why would I stoop so low?” she interrupted, turning around to face him, last spring’s events so much at the surface she trembled. “Have you ever stuck around after your investigations are concluded to see what happened next? Or is it just on to your next assignment with your carefully taken notes so when you get called back to testify you remember the…how did you put it? Oh, yes…the pertinent facts of the case.”
He took off his hat and thumbed the brim before looking at her. “I remember everything, Rachel. And I regret—”
“Regret doesn’t feed my children,” she said, the last tenuous thread on her temper shredding. “And as for going back to work at the bank, nobody would hire me to be a teller, much less a financial analyst—not after learning my business partner had been convicted of money-laundering.”
“That was Angela London, not you.”
“And weren’t you the man who once told me that the quality of a man’s character can be measured in the friends he has?”
“I’m sorry.”
“No doubt.” She looked up then, and met his gaze. “Go away, Micah McLeod. If I never see you or talk to you or—” She swallowed the lump in her throat and willed the tears burning her eyes to go away.
“What’s going on?” Jason Laird stood in the doorway.
“Nothing,” Micah said. “I’m leaving.” He slipped past Jason who watched with his arms folded over his chest.
“You come with me,” Jason said to Rachel. “Right now.”
She knew what was coming, but like so much else over the last few months, being chewed out for talking to a guest was one more thing to be endured.
“Your services are no longer needed,” Jason said as soon as he sat himself down behind his desk.
“You’re firing me?” She had expected to be bawled out—not dismissed.
“You know the rules about contact with guests,” he said, “and your behavior toward our guest just now is completely unacceptable.”
Locking her jaw so her chin wouldn’t tremble, Rachel stared at a point beyond Jason’s shoulder while he finished dressing her down. Fifteen minutes later she clocked out and left the motel. It wasn’t yet 9:00 a.m.
She got in her car and sat there a moment, feeling her debts weighing her down and the empty light on the fuel gauge taunting her with this latest failure.
She needed the money from this job, meager as it was. She couldn’t go home. Be bold as a lion, she told herself, gazing down the road where another dozen motels lined the street. She hated the idea of another maid’s job, but it was routine work that fit with the schedule for her other jobs. Bold as a lion would be to march down to the bank and apply for her old job in the trust department.
But today she was only bold as a hungry kitten so, irritated with her own lack of temerity, she headed for a motel a block away where she filled out her first application. Once more the anonymous demand for the half-million dollars flitted through her head, this time making her laugh silently. Like she would be looking for a sustenance job if she had access to that kind of money.
Even with the promise of better money that would likely come as a result of her appointment with Jane Clark, any income would be weeks to months in coming. Which made today simply another one to survive.
By the time she filled out her ninth application, any humor she had seen in her situation had long since vanished.
“Hello, Tommy,” Micah said to Angela London’s old boyfriend, surprised he had found the man the first place he looked—an upscale pool hall a couple of blocks from the historic Colorado Hotel. The clientele this early in the day was thin—Tommy Manderoll was playing alone. Waiting to score a sale, Micah was sure, since he was the one who had introduced Angela to drugs and the promise of easy money.
The man was nice-looking enough that Micah understood why Angela had gotten involved with him. But he was a user through and through.
Tommy didn’t look up until he had taken his shot, neatly pocketing a ball in the side hole. His eyes narrowed when he recognized Micah. “I don’t have anything to say to you.”
Micah shrugged and held out his hands in a placating gesture. “I haven’t asked you anything.”
“Yet.” Tommy moved around the table, chalking up the end of his cue as he went. “Whatever you’re selling, I’m not buying.” He hit another ball, this time missing. Scowling at Micah, he accused, “You’ve been following me.”
“I just got to town,” Micah said, leaning against an adjoining table and crossing his ankles as though he had the whole day. “You have some reason to think you’re being followed?”
Tommy snorted. “Like I’d tell you.”
“I dunno,” Micah said crossing his arms. “A man paranoid enough to think I’m following him probably has something to hide.”
“I’m an open book. Ask my probation officer.”
One thing the man had proven last spring was his knack for self-preservation. He’d provided the DA the final pieces of evidence that had convicted Angela, all for the price of his freedom, of course. The man had copped a misdemeanor plea and had been given probation and community service. And Micah knew as sure as he was standing here that Tommy was still dealing and equally certain that if he searched the man or his car, he wouldn’t find anything but chewing gum in his pockets or his car.
“Have you seen Simon Graden lately?” Graden had been the big fish that got away last spring without so much as an indictment touching him. Though Graden hadn’t been charged, it was only a matter of time, since too many paths of money trickled toward his door. Even if Angela hadn’t told him that Graden had threatened her a week before she was sentenced, he would have been Micah’s first suspect.
Tommy took longer lining up the next shot, and once more he missed pocketing the ball. “We don’t exactly run in the same circles.”
Micah knew that to be true. Upscale as this place might be, it lacked the five-star amenities that Graden would expect.
The man was quite wealthy—to most people he was merely one of Aspen’s millionaires. Unlike most others involved with the drug trade at his level, the man had no discernable organization. In spite of all the smoke and mirrors he hid behind, Micah was sure they would soon get him.
Since Tommy had turned on Angela for a price, he figured the man was capable of doing the same to Rachel. “There’s a rumor he’s looking for a missing half-million dollars. You wouldn’t know anything about that?”
“Nope,” Tommy instantly said without looking at Micah.
Micah didn’t believe him. “And you wouldn’t know why he thinks Rachel Neesham has it.”
Tommy jerked his head up, his gaze colliding with Micah’s. So that had surprised him. Interesting.
“Miss Goody Goody?” Tommy shook his head. “That boggles the mind.”
“I
