Lawyer Trap

9





DAY TWO–SEPTEMBER 6

TUESDAY MORNING


Under a cloudless Colorado sky, Draven drove west through Clear Creek Canyon, one of his all-time favorite places in the world. Sheer rock walls rose straight up on both sides, leaving just enough room at the bottom for the twisty two-lane road and the river, which frothed with white foam as it pounded over boulders.

Seriously stunning.

He used to tube those icy waters back when he was a kid, almost drowning himself more times than he could count. That was back in the days when a*shole landowners strung barbwire across the river to keep kayaks and tubes off.

Draven got tangled up in some of that barbwire once.

Got eight stitches in his face and almost lost an eye.

He paid a special little visit to the landowner two nights later.

Word got around.

Most of the barbwire on the river came down after that.

He passed through the first tunnel, then the second, where the road cut through the mountains. Now the tunnels were lighted, unlike years ago when all they had were signs that warned drivers to Turn Headlights On. When he came to Highway 119 he took it, deeper into the mountains, past Black Hawk for about five miles, where he turned onto a gravel road that followed a string of short telephone poles.

At the end of that road he came to a cabin.

A beat-up pickup sat out front.

A detached garage squatted to the left.

He stopped, killed the engine, walked to the door, and knocked.

A teenager answered, about seventeen, with brown spiked hair, dressed in total black. Draven expected someone older and a lot more normal.

“You the guy who wants to see the place?” the kid asked.

“That’s me.”

“My dad couldn’t make it,” the kid said.

“Fine,” Draven said. “No problem.”

“Go ahead and look around.”

The place had a large central room with a vaulted ceiling, really nice, actually, and two separate bedrooms. The water came from a well, but the electricity was public. The garage was empty and spacious with a dirt floor. You could spill a lot of blood in there, clean it up easily, and no one would ever be the wiser.

Best of all, there were no other structures in sight.

No one would hear screaming.

Just to be sure, he asked the kid. “No neighbors, huh?”

The kid shrugged. “I’ve never seen any houses anywhere around here.”

“How big is your property?”

The kid wrinkled his forehead. “I think it’s a hundred acres, or two hundred, something like that. My dad would know.”

Draven nodded.

Good enough.

He’d scout around later, just to be sure no one else was around. But at least for now the place seemed perfect. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll take it until the end of the month. Five hundred, right?”

The kid shrugged.

“Whatever my dad told you.”

“He told me five hundred plus a thousand security deposit.” He handed the kid fifteen hundred-dollar bills.

Done deal.

After the kid left, Draven got the stuff from the trunk of his car and brought it into the bedroom—cameras, tripods, monitors, sheets, cuffs, blindfolds, ropes, chains, locks, and all the rest of it, including the all-important DVD recorder.

He scouted the surrounding area.

There were no other houses around.

Very nice.

Pine trees perfumed the air. Green lichen covered boulders that jutted out of the earth, some as big as trucks. The aspen trees were just starting to get a yellow hue.

Just for grins, he jogged all the way down to Highway 119, and then walked back up, enjoying a perfect day.

He locked up, stopped at Black Hawk and played blackjack for a couple of hours, stuffed his face at the casino buffet, and headed back to his Denver apartment.

He’d almost pulled into the parking lot when he spotted four skuzzy bikers hanging around. They looked like they’d been there for a while. He drove past too fast to see their faces but knew they were the jerks from Pueblo, the three a*sholes who chased him down the street, plus someone else.

Probably the guy Draven stuffed in the toilet.

Shit.

How’d they track him?

They must have seen his license plate number.

The little bastards.

So, they want to play?

They want to play so bad that they came all the way up here to Denver?

Fine.

He can play too.