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Authors: R. J. Jagger

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BOOK: Lawyer Trap
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Teffinger nodded.

Okay.

“So what happened with Davica?”

“Well,” Natalie said, “one night Angela's in here, drunk out of her mind, and has about three or four women hovering around, trying to get in her pants. In walks another woman, a striking, exotic woman.”

“Davica,” Teffinger said.

Natalie nodded.

“Yes,” she said, “although I didn't know her name at the time. They immediately got into an argument. It escalated and they ended up in a catfight, and I'm not talking about some dainty little slap and cry, I'm talking about a serious confrontation. They wound up wrestling on the ground with everyone in the place crowded around, hooting and hollering and egging them on.”

“Does that happen often here?” Sydney asked.

Natalie looked shocked.

“No, never—this is a class place. Anyway,” she said, “Angela got the upper hand. She got the other woman—Davica—on her back and then straddled her and pinned her arms up above her head. Now the crowd was going nuts and shouting for her to sit on her face. So she scooted up and ground her crotch on the woman's face. That's when the woman, Davica, started shouting that she was going to kill her. That went on for a long time, five minutes or maybe even longer. Finally the bouncers pulled them apart.”

“So Davica definitely said she was going to kill her?” Teffinger asked.

Natalie nodded.

“Yes, absolutely.”

“You heard it yourself?”

“Yes, I did. And I saw her face. She meant it. There's no question about it, not in my mind at least.”

5

DAY ONE–SEPTEMBER 5

MONDAY MORNING

T
he law firm didn't waste any time turning Aspen Wilde, Esq. into a billable-hour machine. The head of the Employment Department—Baxter Brown, Esq.—showed her to her office, drank coffee with her, smiled, and made her feel at home. Then he left her with a wrongful termination file to review, in preparation of answering interrogatories, admissions, and document requests which needed to be in the mail by this time next week.

“If you run into any problems, shoot me an e-mail,” he said. “I'll be in depositions until Thursday morning, but I'll be checking my e-mails twice a day.”

Then he left.

She felt wonderfully full.

By eleven o'clock, just about everyone on her hall had popped in at least once to say welcome. A couple of the guys stopped in twice. The associates gave her the thirty-second scoop. Sure, the firm's stated goal for newbies is 1,750 billables a year. But plan on 2,000 minimum. And, if you're actually crazy enough to want to make partner some day, plan on 2,200 to 2,500. “When you get up in the middle of the night to take a piss, think of a case and bill the client for your time.”

Shortly before noon, a new face showed up in her door—an attractive man in his early forties with blondish hair and energetic blue eyes. He wore a gray suit with an expensive hang, and looked exactly like what a lawyer at the top of his game should look like.

The kind of person who could walk into any room and dominate it.

The epitome of success.

She recognized him from somewhere but couldn't quite place it. Then it struck her. He was none other than Blake Gray himself—the president of the firm and reputed rainmaker extraordinaire.

“Got time for lunch?” he asked.

They ended up walking past a crowd of waiting people at Marlowe's and got escorted to a nice booth near the back with a white tablecloth. Within minutes, their food arrived, a steak and nonalcoholic beer for him and a shrimp salad for her.

“With your arrival today,” he said, “we now have 123 lawyers. One of my primary responsibilities, as the head of the firm, is to be sure that we all remember we're a family, and not just a bunch of individual cogs in some kind of overgrown machine. It's our attitude toward one another, and toward our clients, that spells either survival or extinction. So I make it a point to personally know everyone in the firm, hence our lunch today. But more importantly, I make it a point to be sure that everyone in the firm, from the copy clerk to the department head, knows that my office door is always open.”

Aspen nodded.

“That's good to know.”

He smiled.

“You know,” he said, “I'm a little jealous. I wish I could be back in time, reporting for my first day of work. You have the whole world ahead of you.”

She wasn't sure if it was smart to say what she wanted to say.

She decided to anyway.

“I'm a little scared. I'm not sure I'm ready.”

He understood.

“It's an intimidating place at first,” he said. “But we were all green once, just like you. Then we grow. You will too, trust me. Just take it one day at a time.”

She took a drink of water.

Then she decided to see if his door really was open.

“I heard this morning about what happened to Rachel Ringer,” she said. “She was one of the nicer people toward me, when I clerked here last summer.”

He wrinkled his forehead.

“She had a big heart,” he said, “on top of being a brilliant attorney.”

Aspen agreed.

“I can't help but think about one of the projects she had me working on back then,” Aspen said.

“Oh? What's that?”

“It was for a psychologist,” she said. “I can't remember her name right now, but the gist of the matter was that she had some kind of an impromptu conversation with some man who wasn't a formal client. She took him to be a killer. Apparently he had a certain MO that she recognized. Anyway, since the man asked her questions that could possibly be viewed as the type of thing a patient might ask a psychologist, she wanted a legal opinion on whether the conversation was covered by the physician-patient privilege. Rachel had me do the research and we concluded that the privilege in fact attached, meaning she couldn't give the information to the police.”

Blake nodded.

“You're talking about Dr. Beverly Twenhofel,” he said.

“Exactly, that's her,” she said. “I can't help but wonder if Rachel's disappearance is somehow tied to that case.”

Blake took a swig of the nonalcoholic beer.

“The same thought came to me at one point, namely Rachel's working on a case potentially involving a killer, and then she ends up missing. But I don't see a connection for two reasons. First, the guy—whoever he is—wouldn't even know that our client had approached us for a legal opinion. So there's no reason Rachel would have been on his radar screen. Second, if the guy did feel threatened, say because he sensed that someone believed he was a killer, he would have gone after Dr. Twenhofel, and not us. That never happened. She's alive and well and hasn't been threatened or harassed in any way.”

