by Lakota Grace
The phone vibrated in her pocket. She always kept it on vibrate. Never draw attention to yourself. She pulled it out and looked at the caller ID.
Robbyn Fisher’s number. Silver memorized numbers, always. She had to be good at that to survive. What did Tennis-Bracelet want now? Regrets about giving away the six-shooter? Too bad. Silver let the call go unanswered.
Silver was having second thoughts concerning the gun transaction, too. If she wasn’t so desperate to unload the gun she'd touched, she wouldn’t have fenced it for such a rock-bottom price. But at least her fingerprints were wiped clean from the piece; she’d made sure of that.
She considered what might happen to the gun next. The buyer, the guy in the big box parking lot, wouldn’t hold it; he’d sell it to the lowest bidder. Yes, that gun was gone for good. She was in the clear.
Maybe Robbyn wanted something else though. Silver did a re-dial.
“I've got a proposition for you,” Robbyn said.
She sounded nervous, and Silver's danger antenna rose. “Yeah?”
“My husband, he had off-shore accounts. If I can get my hands on them, I'd be willing to give you a cut.”
Robbyn was telling the truth regarding the first part, Silver knew from the cop-guy's murder book.
“How big a percentage?” Always know the bottom line before you committed to anything.
“Uh...”
There was a pause, then background noise: the scraping of chairs, breathing. Was someone else with her? A second negative sign.
Robbyn returned to the phone. “I’ll give you ten percent.”
“How about twenty-five?” Silver bargained.
“Uh, okay.”
Strike three. Always bargain. Silver would have done it for fifteen. But she was intrigued. “Where and when?”
Silver counted the seconds ticking away. Was there a locater trace on the call? By now, she was operating on full alert. She checked the smart-phone timer she'd set when she redialed Robbyn. The woman had 20 seconds and Silver was terminating whether or not. Nineteen...eighteen...
“That coffee shop we met at before. Oak Creek Espresso in the Village of Oak Creek. Say two o'clock this afternoon.”
“Got it.” Silver terminated the call abruptly and shoved the phone into her pocket.
Would she be walking into a trap? Perhaps.
Silver reviewed the restaurant exits in her mind. Front door, one emergency at the right, through the kitchen. That was three.
The kitchen would probably be covered if it was a setup. The emergency exit? Possibly not, unless they were investing power in the operation. Sedona was a small town, the Village even smaller, with not a lot of cop personnel.
She calculated the odds at fifty-fifty that she could escape a trap. Good enough for government work.
Because of the ineptness of the cop-guy this morning, nothing important on her calendar today. Why not see what Miss Robbyn had on her mind? Silver's adrenaline rose in anticipation, and a small smile crossed her face.
***
Once inside the restaurant Silver looked wistfully at the chocolate eclairs at the counter and settled instead for a plain cup of coffee. Maybe Robbyn would spring for food later. No point in wasting her own money.
Silver still had several hundred left. When this meeting was over, she'd call the Private Eyes and see what progress had been made on contacting her mother. Always keep her eye on the prize. It was worth it even if the investigators were expensive.
Maybe instead of being a doctor, she'd become a PI. She could roust out naked guys like that skip chaser, Stephanie Plum, did in those mystery novels.
Taking the mug of coffee, Silver settled at a table centered between front door, kitchen, and emergency exits. It didn't take long.
Robbyn arrived and Silver rose to meet her. Then she spotted the guy in a suit following after the woman. Robbyn raised her hand, pointing at Silver.
Silver dashed for the emergency exit. There was the blare of a cautionary siren at the door opening and then sunlight outside. She'd made it! Then her arm twisted behind her.
“Didn't think we'd be meeting again so soon,” said Rory.
She kicked at his legs, but his grip tightened.
“Relax,” he said. “Just want to ask you a few questions.”
Silver had heard that one before. She slumped, becoming a dead weight in his arms. His grip loosened at the unexpected shift. Silver broke free and ran. She scrambled over a half-fence of adobe and shifted into top speed, across the next lot, through a gas station bay, then onto a golf course. Its green beckoned freedom.
