“Not that I was given a chance to say no.”
She looked at me. “You can still say no. If you want. I hope you don’t, though.”
“I’ll keep it in mind. But none of that answers the big question—which is why you were posing as a hooker, of all things.”
“Oh, sorry. That’s what Allie was doing.” Her voice took on a sad note. “Hooking, except she was doing it for real.” She was silent for a while, then, “Allie was always the dark sheep of the family. I tried to talk her out of it, but she said she was making way too much money, that she’d quit in like a year or two. That’s the kind of thing that happens in other families, not mine. I thought it was crazy. Allie couldn’t be doing that, but she was. Anyway, I knew it was a long shot, me going out like that, sort of following in her footsteps to see if I could find out anything, but I had to try.”
“More than a long shot. It was dangerous and had zero chance of success,” said Mother Mort.
“Hopeless, maybe, but not all that dangerous. All I did was talk to guys, try to steer the conversation in a direction that might point toward Allie. I never left the bars, the casinos, with any of them, ever. The federal government doesn’t have that much money.”
Probably a subtle dig at my failed IRS career. Sonofabitch.
We passed the power station at Tracy, fifteen miles east of Sparks, cooling towers laying down a skein of fog between the hills. The lights of the station were bright spots in the growing darkness.
“And . . .” Sarah said quietly, then looked out her side window, away from me.
“And?”
Her fingers flexed on the steering wheel. “I have a three point eight five grade point average. I even took extra classes in calculus and diffy-q—that’s differential equations—that weren’t required by my major.”
“Meaning—you’re a serious student.”
“Yes. I am.”
“And something of a nerd?”
She looked at me, then back at the road. “It’s a time-honored engineering curse. Pretty much true, though. You should see some of the guys in my classes, how they dress and how they talk—then they wonder why they can’t find girlfriends.”
Great, just like IRS agents.
“You said it got to be interesting—pretending to be a hooker. How’s that work? Cut you loose from all that serious study, set you free for a while?”
“I guess. At first it was scary. I didn’t know what I was doing. After a while, though, yeah, it was fun, going out in clothes like this, having guys look at me. For a few hours I was someone else. But I still really want to find my sister.”
“Which is why we’re headed to Gerlach.”
She glanced at me. “Wow, you’re really good at this.”
“You have no idea.”
She laughed quietly. “You’re funny. And . . . well, nice.”
“And engaged.”
She shook her head. “Don’t worry. I’m not . . . you know. After anything like that.”
“Uh-huh. Just trying to find your sister.”
“That’s all, yes.”
“Mind if I point out that the top is down on this car and it’s getting kinda chilly? Dressed like that, I don’t know how you’re not freezing.”
“I run pretty hot.”
I smiled. I would’ve cracked my knuckles in a gesture of placid indifference, if I’d known how.
She gave me a look. “Oh, uh, I didn’t mean that . . . not the way it sounded.”
“I forgive you. You’re an engineering student.”
She grimaced. “Socially inept. A dork.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Well, I guess it’s pretty much true. Was, anyway. It still is when I’ve got a textbook open. I can concentrate for hours. It’s been harder this semester, but I go out and do the bars when I have a little free time. I still can’t believe I was with you when Allie called.”
“Yep. Lucky us. Actually it’s a cosmic thing—maybe I’ll explain later. So how about we put the top up on this thing? My sword wound’s starting to ache.”
“Sword wound?”
“You didn’t hear about that?”
“Guess not. Whatever a sword wound is.”
“It’s when a sword—foil, actually—is run through your chest. Tell you about that later, too. There’s a place up ahead you can stop.”
A minute later she pulled into a scenic view turnoff, not much to see at night. She punched a button and the top snugged down.
“I don’t suppose you’ve got anything else to put on?” I said as she pulled back onto the interstate. She wouldn’t, of course. It was that Spade-Hammer thing, operating in high gear.
She looked down at herself. “No. Sorry. I wasn’t thinking the evening would turn out this way. I hope this doesn’t bother you.”
“The second it does, I’ll let you know.”
Her lips lifted in a faint smile. “It’s been so weird, dressing like this, pretending to be something I’m not, being stared at. At first, anyway. It took a while to wear off, the strangeness I mean.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I let her talk.
“The first time, it was like an out-of-body experience, like it wasn’t real, like I was in a dream. I would look in a mirror and see someone else. But then . . .”
I waited her out.
“Then,” she went on, “after a while, it started to feel good.”
“Good, huh?”
She kept her eyes on the road. “Being looked at. Noticed.”
This was the kind of girl who would be noticed everywhere she went. I told her that.
“Not like in the bars,” she said. “Not in clothes like this. No one wears anything like this around campus. But really, I’m a very serious student. I get A’s in engineering classes. It’s the English and sociology and stuff like that where I sometimes get B’s. So getting out like this was . . . well, like stepping outside of
