The Trophy Hunter (9 page)

“He’s unemployed?”

“He’s working on the problem. Trying to build
up a clientele in a trade his father-in-law taught him. Darren
considers it more of an art form. Back when they were
family
, Joe taught Darren taxidermy.”

Chapter 14

A glint of silver caught Diana’s eye in the
side view mirror as she turned off Evans onto Colorado Boulevard on
her way home from the health club.

Though artificial Christmas trees decked out
in red and gold garlands brightened the streets, Diana felt a sense
of gloom. Christmas was only five days away. She just wished it was
over.

Usually a workout left her spirits as well as
her body tingling and uplifted. Too soon, she told herself. The
healing process is going to take some time. Dr. Hovac had offered
an anti-depressant prescription that she’d declined.
Hmm, maybe
just to get through Christmas.

When she caught a red light at Iliff, she
heard the screech of brakes behind her, and saw it in her rear
view. A silver pickup truck like the one she’d seen in Flannigan’s
driveway. The Ram ornament almost rammed into her back seat, he was
so close. She could make out a bulky man’s form in the driver’s
seat, but he was wearing a baseball cap pulled low and the collar
of his jacket obscured the bottom half of his face.

Panicking, she told herself that there must
be dozens, if not hundreds, of silver Dodge Rams in the Denver
area. But how many of them had hood ornaments? As she checked her
door and window locks, she felt her heart lurch and flutter. Joe
Flannigan would have no reason to follow her. Or would he? Could he
possibly blame her for the loss of his grandchildren? She wished
Greenwood Village wasn’t so close to Cherry Hills.

The light changed to green, and she drove
forward, then made a quick, unscheduled left turn on a yellow
light, heading east. She drove for several blocks, hands gripping
the steering wheel like vises. Just as she thought she’d lost
him─or he was never following her in the first place─she saw
movement through the rear view. Was that a glint of silver again?
She found herself in a residential area of older homes decorated
for the season. And very little traffic. Diana turned left again,
heading back in the direction of the health club.

Back on Evans after coming full circle, Diana
shakily lowered the driver’s side window and inch and gulped cold
night air. The flow of traffic had picked up. She saw no sign of
the silver Dodge Ram. But, at the next stop light she removed her
cell phone and pepper spray from her handbag, depositing them by
her side in the console cup holder, just in case.

The light changed, Diana gulped more cold
air, then raised the window as she pulled away from the
intersection.

Chapter 15

Jess parked her car in the back lot of a porn
shop whose owner she knew. She checked the mag on her little Glock
27, rolled down her right boot and shoved the pistol into her ankle
holster. Being left-handed was a drag sometimes. The leopard boot
rolled up too snugly over the gun. She needed the next size, except
the thrift store didn’t have any others. What the hell, she’d
probably never wear them again. Maybe next Halloween.

As she slithered out of the car, she also
checked the left boot to make sure her CLIPIT knife was in
place.

Dare had said the phone booth was at Colfax
and Irving. One block west of Hooker. He’d said it with a straight
face, too. Jess had to giggle at the thought of hooking on Hooker
Street.

She strolled the three blocks at a leisurely
pace, noting the phone booth under Christmas lights. A couple
arguing in the driveway of a motel across the street caught her
attention briefly. A sister dressed in sweats, with hair the color
and consistency of rusty steel wool was not taking any shit off a
paunchy white guy who looked old enough to be her dad. The
Vacancy
sign flashed off and on, its V burned out.

What was it with these old dudes and young
chicks? Jess suddenly felt her age and then some. On the street,
thirty-five was not only over the hill, it was below ground level.
Bargain basement. Damn, the thrift store boots were pinching the
hell out of her toes. And the ankle holster had shifted in the
too-tight quarters. Now the Glock was digging into her shin bone.
Charlie’s Angels this was not. Finishing law school couldn’t have
been
this
bad.

“You a cop?” The girl’s words, bitten off on
the cold air, whirled Jess and sent her hand instinctively reaching
toward her boot.

Then she saw the wisp of a Latina who
could’ve been somebody’s baby sister. She wore dark blue sweat
pants, gray fleece jacket, and running shoes that had maybe once
been white. Hardly the uniform of the world’s oldest
profession.

