Clean Slate (Kit Tolliver #4) (The Kit Tolliver Stories) (6 page)

Maybe he’d been killed over there. She supposed she could find out. And then she could decide what she wanted to do about it.

Graham Weider, though, couldn’t claim combatant status, unless you considered him a corporate warrior. And while his name might not be unique, neither was it by any means common. And it was almost certainly his real name, too, because they’d known it at the front desk. Graham Weider, from Chicago. It would be easy enough to find him, when she got around to it.

Of them all, Sid would be the real challenge. She sat there going over what little she knew about him and how she might go about playing detective. Then she treated herself to another half-glass of Brown Palace water and flavored it with a miniature of Johnnie Walker from the minibar. She sat down with the drink and shook her head, amused by her own behavior. She was dawdling, postponing her shower, as if she couldn’t bear to wash away the traces of Doug’s lovemaking.

But she was tired, and she certainly didn’t want to wake up the next morning with his smell still on her. She undressed and stood for a long time in the shower, and when she got out of it she stood for a moment alongside the tub and watched the water go down the drain.

Four, she thought. Why, before you knew it, she’d be a virgin all over again.

A
BOUT THE
A
UTHOR

L
AWRENCE
B
LOCK
published his first novel in 1958. He has been designated a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America, and has received Lifetime Achievement awards from the Crime Writers’ Association (UK), the Private Eye Writers of America, and the Short Mystery Fiction Society. He has won the Nero, Philip Marlowe, Societe 813, and Anthony awards, and is a multiple recipient of the Edgar, the Shamus, and the Japanese Maltese Falcon awards. He and his wife, Lynne, are devout New Yorkers and relentless world travelers.

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Table of Contents

Title Page

Clean Slate

About the Author