Gold Hill (29 page)

“
He’s
Yvonne’s owner?” Heather was so shocked that Mack made a
surprised sound. She looked down at her baby. “He’s a very bad man,
Mack. Not like you.”

Heather watched Ava’s
father survey the scene as if he was the injured party.

“
I can’t just watch this,”
Heather said. “I have to go see for myself.”

She jumped into action.
Setting Mack in the middle of their King sized bed, she stuffed her
feet into exercise shoes.

“
I’ll meet you there,”
Blane said.

“
No,” Heather said. “You
can’t be near the smoke.”

“
Ok, but don’t go on your
own, okay? They haven’t found the source of the gas yet,” Blane
said. “Find our truck and the crew will go with you.”

“
Okay,” Heather picked up
Mack, grabbed her purse and ran down the stairs. “Oh my God, Blane,
I don’t want to have to tell Tanesha that her mother’s dead.
She . . . ”

“
She’s always hoped her
mom would come home,” Blane said. “I know.”

Heather ran through the
downstairs and to her car.

“
I’ll call you when I know
anything,” Heather said.

“
You’ll look for our
guys?” Blane asked.

She dropped Mack into his
car seat and fastened the buckles.

“
I will,” Heather said.
“Love you.”

“
Love you, Heather,” Blane
said. “And . . . I’m really sorry.”

“
The bastard is cleaning
his tracks,” Heather said. “Fucker.”

Heather clicked off the
phone before she went into a complete rant. Blane was only just
starting to get better. He didn’t need to hear her rage at the man
who’d stolen Tanesha’s mother and ruined her friend’s life. She
started her Subaru and took Park Avenue to Fourteenth. She was
almost there when Mack made a sound.

Stopped at the light at
Holly, Heather looked back to see his fist in his mouth. He laughed
as if he was caught doing something he shouldn’t. His small gesture
and smile wiped the dark thoughts from Heather’s mind. She switched
on a music CD he liked and drove to the edge of King Sooper’s
parking lot. She had just pulled into a spot on the street when a
man from Lipson Construction tapped on her window. She waved and
got out.

“
Blane said you’d come.”
He looked worried. “It’s not a great place for a lady and a
baby.”

“
My best friend’s mother
lives there,” Heather said.

She got out of the car and
went around to get Mack from his car seat. When she stood up, the
other two Lipson Construction employees were standing near
her.

“
If you’d like, I can take
Mack, ma’am,” a young woman said.

“
Oh,
no . . . um . . . ” Heather
looked up the street at the police, fire trucks, and media circus.
She swallowed hard. “Can you just go with me? Would you
mind?”

“
Not at all,” the crew
chief said. They started walking along the edge of the chaos on
Fourteenth Avenue. The crew gathered around her and Heather. “We
were working around the corner. Lipson employee owners wanted to
try some smaller jobs to see if they were profitable, so Jake got
the contract to clean and check the sewers in this area. We’ve been
working up here for three weeks.

“
We were just around the
corner,” the young woman said.

“
It’s a risk, with the
sewers, you know,” the crew chief said. “If the gas builds up in
the sewer, it can explode.”

“
Our work can make that
happen,” the man she’d met at the car said.

“
These sewers are a mess,”
the young woman said. “Either they weren’t done in the spring
or . . . ”

“
We’re choosing to report
that this area has heavy usage,” the crew chief said.

“
But we think they weren’t
done,” the young woman said.

“
We heard the sound and
thought it was from us!” the man she’d met at the car said. “From
the sewer!”

“
We checked everything
real quick,” the crew chief said.

“
Reported in immediately,”
the young woman’s eyes became big. “Then I saw . . .
and . . . ”

As fast as they’d begun
chatting, the Lipson crew fell silent. They continued walking until
they were standing under the trees across the street. The water
from the fire trucks poured into the building. The police directed
traffic into the lane in front of them. And State Attorney General
Alvin paraded around like an indignant peacock.

“
I’ll tell you, Heather,”
the crew chief said in a low voice. “The police told us not to talk
to anyone, but since you’re Lipson family, I’ll tell
you . . . We were here, right here, not thirty
seconds after the explosion
and . . . ”

He swallowed
hard.

“
Everyone was dead,” the
young woman whispered. Even with the wind and sirens and cars,
Heather heard her whispered words like they were shouted from a
bull horn next to her ear.

“
There was a woman lying
on her face . . . ” the man she’d met at her
car pointed to the apartment next to Tanesha’s mom’s
place.

“
The fire, not a minute
after, was already burning the entire roof,” the crew chief said.
“We used hoses but . . . ”

“
They were already dead,”
the young woman whispered.

Heather lowered her head
and put her hand over her eyes to block the view for a moment. She
felt the young woman lift Mack from her hip. Heather sighed and
opened her eyes.

As if they were placed
there just for her to see, two cellophane bundles of yellow tulips
sat in the gutter just east of where she was standing. She walked
over to them and picked them up. The receipt was tucked into the
cellophane wrapper.

“
When did this happen?”
Heather asked.

“
9:37,” the crew chief
said.

Heather’s finger traced the
time stamp on the receipt. 9:23 a.m.

“
Do you think your
friend’s mom . . . ?” the crew chief
asked.

“
No,” Heather shook her
head. “I mean, I don’t know for sure but . . . I
don’t think so.”

“
Oh that’s good,” the
young woman said. “That’s really good.”

“
I think we all feel
better,” the crew chief said. “I mean, the whole thing is horrible,
but if a Lipson friend was
killed . . . ”

“
That makes it personal,”
the man she’d met at the car said.

“
We can stay with you as
long as . . . ” the crew chief said.

