going to have to go.”
“Anything you could do that might help me find her…”
She waved me off, walked across the room, and opened the door to the hallway. The sound she made when moving would have been illegal in seven southern states.
“The relationship between a patient and her therapist is a sacred trust,” she said as he pulled the door all the way open.
I took the hint and stepped out into the hall. “This is an emergency. If you could just…,” I began.
“Do you have a business card?” she interrupted.
I fished around in my wallet and came out with an old, tattered private eye card with somebody else’s number written in red pen on the back.
She slid a pair of red half-glasses onto the end of her nose. I watched her eyes slide over the surface. She gave me a curt nod, stepped back, and closed the door.
Five hundred seventy-seven dollars and twelve cents. That’s what it cost to replace the Tahoe’s headlights. Throw in another two hundred or so for the mirror, yet another forty-seven for the rental car and insurance and I was out eight hundred bucks or so, five hundred of which was coming out of my pocket. Not to mention I had to listen to a lecture from the guy in the body shop about how the space-age polymers in the headlights were warranted to withstand everything short of small arms fire without crackingor breaking, and that however I managed to smash them without demolishing the front of the car should probably be avoided in the future. I gritted my teeth and assured him I’d be more careful.
So it’s no surprise that my mood was about as sunny as the weather as I headed back toward downtown in a cold drizzle. A full day’s work had yielded nothing other than the fact that I wasn’t the only one looking for Brett Ward, which made the situation all the more troubling. Worse yet, whatever was going on involved those two hired freaks in the Cadillac. Freaks who had managed to instill an absolutely primal fear in Ricky Waters. Guys who’d hurt him in ways he didn’t want to talk about. No doubt about it. I didn’t like it one bit.
My phone began to tinkle in my pocket. Normally, I don’t answer the phone while I’m driving. First of all, it’s illegal to have a phone in your hand while driving in the state of Washington. Absolutely everybody still does it, but technically it’s illegal. Second, and more to the point, I don’t flatter myself to imagine that my doings are of sufficient import as to require immediate attention. Ninety-nine percent of the time whoever is on the phone can wait till I get to where I’m going. The other one percent are wrong numbers.
Today, however, feeling hollow and somber, I immediately began to pat myself down looking for the phone. Must have looked like I was on fire, slapping this pocket and that, trying to locate my personal device. All I managed to do was to weave from lane to lane like I’d had a stroke. An irate chorus of horns snapped my attention forward just in time to avoid rear-ending the FedEx truck in front of me.
I gulped air and got the hell off the road before I hurt somebody, pulling into a strip mall parking lot and jamming the car into Park in front of a
pho
parlor, before resuming my search for my phone, which had by that time ceased tinkling.
Took me the better part of three minutes to figure out it was an e-mail message and then retrieve it. No subject. Sent from a Hotmail account. Marty Gilbert, I figured, trying to help me out but taking no chances with his pension.
No message, but attached was a spreadsheet packed with tiny numbers. Screens and screens and screens of them. I zoomed in, turned the device sideways, and worked my way across the top line like a stadium reader board. Rebecca Ann Duval. MasterCard number such and such. Transactions. Date. Location. My eyes clicked back to the date like a slot machine settling on the cherries. The card had been used yesterday. I scrolled back to the left and started down the
“Anything you could do that might help me find her…”
She waved me off, walked across the room, and opened the door to the hallway. The sound she made when moving would have been illegal in seven southern states.
“The relationship between a patient and her therapist is a sacred trust,” she said as he pulled the door all the way open.
I took the hint and stepped out into the hall. “This is an emergency. If you could just…,” I began.
“Do you have a business card?” she interrupted.
I fished around in my wallet and came out with an old, tattered private eye card with somebody else’s number written in red pen on the back.
She slid a pair of red half-glasses onto the end of her nose. I watched her eyes slide over the surface. She gave me a curt nod, stepped back, and closed the door.
Five hundred seventy-seven dollars and twelve cents. That’s what it cost to replace the Tahoe’s headlights. Throw in another two hundred or so for the mirror, yet another forty-seven for the rental car and insurance and I was out eight hundred bucks or so, five hundred of which was coming out of my pocket. Not to mention I had to listen to a lecture from the guy in the body shop about how the space-age polymers in the headlights were warranted to withstand everything short of small arms fire without crackingor breaking, and that however I managed to smash them without demolishing the front of the car should probably be avoided in the future. I gritted my teeth and assured him I’d be more careful.
So it’s no surprise that my mood was about as sunny as the weather as I headed back toward downtown in a cold drizzle. A full day’s work had yielded nothing other than the fact that I wasn’t the only one looking for Brett Ward, which made the situation all the more troubling. Worse yet, whatever was going on involved those two hired freaks in the Cadillac. Freaks who had managed to instill an absolutely primal fear in Ricky Waters. Guys who’d hurt him in ways he didn’t want to talk about. No doubt about it. I didn’t like it one bit.
My phone began to tinkle in my pocket. Normally, I don’t answer the phone while I’m driving. First of all, it’s illegal to have a phone in your hand while driving in the state of Washington. Absolutely everybody still does it, but technically it’s illegal. Second, and more to the point, I don’t flatter myself to imagine that my doings are of sufficient import as to require immediate attention. Ninety-nine percent of the time whoever is on the phone can wait till I get to where I’m going. The other one percent are wrong numbers.
Today, however, feeling hollow and somber, I immediately began to pat myself down looking for the phone. Must have looked like I was on fire, slapping this pocket and that, trying to locate my personal device. All I managed to do was to weave from lane to lane like I’d had a stroke. An irate chorus of horns snapped my attention forward just in time to avoid rear-ending the FedEx truck in front of me.
I gulped air and got the hell off the road before I hurt somebody, pulling into a strip mall parking lot and jamming the car into Park in front of a
pho
parlor, before resuming my search for my phone, which had by that time ceased tinkling.
Took me the better part of three minutes to figure out it was an e-mail message and then retrieve it. No subject. Sent from a Hotmail account. Marty Gilbert, I figured, trying to help me out but taking no chances with his pension.
No message, but attached was a spreadsheet packed with tiny numbers. Screens and screens and screens of them. I zoomed in, turned the device sideways, and worked my way across the top line like a stadium reader board. Rebecca Ann Duval. MasterCard number such and such. Transactions. Date. Location. My eyes clicked back to the date like a slot machine settling on the cherries. The card had been used yesterday. I scrolled back to the left and started down the
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