparently he had a certain MO that she recognized. Anyway, since the man asked her questions that could possibly be viewed as the type of thing a patient might ask a psychologist, she wanted a legal opinion on whether the conversation was covered by the physician-patient privilege. Rachel had me do the research and we concluded that the privilege in fact attached, meaning she couldn’t give the information to the police.”
Blake nodded.
“You’re talking about Dr. Beverly Twenhofel,” he said.
“Exactly, that’s her,” she said. “I can’t help but wonder if Rachel’s disappearance is somehow tied to that case.”
Blake took a swig of the nonalcoholic beer.
“The same thought came to me at one point, namely Rachel’s working on a case potentially involving a killer, and then she ends up missing. But I don’t see a connection for two reasons. First, the guy-whoever he is-wouldn’t even know that our client had approached us for a legal opinion. So there’s no reason Rachel would have been on his radar screen. Second, if the guy did feel threatened, say because he sensed that someone believed he was a killer, he would have gone after Dr. Twenhofel, and not us. That never happened. She’s alive and well and hasn’t been threatened or harassed in any way.”
Aspen hadn’t been privy to that.
Obviously Blake was way ahead of her.
“Well,” she said, “that’s the only thing that I know of, sort of offbeat, that might somehow explain something.”
He nodded.
“It was a good thought,” he said. “But unlikely.”
She ran her other theory by him, the theory that maybe Rachel hadn’t actually been abducted in the parking lot of The Fort at all, but had in fact been abducted somewhere else earlier. Then they dropped her car off in the parking lot to make it look like she’d been abducted there.
Again, he didn’t seem overly impressed.
“We had, and still do have, the best private investigators in the state working on the case,” he said. “I’m sure they considered that theory. In fact, I’m almost positive they have. I remember talking to them at one point about the fact that Rachel gassed up near her house about twenty minutes before she was supposed to arrive at The Fort. It was about a twenty-minute drive there, which meant she was on her way. So if she wasn’t taken in the parking lot, she somehow had to be pulled over before she got there. I don’t see how that could happen. As I recall, her spare tire was in good condition, meaning she hadn’t pulled over with a flat.”
He shrugged.
“I’m not saying you’re wrong,” he said. “I’m only saying that it doesn’t seem to fit the facts.”
“I didn’t know all those facts,” she said.
“No way you would have,” he added. “But your theories are impressive, especially for someone who just started thinking about it. I can tell we made the right decision hiring you.”
“I hope so.”
“I already know it,” he said. “You’re going to be a partner some day. I can tell.”
6
DAY ONE-SEPTEMBER 5
MONDAY EVENING
When Draven woke from his nap, the room was dark and it took him a few moments to remember he was in a sleazy Pueblo hotel. He wandered into the bathroom, took a long piss, then recalled getting the tattoo this afternoon and flicked the lights on to have a look.
It wrapped around his right arm, above the bicep.
“Good job, Mia Avila,” he said.
Between that and the scar on his face, he looked downright dangerous.
Maybe he needed another one now.
On the other arm.
Something different, though.
He took a swig of Jack Daniels and then headed for the shower, getting it as hot as he could stand it. When he came out he felt like a new man, a man with a full night ahead of him. He slipped into jeans and a black muscle shirt and then headed down the rickety hotel stairs. He drove around downtown Pueblo until he spotted a bar with thirty or forty Harleys out front, then parked his beat-up Chevy a block down the street and doubled back on foot.
The place was packed, dark, loud, and rowdy.
Nice.
Red vinyl booths lined the left wall, and a long bar ran down the right. In the back, by the restrooms, were a couple of pool tables and a small dance floor, with a handful of drunks twirling around with no sense of coordination or timing.
There had to be over two hundred people in there.
They weren’t just drinking.
They were either shit-faced or on their way.
Tattoos were everywhere.
Plenty of women, too.
Perfect.
He found a space at the bar big enough to squeeze into, ordered a Bud Light, and then looked around for backup prey, just in case Mia Avila turned out to be problematic.
At least half the women were dogs.
Bow-wow.
Worse than dogs, not even worth a bone.
Two nice ones, though-both heavily tattooed and wearing muscle shirts-were playing pool in the back. He wandered in that direction, leaned against the wall, and watched ’em without being too conspicuous.
They would work just fine.
Either of ’em.
He walked over and set two quarters on the table. “I got the winner,” he told them.
“That’ll be me,” one of them said.
“My ass,” the other one said.
Five minutes later he was up, racked ’em, and let the woman break. Two stripes went in.
“You can still take solids if you want,” he said.
She laughed, then walked over and leaned in.
“Are you interested in a little side bet?”
He cocked his head.
“What’d you have in mind?”
“The loser buys beer.”
That sounded good.
“Fine, but now you got me motivated,” he warned.
