They powered up the flat-panel TV on the wall and played a videotape of the evening news for her. A detective by the name of Nick Teffinger wanted to talk to the woman in the photograph in connection with the case involving the four bodies found at the railroad spur. If anyone knew who the woman was, they should call the number at the bottom of the screen.
Shit.
She looked at everyone.
“I had no idea,” she said.
The looks on their faces indicated they didn’t care.
“So what’s going on?” the woman asked.
Aspen put a confused look on her face. “I don’t know.”
The woman slammed her hand on the table. “We don’t have time for bullshit!”
A pencil bounced, rolled, and fell to the floor.
“You’re dragging the law firm into something negative and we’ve struggled too hard and too long to get blindsided by something like this. So you can either tell us what this is all about or you can march down to your office right now and clean it out.”
In spite of herself, Aspen stood up. “Who in the hell do you think you’re talking to?” She walked to the door and then turned around. “As far as the job goes, shove it up your ass. No one talks to me like that.”
“Aspen! Wait a minute!”
The words came from Blake Gray, chasing her down the hall.
She was in no mood.
She opened the door to the stairwell and bounded down, taking two steps at a time, while he called for her to come back.
When Draven got back to Denver, he parked a couple of blocks away from the apartment and then walked back through the field behind the building to see if any bikers were hanging around. Good thing, too. A few of the scumbags were milling in the parking lot and several more buzzed the neighborhood.
They better be careful.
The assholes.
They think they’re all macho when they’re in a pack. Get them alone, though, and they were nothing. In fact, he had half a mind to pick one of them off from the herd right now, just to show them who they were messing with.
Instead, he drove over to Avis, rented a van, and spent the next two hours driving back to Pueblo. When he got in town, it took all his strength to not knock on Gretchen’s door and screw her silly.
She couldn’t know he was in town, though.
It would be better that way.
Against his better judgment, he drove by the dead biker’s house, just to see what was going on, if anything. The body was gone and the place was deserted. Whatever investigation had taken place was already over.
Then he swung by the tattoo shop.
Good.
The woman-Mia Avila-seemed to be alone.
He parked in front of the building, killed the engine, and walked in.
She looked just as good as he remembered, with those big eyes and that thick brown hair pulled into a ponytail. Ample breasts filled a flimsy white tank top, seriously sexy. When she smiled, he just about melted. She would definitely do.
“Hey there,” she said, recognizing him. “Nash? Right?”
“Very good,” he said, remembering he had given her a fake name.
“Back for the other arm?”
“Actually, something better than that,” he said, pulling out his wallet and laying twenty hundred-dollar bills on the counter. “How would you like to earn that today?”
She counted it.
“That’s two thousand dollars,” she said.
He nodded.
“That it is.”
“So what’s on your mind?”
“I have a friend up in Denver,” he said. “The guy’s got more money than God. I showed him my tattoo and he went nuts. He wants one just like it. He wants you to do it.”
“Me?”
“Yep.”
“Fine, tell him to come in.”
Draven shuffled. “Well, there’s this one small problem,” he said. “This guy doesn’t have time to be driving down here so he wants you to come to Denver. That’s what the money’s for.”
She pondered it.
And looked interested.
“When?” she asked.
“Now, if possible,” Draven said. “I’ll drive you up and bring you back. He’s got someone delivering some tattoo equipment so you don’t need to worry about that. Just bring the pattern and your hands.”
She picked up a pencil and twisted it in her fingers.
“You can bring your other body parts too,” he added.
She laughed, and said, “Men.”
Then set the pencil down.
“Okay,” she said. “Let me put this money in the safe first.”
She disappeared to the back, packed a bag with latex gloves and other small items, grabbed a bottle of water, flipped the window sign to Closed, turned off the lights, and locked the door.
“You’re going to make his day,” Draven said.
“I need to be back by seven,” she said.
Draven loved the arid landscape on the stretch of not-much-but-road heading north out of Pueblo. Civilization hadn’t cluttered it up yet and, because there were hardly any trees, you could see the sagebrush-covered hills roll all the way to the mountains. Mia talked her head off as they drove, telling Draven story after story in that bubbly optimistic voice of hers, taking small sips of water every few minutes.
He didn’t mind the chatter.
She was bubble-gum for the brain.
It was almost a shame about what was going to happen to her.
She didn’t deserve it.
But who did?