Aspen hadn't been privy to that.

Obviously Blake was way ahead of her.

“Well,” she said, “that's the only thing that I know of, sort of offbeat, that might somehow explain something.”

He nodded.

“It was a good thought,” he said. “But unlikely.”

She ran her other theory by him, the theory that maybe Rachel hadn't actually been abducted in the parking lot of The Fort at all, but had in fact been abducted somewhere else earlier. Then they dropped her car off in the parking lot to make it look like she'd been abducted there.

Again, he didn't seem overly impressed.

“We had, and still do have, the best private investigators in the state working on the case,” he said. “I'm sure they considered that theory. In fact, I'm almost positive they have. I remember talking to them at one point about the fact that Rachel gassed up near her house about twenty minutes before she was supposed to arrive at The Fort. It was about a twenty-minute drive there, which meant she was on her way. So if she wasn't taken in the parking lot, she somehow had to be pulled over before she got there. I don't see how that could happen. As I recall, her spare tire was in good condition, meaning she hadn't pulled over with a flat.”

He shrugged.

“I'm not saying you're wrong,” he said. “I'm only saying that it doesn't seem to fit the facts.”

“I didn't know all those facts,” she said.

“No way you would have,” he added. “But your theories are impressive, especially for someone who just started thinking about it. I can tell we made the right decision hiring you.”

“I hope so.”

“I already know it,” he said. “You're going to be a partner some day. I can tell.”

6

DAY ONE–SEPTEMBER 5

MONDAY EVENING

W
hen Draven woke from his nap, the room was dark and it took him a few moments to remember he was in a sleazy Pueblo hotel. He wandered into the bathroom, took a long piss, then recalled getting the tattoo this afternoon and flicked the lights on to have a look.

It wrapped around his right arm, above the bicep.

“Good job, Mia Avila,” he said.

Between that and the scar on his face, he looked downright dangerous.

Maybe he needed another one now.

On the other arm.

Something different, though.

He took a swig of Jack Daniels and then headed for the shower, getting it as hot as he could stand it. When he came out he felt like a new man, a man with a full night ahead of him. He slipped into jeans and a black muscle shirt and then headed down the rickety hotel stairs. He drove around downtown Pueblo until he spotted a bar with thirty or forty Harleys out front, then parked his beat-up Chevy a block down the street and doubled back on foot.

The place was packed, dark, loud, and rowdy.

Nice.

Red vinyl booths lined the left wall, and a long bar ran down the right. In the back, by the restrooms, were a couple of pool tables and a small dance floor, with a handful of drunks twirling around with no sense of coordination or timing.

There had to be over two hundred people in there.

They weren't just drinking.

They were either shit-faced or on their way.

Tattoos were everywhere.

Plenty of women, too.

Perfect.

He found a space at the bar big enough to squeeze into, ordered a Bud Light, and then looked around for backup prey, just in case Mia Avila turned out to be problematic.

At least half the women were dogs.

Bow-wow.

Worse than dogs, not even worth a bone.

Two nice ones, though—both heavily tattooed and wearing muscle shirts—were playing pool in the back. He wandered in that direction, leaned against the wall, and watched 'em without being too conspicuous.

They would work just fine.

Either of 'em.

He walked over and set two quarters on the table. “I got the winner,” he told them.

“That'll be me,” one of them said.

“My ass,” the other one said.

Five minutes later he was up, racked 'em, and let the woman break. Two stripes went in.

“You can still take solids if you want,” he said.

She laughed, then walked over and leaned in.

“Are you interested in a little side bet?”

He cocked his head.

“What'd you have in mind?”

“The loser buys beer.”

That sounded good.

“Fine, but now you got me motivated,” he warned.

She ran a finger down his face.

Along the scar.

And laughed.

“It won't matter,” she said. “I'm still going to kick your ass.”

“Start kicking.”

She was about twenty-seven, five-feet-three with jet-black hair, the same color as his, in fact. It hung loose and she constantly tossed her head to get it out of her face.

Very sexy.

Her name was Martina.

She won the first game.

And the second.

Then Draven had to piss like crazy and headed to the men's room while she racked 'em up.

A man wearing a leather vest with no shirt underneath walked into the restroom just before Draven did. The guy walked past three empty urinals and into the stall, then left the door halfway open and started pissing.

Draven could tell that the jerk was pissing all over the toilet seat.

When the guy came out, Draven looked inside and checked.

Sure enough, the seat was still down.

Covered with piss.

Nor had the guy flushed. Draven flashed back to a time last year when he had to crap like crazy and had to wipe someone else's piss off the seat.

“Goddamn pig,” Draven muttered under his breath.

The man looked at him.

“You got a problem, buddy?”

Draven stared back at him. “Maybe I do.”

The biker paused, as if deciding.

Then he had a knife in his hands and said, “You little bitch.”

Draven punched, hard and fast, going for the nose and getting it. Blood splattered from the guy's face. Then Draven hit him in the stomach, below the ribs, as hard as he could. The guy immediately doubled up and fell to the floor. Draven grabbed him by the hair and dragged him over to the toilet.

Then shoved his face in it.

And held him there while he struggled.

After a long time, Draven pulled the guy's head out, let him catch his breath, and then shoved his face back in.

The asshole kicked, but it did no good.

“Now you wish you flushed.”

Draven kicked him in the balls, pulled his head out, and threw him on the floor.

Two minutes later, he was running down the street with three bikers chasing him.

Gunfire erupted.

The windshield of a car next to him exploded.

He zigzagged and ran even faster.

After he lost them, he circled back to the bar and hid behind a pickup truck across the street. When they returned, he memorized their faces. Then headed back to the hotel.

When he got there, he knocked on the door next to his.

BOOK: Lawyer Trap
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