Lawyer Trap

32





DAY SIX–SEPTEMBER 10

SATURDAY


Aspen woke well rested Saturday morning. She yawned, stretched, showered, and counted her lucky stars that she had actually survived a whole week at the law firm.

She studied her face in the mirror as she brushed her teeth.

“Don’t screw up again,” she said.

“Yes, master.”

“I mean it.”

Knowing she still had a paycheck coming in, she let herself think about the pile of bills. It would be tough going until the end of the month, when she actually got paid, but after that she should be able to make ends meet and actually chip away at the student loans.

Maybe even get an oil change for the little Honda fellow.

She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d done that.

The poor little thing.

Dressed in khakis and a cotton short-sleeve shirt, she headed straight to work, wanting to bill at least six or seven hours today. Almost every associate on her floor had already beaten her in.

Shit.

What a horse race.

She filled a Styrofoam cup with coffee, grabbed a day-old donut out of a Krispy Kreme box in the kitchen, and headed to her office. Outside, the day was perfect, sunny and blue. Ordinarily, right about now, she’d be on her bike trying to not kill herself on some insane mountain trail that was never intended for two wheels.

Oh, well.

Maybe tomorrow.

She pounded out solid work for more than three hours before her mind wandered to Rachel. Deep down, she still believed that the legal file Rachel was working on for the psychologist—Beverly Twenhofel—was somehow connected. Or, if not connected, at least held some answers.

Should she tell Nick Teffinger about it?

Or more importantly, could she?

Probably not.

It was an attorney-client matter.

And one thing beyond all others was certain at this point—if she screwed up again, then Jacqueline Moore would bounce her ass so far out of Denver that she’d end up speaking with a New York accent.

“Well, you look serious,” someone said.

The words startled her so much that she dropped the coffee.

Papers immediately soaked up the liquid and curled.

“Shit!”

The woman in her doorway—Christina Tam—looked amused and said, “I’ve done that five million times. It’s all part of riding a desk.”

Christina held out her hand.

“Come on. I’m here to save you.”

They ended up on the 16th Street Mall, buying dollar hotdogs from a street vendor and finding a bench in the sun. Christina wanted to know why Aspen’s photo had been on the TV, so Aspen told her about how she found Rachel Ringer. But didn’t tell her that the head had been severed.

“It always struck me as strange,” Christina said, “that someone would take Rachel.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. She just wasn’t enough of any one thing to make a stranger pay attention to her,” she said. “She wasn’t attractive enough, she wasn’t weird enough, she wasn’t young enough, she just wasn’t anything enough. I mean she was a great lawyer and a wonderful person, but to someone who didn’t know her, she’d look pretty plain vanilla.”

Aspen agreed.

“So why her?” Christina asked.

Aspen considered it.

“Wrong place, wrong time, I guess.” A couple of cops on horseback passed by and waved at them. They smiled and waved back. “Was Rachel seeing anyone?” Aspen asked. “You know, romantically?”

Christina chuckled, as if the concept seemed strange.

“Maybe, but not that I know of. The woman was a workaholic. Much unlike me. Why?”

“When a woman goes missing, nine out of ten times a lover did it,” Aspen said.

“Right. But in this case, with four bodies, there’s obviously something a lot more sinister going on.”

When Aspen got home later that afternoon, two news crews were waiting for her in the parking lot. They probably thought she had some great big juicy tip for them.

Well, too bad, because she didn’t.

Something in her gut told her to turn around and walk away before they spotted her. She had nothing to say and didn’t want to contradict Teffinger by accident. But another part of her said to talk to them.

Just to reinforce that she didn’t know anything.

Just in case Teffinger was right, and someone out there perceived her to be a threat.

So she walked over.

Nonchalantly.

They recognized her and got the cameras rolling.

She stopped and smiled.

“Do you have any idea why anyone would trash your apartment?”

What?

The smile fell off her face and she looked up at her door.

“Were they trying to find something?”

It was open.

“What does this have to do with the four killings?”

A policeman was inside her apartment, talking to someone.

Shit!

She ran in that direction.

“Is someone after you?”

“Is this a warning of some kind?”

“What do you know about the four killings?”

“Why was Nick Teffinger trying to find you?”

She stopped just as she reached the bottom of the stairs, then turned and faced them.

“I don’t know anything about anything,” she said. “Anyone who thinks differently is wrong. That’s the honest-to-God truth.”

Then she ran up the stairs.