“Why would you ask that?” Jess smiled, her
composure regained in an eye-blink. It rankled her that she hadn’t
heard the girl’s approach.
Get with it, Jess. Your age is
showing.

The girl made a sweeping gesture in Jess’s
direction. “We don’ dress like that no more.” She giggled, and then
smiled, showing even white teeth in a pretty pixie face. “You
threads is what they say … dated.”

Jess faked confusion, remembering Diana’s
quip. “Oh, Christmas trees.” She looked around at the street
decorations. “Wrong holiday.”

The girl looked at her like she was nuts.
“Yeah, like what do you
really
want? Get yourself laid?”

Jess shrugged. Then she sidled up to the
girl, reaching into her pocket as she moved. Nearer the Latina, she
caught a faint whiff of pot. “Guess you got me,” Jess said as she
removed Patty Strickland’s photo. “Thought I’d have better luck if
I dressed the part.” She handed Patty’s picture to the girl.
“Looking for my baby sister.”

Under the feeble glow of the street light the
girl’s brown fingers reached for the photo; then as her eyes
connected with it, one dark brow shot up quizzically. “Ain’t no way
you this kid’s sister.”

Jess shrugged. “Would you believe she was
adopted? Does it really matter?”

The Latina cocked her head on one side and
looked Jess up and down. “You gotta get with the program. You wanna
come back to my pad, I lend you some duds?”

Like they’d fit.
Jess backed away,
suddenly uncomfortable under the girl’s sly glance. “No,
thanks.”

As if reading her mind, the girl continued,
“No, I ain’t after your puss. An’, yeah, I seen this chick. She
been doin’ this corner till Ramon run her off.”

“Ramon Williams?” asked Jess. The familiar
face of the greasy haired mulatto pimp jumped to mind. “This his
block? Since when?”

“You really knew him, you’d know.” The girl’s
voice was turning nasty. Her pretty mouth curled in a snarl. “You
so phony. But I seen the chick. This ol’ guy pick her up. Then I
don’ see her no more.”

“Old guy? What’d he look like?”

“White.”

“Tall … short … built how?”

The girl shrugged. “Built like a ol’
guy.”

“
How
old?” Jess delicately removed
Patty’s picture from the girl’s fingers just as it seemed ready to
drop from her grasp.

“Oh … maybe ‘bout as ol’ as you.”

Jess smiled sweetly, teeth gritted. “And what
kind of car was he driving?”

“Wasn’ no car. Was a truck.”

The girl whirled toward a light-colored
pickup that Jess had observed on its second pass around the block.
“Like that one,” said the Latina. As the truck slowed to a stop,
the girl headed toward it. “Let’s go check it out. Might be him.
You can show him the pick-cha.”

Jess started after her. “Wait up. Don’t─”

But the passenger side door opened, and the
girl hopped in without any preliminaries, motioning for Jess to
follow.

Shit. This is so not Kosher.

Jess put the skids on her leopard boots and
eyed the dark interior of the truck, past the Latina. A large male
form whose eyes were black holes in a face blurred by darkness
occupied the driver’s seat. She couldn’t make out his features
obscured under a baseball cap. She couldn’t even tell if he had
hair. He just looked big and beefy as he now motioned to her.

I don’t think so.
Dare was a hunk, but
a hunk with a kink? Was this his set-up or some perv’s who’d never
even heard of Patty Strickland?

As Jess deliberated, inching her hand down
her thigh toward the Glock at her ankle, a dark green Crown Vic
slid up to the curb behind the truck. In an eye blink the open
passenger door banged shut as Baseball Cap peeled away from the
curb, the Latina beside him. Jess reached inside her jacket,
whipped out her cell and snapped the rear of the truck, its
mud-splattered license plate caught in her cell camera’s
auto-flash─she hoped.

“Hey, babe, lookin’ for company?”

Jess took a good look at the Crown Vic’s
driver. “Vince?”

“Jessie?”

“How long you been on vice?”

“’bout six months. You really this hard up
for business?” Vince Paccione gave her a toothy grin.

