Page 50 of Guilty as Sin
Anything more idyllic would be hard to imagine. Main Street, with its line of western-style storefronts, looking like a movie set. The ski mountain, with the rest of the peaks ranged behind and to either side of it, rising rugged and gray above the tree line, showing dark with forest below, with patches of white snow still clinging in the gullies. And the cottony sky hanging over all of it like an endless bowl, the air coming straight in from the north, crisp and clean.
Montana. Big Sky Country. Beautiful, and wild, too. A perfect town. A perfect place. Except it wasn’t, because no place was perfect. All you could do was find the place where you fit best. And since her bizarre mind had decided that her place was the SFPD, she needed to listen to her voicemail.
“Hey.” It was Arletta’s voice, and Paige took the disappointment all the way through her body. “Call me about those numbers.”
She did.
Arletta said, “OK. I finally got a chance to call you back. Your first number”—she read it off, and, yes, it was the source of Paige’s texts—“that’s a burner phone, or a burner app. Montana area code, but that’s as close as you’re gonna get.”
“I figured,” Paige said. “But good to know.”
“Yeah. Guess your boy went to Felon U with the rest of them. WatchedThe Wire,anyway. You’re with your sister now, anyway, got her back.”
“Yes. I do.”`
“OK. Second one’s a pay phone outside something called the Gas & Go in Sinful, Montana. This is an actual place, not my house when I make the mistake of letting Theodore choose the restaurant and he picks Mexican. Sinful would be the word, because, honey, what that man does with refried beans is a crime. Four-twenty-three South Main. Maybe you’ll get lucky, and your mutt’s been calling his threats in on his breaks from ringing up gas and filling up the hot dog cooker.”
The call had come from Sinful. She—Jace’s stalker had to be a she—washere, then. Or was driving here to do her stalking, but a local callandhand delivery? Staying here, or living here, Paige would bet. “Makes sense,” she said. “Sinful’s where I am. Where my sister is. And yeah, calling from the gas station was dumb. It’s a different person than the other one, then. Got to be.”
“Good news for you,” Arletta said. “Weakest link. Probably thinks he was real sneaky, too. Pay phone. Ooh.Sharp.The dumber they are, the smarter they feel. And seriously? Your sister lives inSinful?Damn. Do people mail their dirty love notes from there, like your kid’s letter from Santa that comes from the North Pole?”
“Probably,” Paige said absently. “It’s a little bit of a tourist thing.” If Jace filled up at the same gas station every time? If he saw the same female clerk there? It would fit the “casual acquaintance” stalker pattern, she guessed. But calling from your workplace was probably too stupid to hope for.
“Hmm,” Arletta said. “Maybe I should get you to mail something from me to Theodore.”
“I can do better than that.” Paige pulled herself back into the moment. “How about a card that says ‘Thinking of You,’ and a nightgown from my sister’s lingerie store? Text me the colors you like and your size, and you’ve got it. Special delivery straight from Sinful. My treat. My thank-you.”
“Huh. You gonna choose it?”
Paige sighed. “My sister owns the store. She’s good at it.”
“I’m just saying,” Arletta said. “You got good qualities, but that’s not one of ’em.”
“I get it. Igotit. You’ll get my sister’s best, not mine. And I’m not that bad.”
“Oh, honey,” Arletta said. “You are. That first hooker outfit you did? Still a legend. I laughed for a week. Born to wear a uniform. But we want you back anyway.”
Paige drove a few hundred yards, pulled into the lot of the Gas & Go, parked in one of the spots next to the square concrete-block building, and checked it out.
There was a pay phone around one side.
She wanted to go in and ask questions. Preferably review the security video. Bad idea, though. If the cops did check out the number, they wouldn’t be one bit happy that she’d been there first. Not to mention that she didn’t have jurisdiction. Or a badge. She could tell Jace and urge him to press the Sinful police to have the call traced, though, now that she knew where the trace would lead.
A gas station. Whichalwayshad security cameras. Could anybody actually be this dumb?
Short answer: Of course they could.
She’d just take a look. She got out of her car, headed over to the phone, checked for cameras, and didn’t find any. But that didn’t mean there wasn’t one, so she went into the tiny store, made up of a cashier’s counter and a few shelves that held snacks, drinks, and, yes, a hot dog cooker.
Cameras on the door, inside and outside, like you’d expect. If Jace’s stalker had come in before or after the phone call, they’d have her. Or if she’d filled her gas tank.
The cashier, a fortyish guy wearing a ball cap with a bear paw on it that was something to do with college football, said, “Hi. How’re you doing?”
Oh, man. This was why she’d kept her outings in Sinful to a minimum. Did he know Lily? She said, “Oh, pretty good. How are you?” in a generic sort of way as she grabbed a bottled water and put it on the counter.
“So,” he said as he rang it up, “I hear you’re selling your place for the new resort.”
Question answered. “No.” She pulled two bucks out of Lily’s wallet and put them on the counter. “I’m not planning to sell.”