“
Thank you,” Heather said.
“But you can go do what you need to. Thank you for being here for
me. I appreciate it.”

The Lipson Construction
crew walked her back to her car and helped her with Mack. When they
left, Heather sat with the car idling.

If Yvonne wasn’t here,
where was she?

She’d better get to Tanesha
before she found out. Nodding to herself, she started toward the
University of Colorado Medical School.

~~~~~~~~

Wednesday — 10:55
a.m.

Tanesha pushed her way
through the door into her Nervous System lecture and started down a
row of seats near the middle of the auditorium. She nodded to a
young man sitting in the row, set her book bag in the empty chair
next to her, and sat down. Pulling out her notebook and pencil, she
noticed that her cell phone message light was flashing. She flipped
through the list of calls she’d missed – Jeraine, Sandy, Heather –
probably to confirm lunch, Jeraine, and . . . a
number she recognized. Without thinking, she dialed back the
number.

“
What?” she
asked.

“
You want her, you can
have her,” her mother’s keeper said. “Five thousand
dollars.”

“
What?” Tanesha’s heart
raced. She’d begged and pleaded with this man for years to let
Yvonne come home.

“
You heard me,” the man
said. “You give me five thousand dollars and she’s all yours. Call
me back when you have the money.”

The line clicked. He was
gone. Tanesha stared at her phone.

“
Ok, let’s get started,”
the teacher on the stage below said.

Tanesha stuffed her phone
into her bag and started taking notes. In the back of her mind, she
heard – “My Mommy’s coming home today!” – repeated over and over
again. Tanesha smiled and settled down to work.

~~~~~~~~

Wednesday — 12:55
p.m.

“
Yeah.” Driving to work,
Ava hit the button on the blue tooth headset which she called the
fallopian tube or f-tube for short. She was late and assumed that
Nelson was calling her to pick up coffee.

“
Do you know what you’ve
done?” Her elder sister’s voice was mean and loud. Ava turned the
sound down on the f-tube.

“
Uh . . .
when?” Ava asked. “Are we talking about something I did when we
were kids? Or the Saint Jude thing? Or . . . I’m
late to work?”

“
Dad is livid!” Her
sister’s voice rose with hysteria. “Mom was so upset the doctor had
to give her something. And . . . ”

Ava showed her badge to the
parking attendant while her sister rambled off the status of her
family’s most recent drama.

“
Mom’s so upset that I’m
late to work that she had to be sedated?” Ava pulled into her
parking spot and got out of the car.

“
Your
boyfriend
lied to
Westword
about
Dad
!”

“
Uh . . . ” Ava said as she opened the
trunk to get her backpack. “My boyfriend?”

“
O’Malley told that
horrible Barton Gaston lies about Dad,” her elder sister said. “The
DA told me to go home for a few days while everything cools
off.”

“
Seth’s in LA dealing with
some crisis,” Ava flung her backpack over her shoulder and started
toward the door. She saw Seth’s friend, Captain Ferguson, waiting
at the door. “I’m about to go in. Would you like to tell me what
we’re talking about?”

“
Westword is printing an
article saying that Dad has made a fortune off of prostitutes at
the four-plex. And it’s all your fault.”

“
Four-plex?”

“
That he owns on
Fourteenth? God, Amelie, you’re such a child. The world just floats
around baby Amelie.”

“
Well, I’m paying
attention now and you’re not making any sense, as usual,” Ava said.
“Dad’s running for office. The newspapers print stupid crap all the
time. So what?”

“
This one has photos of
Dad and some whore,” her elder sister said. “
Plus
, the apartment blew up this
morning. Gas leak. They’re saying Dad did it to cover up his
prostitution ring.”

“
Ok, so Dad’s been pimping
out of a four-plex on Fourteenth Avenue,” Ava said. “I guess that
explains how he paid for our private schools.”

“
And the building blew up!
Women died!”

She reached the door where
Captain Ferguson was waiting. She held up a finger to him and he
nodded.

“
So there’s a crime
scene,” Ava said. “Outside of letting me know where I’ll probably
be working today, how does any of this have anything to do with me?
Or Seth?”

“
Seth O’Malley lied to
Westword about Dad,” her elder sister said. “And, just so you know,
Dad says Seth owns prostitutes all over town.
And . . . ”

“
I have to go,” Ava hung
up her phone. She looked up at Captain Ferguson.

“
What do you know?” he
asked.

“
My sister says that
Westword’s reporting that my father has been prostituting women out
of an investment property he owns,” Ava said. “I know he owns
buildings, rentals, all over town, but . . . she
says that my father says that Seth
owns . . . ”

She looked up in to the
Captain’s face and saw that he knew all of this.

“
There were four bodies,
Ava,” Captain Ferguson said. “Four females. The coroner thinks
their throats were cut. The fire inspector found enough evidence to
believe that the fire was staged to cover up the evidence. I guess
there was a construction crew nearby. They used garden hoses on the
fire until the fire department got there. If they hadn’t been
there . . . ”

“
The fire was hot enough
to destroy everything,” Ava said in a low voice.

“
Crematorium hot,” Captain
Ferguson said.

“
Sounds like a
professional hit,” Ava said.

“
Seems that way,” Captain
Ferguson said. “As it is, identification is going to be tough. The
coroner has already called Seth’s friend Delphie to help
out.”

“
And they think my
dad . . . ?” Ava was so shocked she didn’t know
how to complete the sentence.

“
I’m giving you the rest
of the week off,” Captain Ferguson said.

“
But my lab can’t afford a
week off!” Ava said. “Leslie’s just back and Bob is saving to take
his wife on a cruise for their anniversary and
Nelson . . . ”