Lawyer Trap

8





DAY TWO–SEPTEMBER 6

TUESDAY


Aspen parked her car—a faded Honda Accord with a dented front fender—in a lot on the east side of Broadway. The law firm was a six-block hike from there, but the rates were cheaper. She wore the second of the five outfits she’d bought on Saturday. Sooner or later people would notice that her wardrobe wasn’t exactly overabundant, but with over a hundred thousand dollars owing in student loans she could only afford what she could afford.

It was ironic, actually—an attorney at one of Denver’s most prestigious law firms who would be dirt-poor for at least three years.

Probably four.

Maybe forever.

She got to the office by 7:30, wanting to make a good impression, and started billing right away. However, Rachel’s disappearance, and probable death, pulled at her.

Shortly before lunch, she went to the dead-files room and pulled the Dr. Beverly Twenhofel case, knowing she was probably overstepping her boundaries and hoping against hope that no one saw her so she didn’t have to come up with some lamebrain explanation.

“Leave it to you to get fired on the second day of work,” she told herself.

Rachel Ringer, Esq.’s handwritten notes were in the file.

Beautiful.

Unfortunately, Rachel had either never been told, or had never written down, the name of the so-called patient, the one who Dr. Twenhofel believed to be a killer.

The guy’s name was nowhere in the file.

Damn it.

A dead end.

She slipped the folder back exactly where she’d found it and then returned to her office.

No one saw her.

At noon, she expected someone to drop by and invite her to lunch, but no one did. So she pulled out her brown bag and worked the Internet as she ate at her desk, using every search engine she could think of to see what it had on Rachel. By the end of the hour, she’d found six or seven newspaper articles about her disappearance.

None of them were particularly helpful, though.

Another dead end.

At 1:00 she went back on the clock and worked her ass off until six. Then she hoofed it to her car and fought traffic until she got home.

That evening, after supper, she drove to The Fort. It turned out to be a restaurant south of Morrison, smack dab at the base of the foothills in Jefferson County, surrounded by undeveloped land. She sensed that it might have started out as a getaway estate for someone rich.

She understood now how someone could be abducted in the parking lot without anyone noticing.

She went home and turned on the Fitness Channel for background noise as she went over her outstanding bills. Lots of them were overdue, but she just didn’t have the funds in hand right now.

A new cell phone bill arrived today.

So she paid last month’s.

That brought her checking account balance down to $82.00.

She straightened up the apartment and went to bed.

The upstairs neighbors had their music on again. The bass pushed through the walls and straight into her brain. She pulled the pillow over her head and closed her eyes. It did no good, and the more she thought about how rude they were, the more awake she got.

So she drove down to 24-Hour Fitness to exhaust herself on the treadmill.