Up in her “bedroom” Colleen dried her frozen legs with a towel, shivering mightily, until she warmed up enough to pull on fresh socks and jeans. She left her white blouse with the pointed collar and black bolero jacket on, slipped on her white leather Pumas, and climbed up on the desk where she pushed the ceiling tile aside. She gathered her file folder, the Zyl fragment in its pillbox, and, after thinking about it, the .38 Detective Special. A risk to carry, but she might need it.
Everything went into a plastic garbage bag. She slung that over her shoulder.
Outside, she peered down the metal stairs. The unmarked car had been across the street, a few car lengths down, in the shadows. She took the stairs quietly, staying flat against the building to keep her profile minimal. She had to get out without being seen.
Back on the ground, she darted over to the fence in a crouching run. Over by the pallets stacked against the repaired hole, she saw the unmarked sedan parked across the street. Still staking her out. A case of nerves rippled through her. She shook them off, headed back toward the shoreline in a stooping run, back to the break in the fence out in the filmy water.
She shuddered at the prospects of another soaking. But one more time she stripped off, put her clothes inside the garbage bag, along with her shoulder bag. She drew a sharp breath as she held the garbage bag overhead with one arm, her flashlight in the other, and waded back out into the freezing water.
* * *
Colleen didn’t think she’d ever actually have to sleep in the Thunderbird Hotel, where she’d paid a month’s rent to satisfy parole. Fleabag wasn’t the word. But it was better than the back seat of the Torino, which she’d stashed in a lot around the corner. She didn’t need anyone spotting the car on the street.
She checked into her room with its dizzying odor of disinfectant and plenty of neighborly racket from people who probably didn’t work days, if they worked at all. She settled in, then hiked down to the lobby to the pay phone. She called Peg’s Place.
Alex Copeland and her friends had left. Damn. She did want to bring Alex up to date and knew that Mr. Copeland was running out of time. She called her answering service. No new messages.
It was well after midnight. She considered not calling the Copeland residence, but the urge to speak to Alex won over.
After three rings a woman answered. She was part of the round-the-clock nursing shift.
“So sorry to bother you,” Colleen said. “But I was hoping to catch Alex. It’s kind of important.”
“Ms. Copeland called not too long ago to check in on her father and to say she would probably not be coming home tonight, ma’am.”
“I see,” Colleen said, a hammer of disappointment pounding from within. She wondered where Alex had wound up, recalling the faces of her pretty friends. Alex wouldn’t have a problem finding a sympathetic ear if she needed one. “Thank you so much,” she said, hanging up the phone, trudging back up to her hotel room, full of frustration.
Downstairs a man yelled at a woman to get him some ice. Next door “Life in the Fast Lane” throbbed through the walls, along with the acrid tang of marijuana.