She heard Rory's breath panting behind her. The guy could use more workouts. Detectives got lazy, didn't think they needed the regular calisthenics that patrolman did. Bad for him, good for her. She dialed up her speed.
And then Silver hit a water trap and her ankle twisted. She scrambled for footage, but slipped, splashing full out in the murky pond.
Rory waited for her as she reached the other side and offered her a hand. She slapped it away and heaved herself out of the muck.
He pulled both her arms behind her and snapped on handcuffs.
“Ow.”
Silver flexed her wrists. Sometimes they'd loosen the cuffs when you did that.
Rory clicked them tighter. What she would have done. Her respect for him rose a notch, but she couldn't resist a final jab.
“You didn't drink so much, you’d of caught me sooner.”
He didn't rise to the bait. Instead, he pushed her toward the cafe where Robbyn and his partner waited.
Silver glared at Robbyn as they placed her in the back of the patrol car. Bitch! She’d done Robbyn a favor getting rid of the incriminating weapon, and this was how she was repaid.
Handcuffs and Interrogation
~ 26 ~
Silver
They entered the interrogation room, and Rory unlocked Silver’s handcuffs. There were red rings on her wrists where the cuffs had pinched. Especially since Silver had pulled against them, exacerbating the pressure.
She might allege police brutality. One of the foster home kids had gotten five thousand dollars from city hall on a similar ruse. She rubbed her hands with an exaggerated motion and gazed at Rory with puppy-dog-eyes. He avoided her stare and moved to the corner of the room.
Silver sifted through her collection of stories. Which would work best to get her out of this jam? She'd need to evaluate Rory’s partner first. Everyone had a soft spot. She'd just have to figure out what the partner’s was.
“I want my phone back when I leave,” she announced, “and my money, too. I know exactly how much I've got, so don't short-change me.”
Important to set the tone of the meeting early. The daypack, the money clip, and most of her funds were stashed in the condo garage behind a folded-up ping-pong table. Even if the tenants came back unexpectedly, her pack should be safe there. But she’d still had a few dollars in her pocket when they apprehended her.
“Whatever. Sit here,” said the second guy. That must be Rory’s partner.
He shoved her roughly into the chair and took the one across from her. Then he leaned his elbows on the table and stared at her.
She stared back. The man needed a haircut. But expensive cufflinks.
“Nice jewelry,” she said, injecting a note of innocence into her voice.
He didn't respond but shot his cuffs. Ah, vanity. She filed that away and then tried another probe.
“I bet you're the senior partner here. I can always tell.” She gave him her I-adore-strong-men look.
He straightened in the chair. At the same time, Rory stiffened against the wall and a small frown passed fleetingly over his lips. Tension, then, between them. Interesting.
Next, they'd try silence on her. It was supposed to make the guilty party uncomfortable enough to talk. Silver leaned back in her chair, breathing deeply. Once she'd sat for an entire hour in a therapist's office, not saying a word.
But inside, she was getti
ng itchy. Did they have any idea she'd been in the old man's house, that she had confronted him before he died?
Her mind darted through the minefield of possibilities. Maybe Robbyn fingered her, claimed that Silver was involved. People lied sometimes, to protect themselves.
That would count against Silver here since she was the outsider. Robbyn was one of the moneyed class with home court advantage.
Silver leaned back in her chair and contemplated her fingernails. She'd broken one, getting out of that smelly fishpond. Rory Stevens owed her a manicure for that, maybe even a mani-pedi. She glanced at him again, but he was studying the corner of the ceiling.
Silver shifted her attention to the man in front of her. The man, what had Rory called him—Chas Doon—cleared his throat. He shuffled some index cards on the desk.
Silver leaned forward to see them before he hid the fronts. They were blank! Thirteen blank cards. An intimidation prop, then, that she could ignore.
One of her foster-home mentors had trained her in memory retrieval. Silver progressed to remembering over twenty items presented for ten seconds. This sham was a cakewalk compared to that, especially since there would be no physical beating if she failed.
