Read Book 07 - Deadly Quicksilver Lies for Free Online Page A

coming
to buy a hit. That’s why he warned me.” Catch that
clever misdirection. Not even a dead Loghyr often mistakes Winger
for male.
    “A hit? Me?” She knew the argot. She was off balance
but coming back fast.
    “He was sure of it.” But I wondered. Winger took
shortcuts. Big, slow, lovable, goofy, crafty, bigoted, and lazy
Winger. She was confident that anybody she couldn’t sweeten
with reason she could bring around with a good old-fashioned
ass-kicking. She was just a big old simple country girl with simple
country ways—if you accepted her the way she wanted to be
taken.
    I was going to have words with Winger about Maggie Jenn. If I
could find her. I didn’t think that would be tough. The big
goof was bound to turn up on her own, soon. Probably before I was
ready.
    I said, “Then somebody followed me here.”
    “What? Who? Why?”
    “Got me. I only mention it to show you that somebody out
there is interested.”
    Maggie shook her head. It was a fine head. I was starting to
lose my focus again. I concentrated on describing the villain
who’d followed me.
    Maggie smiled wickedly. “Garrett! Don’t you ever
think about anything else?”
    “Lots of times.” I thought about starting a little
contest in which we would see who could run the fastest.
    “Garrett!”
    “You started it.”
    Unlike many women, she did not deny her complicity. “Yeah,
but . . . ”
    “Put yourself in my place. You’re a red-blooded
young man who’s suddenly alone here with you.”
    “Flattery will get you everywhere.” She
chuckled.
Ouch! This was getting painful. “You do dish up a ration
of shit, don’t you?”
    I chuckled right back and put myself into my own place, assuming
she meant to put herself into her own place and things would
proceed to proceed. But after a painful pilgrimage to her side of
the table all proceedings proceeded to grind to a halt.
Reluctantly—it seemed—she slipped away from me. I
muttered, “We can’t keep on like this if you want to
sell me on looking for your daughter.”
    “You’re right. This is a business arrangement. We
can’t let nature get in the way.”
    I was willing to let nature play havoc, but I said, “Durn
tootin’. I don’t sell that way, anyway. I sell on logic
and facts. That’s me. Just-the-facts-ma’am Garrett. How
about you start giving me some of those instead of using all your
energy on those come-hither eyes?”
    “Don’t be cruel, Garrett. This is as difficult for
me as it is for you.”
     
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10
    So, eventually, we reached the suite belonging to Maggie’s
daughter Emerald. “Emerald?” I asked. “What
happened to Justina?” Emerald. Wouldn’t you know? Where
are all the lovely Patricias and Bettys?
    “I named her Justina. Emerald is what she uses. She picked
it, so don’t give me that look.”
    “What look?”
    “The one that says you’re shitting me.
She
picked it. She was fourteen. Everyone else went along, so I use
Emerald sometimes myself.”
    “Right. Emerald. She insisted.” Of course.
That’s what became of Patricia and Betty. They started
calling themselves Amber and Brandi and Fawn. “But she might
be going by Justina. When life gets serious, they fall back on
their roots. Anything I need to know about the suite before I start
digging?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Am I going to find something you think needs excusing
ahead of time?”
    Wonder of wonders, she understood. “You might. Only I
never go in there, so I don’t know what it might be.
Yet.” She gave me a strange look. “Are you looking for
a fight?”
    “No.” Though maybe, unconsciously, I didn’t
want her hanging over my shoulder. “Back to that name. Might
as well go after this by the numbers, find out everything you can
tell me before I start looking for things you don’t
know.”
    She gave me that look again. I
was
a bit testy. Had I
developed that strong a dislike for work? Or was it because I knew
she would lie and distort and whatever