Lawyer Trap (8 page)

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

D
raven 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.”

“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

T
effinger 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 be so invaluable on both the David Hallenbeck and Nathan Wickersham cases. She was a Supervisory Special Agent assigned to the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC) at Quantico, Virginia. Luckily, he actually got her on the line. As usual, she listened patiently as he explained the situation.

“The thing that puzzles me the most is the four different methods of murder,” he said, referring to stabbing, beheading, suffocation, and slitting of the throat. “Oh,” he added, “I almost forgot to tell you, the last one we found—the one with the slit throat—had her eyes gouged out too. We haven't found them yet. The guy ate them for all we know.”

She asked a number of questions.

The ages of the victims.

Physical descriptions.

Similarities.

“This is a tough one,” she said. “Given the widely divergent causes of death, I'm leaning towards multiple murderers, maybe a cult of some kind, or a gang initiation. But I'm also not inclined yet to totally rule out one murderer—maybe someone with multiple personalities, or one personality but multiple fantasies.” She cleared her throat and added, “Looks like you're going to be all over the news again.”

Unfortunately, that was true.

“It's already getting big,” he said. “And they don't even know yet that a head was cut off and that eyes were gouged out.”

“That'll leak out,” she said.

“Probably,” he agreed.

“I haven't seen an agency yet that can keep that level of noise under wraps, including my own,” she said.

As soon as he hung up, Sydney called.

“Where are you?” She sounded panicked. “You said you'd be back in an hour.”

“En route.”

“Well, hurry up, the press is here.”

23

DAY FOUR–SEPTEMBER 8

THURSDAY EVENING

A
spen was already in her pajamas when someone knocked at the door. Through the peephole she saw a stranger, a man about fifty wearing glasses. With hesitation, she opened the door as far as the chain would allow.

“The firm needs you at a meeting, right now,” the man said. “I have a limousine waiting.”

“Right now?”

“Yes.”

“Hold on.”

She checked outside and saw a limousine in the parking lot.

“Give me ten minutes,” she said.

“I'll be in the car.”

She dressed and threw on a face while a feeling of nausea grew in her stomach. The two glasses of wine might be on her breath, so she gargled as long as she could with mouthwash.

Thirty minutes later she was at the firm, sitting in one of the conference rooms with Blake Gray, Jacqueline Moore, and another attorney she hadn't met before named Derek Bennett.

Jacqueline Moore took the lead in what appeared to be more of an interrogation than a meeting. “You're all over the news; you know that, right?”

The words shocked her.

“No. What are you talking about?”

They powered up the flat-panel TV on the wall and played a videotape of the evening news for her. A detective by the name of Nick Teffinger wanted to talk to the woman in the photograph in connection with the case involving the four bodies found at the railroad spur. If anyone knew who the woman was, they should call the number at the bottom of the screen.