The man slammed his hand on the table.
“Where's the gun? And don't say, 'what gun.' Robbyn told us all about you.”
Chas had broken the silence, talked first.
“I don't have it.”
“But you did.” That was Rory's quiet voice from the corner.
“Assuming I saw a gun.” Never admit anything.
“It sounds as though Robbyn was desperate,” Silver said. “Maybe she needed to get rid of it. Did you ask her why?”
Always shift the blame.
“Robbyn's not here, you are,” Chas said.
“Am I under arrest?” She smiled sweetly at him.
“Easy to arrange, if you don't cooperate.”
Chas leaned forward and sipped coffee he hadn't offered her.
Silver was silent, stalling because something had just occurred to her. Her fingerprints were all over that man's bedroom! Her court records as a minor were sealed, but if they arraigned her now, kept her here, she'd be fingerprinted once again. And if those prints were compared with the murder scene. Her mind scrambled in frantic jerks, trying to escape.
She caught herself, breathed deeply again. There was always a way out, she just had to find it. She studied the man in front of her who was drawing circles of moisture on the table with his coffee mug. Suddenly with stiffened fingers, she tipped the mug into his lap.
“What the—!”
Chas leaped to his feet, clutching at his crotch. He blasted a look of rage at her. That coffee had been hot.
“Stevens, you take over. I'll be right back.” Chas dashed out the door.
Rory gave her a tight smile. “Well done.”
She returned an even tighter one. “Now, before he returns, I have the information you need.”
“I expected that you did.”
“A-a-and…” She paused for emphasis. “I can give it to you if you let me out of here.”
“Can't do,” he responded.
“Yes, you can. Otherwise, I'll tell The Man that you were sleeping with a suspect.”
He jerked as though she’d tasered him.
“You wouldn't do that.”
“Try me,” she warned. She would do that and more, not to be confined within these gray walls.
“Sorry, I can't let you go.”
How long until Chas returned? She had to get something moving here.
“Okay, what about this?” she bargained. “I'll call Shepherd Malone. He works for me. You know Shepherd, right? I saw a picture of the two of you when I was in his office.”
She gave him her Honest-Abe expression. “I'll put myself in his custody, stay close where you can find me, I promise.”
Rory's gaze narrowed. “It might work.”
“Here, give me your phone.”
Chas would return any moment and she had to get out of here. Now.
Rory dragged the cell out of his pocket and she snatched it. She pulled the number of the private investigator's office from her memory and with frantic fingers dialed the numbers.
The phone rang five times. Then six, seven. Shepherd wasn't answering.
“You were probably dialing the weather lady. Give me my phone back.” Rory reached for it.
“No, wait a minute. Let me call his assistant, Peg Quincy.”
Rory listened as she bargained with Peg. Then he jerked the phone out of her fingers before she could disconnect.
“Peg, you willing to take this person under your wing? Make sure she sticks around?”
There was back and forth as Peg argued with him. Rory looked at Silver, then covered his mouth and muttered into the phone, “Personal favor to me.”
Rory hung up, and Silver crossed her fingers. Had her plan been successful?
“She'll be here in a few minutes to pick you up. Now, tell me what I need to know.”
Silver talked fast. “Robbyn gave me the gun for safekeeping. Guns make me nervous, so I sold it. The guy you want hangs out in the parking lot of that big-box discount store on Highway 260.
“His name?”
“Wilfred.”
Rory snorted. “You gotta be kidding.”
“No, that's what he told me. He wears this baseball cap—has a red leaf on it.”
“Canadian hockey team. The Maple Leafs.”
“Whatever. And he drives this old beat-up beige pickup truck, has one of those MIA-POW stickers on the back bumper.”
“On the back bumper.”
“Yeah. You can't miss it. Now can I go?”
Rory gave her a sharp look. “So help me, if you run I’ll put you away so long your own mother won’t recognize you. What's your cell number?”
