Lawyer Trap

17





DAY THREE–SEPTEMBER 7

WEDNESDAY EVENING


As the day progressed, Aspen found herself more and more concerned about the visit this afternoon from senior partner Jacqueline Moore. She kept her lowly associate ass in her chair until six o’clock and then uneventfully walked out of the office and drove home.

She immediately drank a glass of wine.

Then she poured another and sipped it as a Lean Pocket heated in the microwave. She ended up on the couch watching the news and trying to figure out if she had already slid too far down a slippery slope.

She couldn’t afford to get fired.

Not if she wanted to continue eating.

She paced, then stopped at the window and looked out. A dark sky threatened rain. She wouldn’t be surprised if it poured like a madman in the next ten minutes.

The news caught her attention.

The body of a woman named Tonya Obenchain had been discovered yesterday buried in a shallow grave not more than a hundred feet from the grave of Angela Pfeiffer, who was discovered Sunday afternoon by a homeless man passing through the area. Both women disappeared earlier this spring. It was too early to tell if the same person killed both women, but police weren’t ruling out any theories at this point.

Interesting.

The two dead women both disappeared earlier this spring.

That’s when Rachel vanished too.

She set the wine down, fired up the computer, and printed out all the newspaper articles she could find on Tonya Obenchain and Angela Pfeiffer.

Not only did both women disappear earlier this spring, they actually disappeared in early April.

Even more interesting, Rachel disappeared at that same time.

The conclusion was inescapable.

Whoever abducted and killed the two women in the news also abducted Rachel.

And no doubt killed her too.

Rachel’s body must be buried somewhere near the other two.

Aspen grabbed a light jacket and headed to the door.

“Screw you, Jacqueline Moore,” she said, racing down the stairs.

When she arrived at the old railroad spur, no one was there. Two areas were staked off with yellow crime-scene tape. No doubt the locations of the graves. She stopped the Accord and killed the engine.

A heavy rain fell out of the sky and pounded on the roof of her car.

She searched around in the back seat to see if her umbrella was there by chance. It wasn’t, so she put the jacket over her head and stepped outside.

The weather accosted her immediately.

Heavy but warm.

She could already tell that she’d be totally soaked in just a few minutes. So she decided to just give in to it now and threw the jacket on the hood of the car.

Her hair immediately matted down and water ran into her eyes.

She took a Kleenex out of her pants pocket and wiped mascara off.

Now what?

She walked over to one of the gravesites. It was only about eighteen inches deep and filling with water. She checked the other one.

Same thing.

If Rachel was buried here somewhere, Aspen doubted that it would be too close to the existing graves, otherwise the police would have stumbled on it. It would be better to search farther out. She walked down the tracks for more than two hundred yards, looking in both directions for anything that suggested digging—fewer weeds, a raised area, whatever.

She saw nothing of interest.

She came back to where the graves were and then walked down the tracks in the other direction.

Again nothing.

This would be harder than she thought.

But Rachel was here somewhere.

She knew it.

She set up an imaginary grid and walked it, step by step. The rain never let up, not a bit. If anything, it got stronger. Her tennis shoes were caked with mud.

Slippery mud at that.

She fell and ended up with an ass full of it.

Then fell again.

And again.

Now she had mud all over her arms.

And in her hair.

“Goddamn rain.”

Her legs ached and her eyelids were raw from rubbing the rain out of her eyes. She’d been at it for what seemed like forever when she finally finished the grid.

Still nothing.

“Shit.”

Enough.

She went back to the car and rested against it, wondering what to do. If she got in this muddy, she’d ruin the interior, or at least end up having to clean it for an hour.

No thanks, either way.

Maybe she should just take her jeans off and throw them in the trunk. The evening was getting on, darker by the second. There was no one around. It was doubtful that anyone would see her. But still, she wasn’t wearing panties, and the thought of being bare-ass naked out here in the middle of nowhere creeped her out.

Then she remembered the gravesites, filling with water.

She headed over to the nearest one and found it half filled.

She stepped over the yellow tape and waded into the pool of water. Then she leaned backwards and put her hands down, like a crab, and wiggled her ass back and forth in the water.

She felt the mud coming off.

Good.

This was working just fine.

She wiggled more.

Her left hand suddenly sank down.

Twelve inches or more, almost up to her elbow.

As if she had slipped into a shaft.

Her fingers felt something weird.

Soft.

Silky.

Definitely not dirt.

She pulled herself up, turned around, kneeled down and then dug. In a few minutes she found the silky stuff again. She tugged at it and found it still firm, but on the verge of breaking loose. She dug even more, scooping out mud and throwing it over the side of the hole.

This time when she grabbed the silky stuff something gave way and pulled up. She fell backwards on her ass with a splash, still gripping whatever it was that she had found.

She studied it—something about the size of a small basketball—and then dunked it in the water and swished it around.

When she pulled it up, she was holding a head.

Rachel Ringer’s head.