Angels Fall

nearest the stage. 
    When she came back with another tray of empties. Reece tried a smile.
    "Couldn't have been that serious then."
    "Huh?"
    "Deena and this guy, this Trout. Guess it wasn't much of anything."
    "Got to be. you ask me. Her side, anyway."
    "Really?" Reece shrugged, took a very small sip of beer. "That's not typical. Deena liked to bag 'em, but she wasn't into tagging 'em."
    With a grin, the waitress leaned over the bar, pulled a pack of Virginia Slims from behind it. "Good one. Coon, I'm taking a break."
    "I'm Reece." She offered a smile again. "Maybe Deena mentioned me."
    "No, not that I remember. Didn't even know she had a sister. I'm Jade."
    "Nice to meet you. So, Deena was hooked on some guy, huh?"
    "Well, she stopped picking marks to take back home with her." She pulled a matchbook out of the pocket of her abbreviated shorts, struck flame. "Sorry, her being your sister, but that's how she was."
    "That's not news. I gtiess that's why I was surprised she talked differently about this guy."
    "Said he had some class." Jade tipped her head back as she blew out smoke. "Don't see how. since she met him in here."
    "Oh." Now Reece struggled to keep her voice casual. "You saw him then."
    "Might've. Can't say. Wasn't a regular, 'cause she'da pointed him out when he came back. Did buy her stuff though. Showed off this necklace he coughed up. Said it was eightecn-karat gold. Probably bullshit, but it was nice. Had a moon on it. Like a little white plate, I guess. Said it was like mother of pearl, and that the sparkles in the chain were real diamonds."
    "Diamonds. No shit."
    "Probably was shit, but she said how they were. She took to wearing it all the time, even during her act. Said there was more w here that came from. Trout called her his dark side of the moon, she said. Whatever that means."
    "Maybe this Trout knows where she is." Reece glanced at Brody as it for agreement. He decided to keep drinking his beer and act like a man who couldn't care less either way.
    "Do you think someone else who works here might know him: Maybe one of the other dancers?"
    "Deena wasn't one to share, it you get me. Brag, sure, but she was keeping this one close. Wasn't a biker."

    "Oh?"
    "She said it was time she got one who had a straight job and knew more about life than what he saw on the back of a Hog. Anyway, they busted up, like I said. Then she took off. Greener pastures, I expect."
    "I guess you're right."
    Brody didn't speak until they were back in his car. "Here's a whole new side to you. Slim. You can sit in a titty bar and lie with absolute believability."
    "It just seemed the most direct route. Saying something like 'I saw Deena Black murdered a few weeks ago, but hardly anyone believes me.' just didn't ring. I don't know it it did any good though."
    "Sure it did. All information points to her disappearance, which coordinates with what you saw by the river. She was involved with a man who obviously didn't want her tossing his name around, and didn't want to be seen with her. Regardless, he was in deep enough to spend money on her. Jewelry's major points with your species, right'
    "It certainly is."
    "So he sprang for a bauble, which tells me she was more than a lay. at least for a while. They broke up, and she didn't want to leave it that way. She pushed, he pushed back—and pushed back too hard."
    "She may have been serious about him. but she didn't lose him."
    "You thought she did?"
    "I don't know what I thought," Reece said, "but now I know. A woman doesn't talk about a man the way she did him, doesn't call him Trout it she has any real feelings. She was just after what she was after."
    He waited a moment. "Does that change your stand on going on with this?"
    "No. Bitch or not, she didn't deserve to die that way. I think…" Abruptly she pulled up short, grabbed his arm. "Is that Lo? Is that Lo's truck, Brody?'
    He looked around as she gestured, just in time to see the back of a black pickup turn a corner. "I don't know Didn't see enough of it."
    "I think it was Lo." Had he seen them? she wondered. If he had, why hadn't he beeped, waved?
    Stopped. "Why would he be in Jackson?"
    "A lot of people come to Jackson for a lot of reasons. It doesn't mean he followed us. Slim, it'd be a hell of a trick tailing us on the stretch of road from the Fist."
    "Maybe."
    "Are you sure it was him?"
    "No. Not absolutely." And there was nothing she could do about it, either way. "So, what now?"

    "Once we get back to the Fist I