That threat won’t be a problem, here, Silver thought bitterly. She doesn’t want to see me, anyway. She recited the digits and then had to repeat them because he was so fumble-fingered putting it into his phone directory.
Then Rory escorted her to security and waited while she collected her cell and cash. In the reception area, he gave her a last uncertain look.
“Now sit here, until Peg comes to get you. I've got to go explain this to Chas Doon.”
Silver sat meekly on the hard plastic chair. She didn’t spend one of her Best Looks on him. He wouldn’t buy it, anyway. Once he disappeared around the corner, she dived out the door.
With any luck, she'd be long gone before Peg Quincy drove up. And they would never, ever, find her again. She’d make sure of that.
Broken Door Frame
~ 27 ~
Pegasus
I was happy-dancing in my kitchen to that romantic song in my head until I got Rory’s phone call concerning Silver Delaney.
On the counter was a small venison roast, compliments of Wolf Brandeis. I was upset he’d killed a deer in the forests up above Mingus, although he assured me he’d donated most of the deer carcass to the local homeless shelter.
“But I saved you the best part,” he said.
It was the fault of that lemon meringue pie that Shepherd had baked. Wolf liked it. Raved about it. Raved about me, too. I liked that a lot. But ever since that night, Wolf assumed I cooked. Liked to cook, in fact. Hence, this venison roast.
I’d visited Isabel, my grandfather's housekeeper, in a pickle. “How do you fix venison?”
“Venison dry, big trouble,” she declared. “Needs fat.” She gave me directions and lent me a new instrument of torture, a larding needle.
Now, I doubtfully viewed the strips of pork fat sitting like maggot-worms on the plate. Somehow, they had to go into the deer roast.
And I didn’t have much time. Rory said they’d take a few minutes to check Silver out of holding, and then I had to be there to pick her up. He depended on me.
And friends always came before clients in my book. Or was Silver a client, even, for that matter? A
nd what about Wolf. Did he fall in the category of friend? Boyfriend? Relationships got complicated. No problem. I’d just finish this first project and then scoot to the jail to collect the girl. Plenty of time.
I picked up a lard strip with two fingers and fit it into the concave hollow of the twelve-inch-long larding needle. The tip of the instrument was sharp, and I pressed it into the end of the roast. Nothing happened. I shoved harder. It all looked so easy on YouTube.
Maybe I could cut a small hole in the meat, similar to pounding in a preliminary nail where a screw would go. I grabbed a butcher knife and poked it into the roast.
Reckless leaned against my leg, his hot breath panting in and out.
“Out, big guy. This isn’t your dinner!”
I pushed him out of the kitchen, closed the door, washed my hands, and tried again.
What the hell was Rory Stevens doing? Yes, the young woman was my client—well, Shepherd's actually. But what was she doing at the sheriff's office and what did Rory have to do with it? He didn’t bother to tell me any of that, and I seriously doubted I’d get a straight story from Silver. I’d met her kind before.
I pushed the larding needle into the hole I made, too fast. It zipped out the other end, stabbing the finger holding the roast. Ouch!
I sucked the tip of my finger tasting the bacon-flavored lard. Not bad, but the blood chaser wasn't as appetizing. I dropped the roast on the counter and rewashed my slippery hands. Then I surveyed the lump of meat still skewered on the larding needle.
I could do this. My reputation as a cook depended on it. I braced my elbow on the meat to steady it, grabbed the end of the lard in my fingers, and then withdrew the needle. The strip of lard stayed put!
I looked at the clock. Time to scramble. I dumped the rest of the lard strips in the bottom of the pan, dropped the roast on top of them, and shoved the pan into the oven. Then I set the temperature for 350 degrees as Isabel told me and wiped my hands on a dishtowel.
The meat could cook while I picked up Silver. I slammed the door of the house and raced out to the Jetta. If traffic cooperated, I'd be back here in an hour to frost the chocolate cake cooling on the counter. Then I’d find a motel or something for Silver, and she’d be gone before Wolf arrived. I needed him to myself while the venison roast worked its magic.