“You know, you’re the second person to ask me
that. Better call it a night. My feet are killing me. Mind giving
me a ride back to my car?”

“What was that about with the Ram?” asked
Vince.

“That’s what I’d like to know.”

Inside Vince’s car, Jess checked out what her
camera had caught.

“You just have all kinds of goodies,” he said
as she took a mini-flashlight out of her right boot. “No wonder
your feet hurt. What else you got in there?”

“Not much besides my Glock and a Clipit
knife.”

“You need bigger boots.”

“Tell me about it.”

“I can’t believe you’re still driving that
fire truck,” said Vince as he pulled up beside her Camaro. “You
might as well be driving a black-and-white with the siren on.”

She ignored the comment. “Mind doing me one
more favor?” She poked the cell phone toward him. “Check out this
license?”

Vince squinted at the picture. “Can you hold
the light up? Maybe zoom it?”

She tried. “It looks like HUNTER Z.”

“Looks like dirt on the plate.” Vince got on
his radio and called it in. Within seconds he turned to her.
“Nada.”

“Try HUNTER 2.”

He returned to Dispatch. She watched his
expression brighten. “Bingo.”

“Well?”

“Larry Strickland. Custer County. Ring a
bell?”

Dead guy … driving?

Chapter 16

The Hunter pats the girl’s brown hand that
now rests on his thigh.

“I’m sorry. I think maybe I overdid it,” she
says without any trace of the accent she just used on Jess. “And
that other dude driving up didn’t help matters.”

He squeezes the girl’s fingers
affectionately.
That other dude was a cop, you airhead.

“Maybe if we just circle back, he’ll be
gone.”

“We’ll try another time.”
She wasn’t going
to get in the truck, you numbskull.
That surprises him about
the black. He had her figured for one who leapt before she
looked.

The girl’s hand moves between his legs. “Are
we going to your place?”

He gently removes her hand and places it in
her lap. “Not tonight.”

“You’re mad. I’ll do better next time.”

“Next time,” he says.
You really think
there’ll be a next time?
Still, it amazes him how strong her
need is to please him. No matter how irrational his requests. And
it’s not just her. It’s so easy that sometimes it’s boring. Like
shooting ducks on a pond─something he’d never stoop to.

“When?” she asks. “’cause I have classes
three nights next week.”

“When I’m ready,” he says. He can feel her
pouting beside him as he drives.

“You really don’t have to worry about your
classes,” he adds with a wink. That gets a smile out of her, puny
like she is. Not a collectible like the black who’s just slipped
off the hook. There is a firm-bodied specimen. Breasts like a
virgin. Never had any kids to drag them down.

“Uh … where are we going?” the girl asks.
He’s passed the corner by the college where he usually picks her up
and drops her off.

When the bait can’t wait─incinerate.

“What are you laughing at?” she asks.

Chapter 17

After a few more detours without seeing a
silver Dodge Ram, Diana headed home. What should have taken twenty
minutes took an hour. And felt like two.

Home was going to look so good. From a
distance, she could see Christmas lights dancing off the icy
surface of the lake.

The low stone wall and matching pillars
twined with pine boughs and Christmas lights that marked the
entrance to Cherry Hills Farm welcomed her. As she turned into her
subdivision, she convinced herself that the entire incident had
been the product of her still-weakened state of body and mind. What
possible reason would Joe Flannigan have for following her? There
were dozens of other attorneys to choose from.

Now, Jess was another story. Flannigan had
actually employed her services. If he was going to be pissed at
somebody─

Shit!

A silver truck sat in front of her house. The
unmistakable bulk of Joe Flannigan lounged against the vehicle. How
did he know where she lived? She even had an unlisted home number.
When he looked in her direction, Diana saw him take a drag on a
cigarette, then discard it on her lawn with an impatient
gesture.

As he headed in her direction, she gripped
her cell phone. She’d pressed in nine-one-one when sanity reminded
her that he man had done nothing, made no threats. Yet.

She put down the phone and picked up her
pepper spray as Flannigan approached her car.

“I just wanna talk,” shouted Flannigan
through the inch-wide opening in Diana’s car window.