“She ever mention any names of professors?”
“No.”
“She ever talk about doing any work with professors?”
She gazed at the floor. Rolled the dog over and scratched its abdomen. “I’m thinking— Nah, I don’t think so—why?”
“She told people she had a research job.”
“Oh.” Another eye blink. “Well, she never told me.”
“Nothing like that, at all?”
“Uh-uh.” Dropping the cigarette on the floor, she ground it out, created a smoldering black wound on the linoleum, held out her hand. “I been putting out for you, how about returning the favor, stud?”
Milo pulled out his wallet and gave her two twenties.
She rubbed the bills between her fingers. “I used to do a whole lot less to get a whole lot more, but this doesn’t suck—you’re a sport.”
“Nothing about her job, huh?”
“Nothing . . . I’m getting tired.”
Milo handed her another twenty. She brushed the edge of the bill against the dog’s groin.
He said, “The money Lauren saved up. Was that all from working with Gretchen?”
“Probably. Like I said, she saved. The rest of us, the minute we had a dollar, it was gone, but Lauren was this little Scroogie thing, counting every buck.”
Milo turned to me.
I said, “Did Lauren talk about her family?”
“She used to in the beginning, but then she stopped. She hated her father, wouldn’t say a word about him. Called her mom weak but okay. Said she’d married some old guy, was living in a nice house. Lauren was happy for her, said she’d screwed up plenty but was finally getting it together.”
“Screwed up how?” I said.
“Life, I guess. Screwing up. Like everyone does.”
“Did she ever talk about her mother trying to control her?”
She produced another cigarette. Waited for Milo to light it.
“Not that I remember—from what she said her mom sounded like a wimp, not a bitch.” She put the cigarette to her lips, inhaled, held her breath. When she opened her mouth again, no smoke emerged.
“So she hated her father,” I said.
“He walked out on them, married some stupid cow, had a couple more kids. Little kids. She said they were cute but she didn’t know if she’d ever connect with them, because her dad was an asshole and the cow was stupid and she didn’t know if she wanted to invest any time in it. She was always talking like that. Everything was an investment—your face, your body, your brain. You had to think of it like money in the bank, not give anything away for free.”
Another deep inhalation. She coughed. Smoked rapidly, burning the cigarette nearly down to the filter. “She was smart, Lauren was. She shouldn’t be dead. Everyone else should be, but not her.”
“Everyone else?” I said.
“The world. Whoever killed her should fry in hell and then get eaten by rats.” Crooked smile. “Maybe I’ll be down there by then and I can train the rats.”
“A gun and a computer,” I said as we left the building. The angry young men two doors up hadn’t gotten any more lighthearted, and this time Milo stared at them until their heads turned. “Like Michelle said, not exactly school supplies.”
“Lauren told Michelle she was out of the game, but she’d stayed in it,” he said. “No one talks about her being jumpy or afraid. Not Andy or Michelle or her mother. So maybe the gun was to protect what was in the computer.”
“Data,” I said. “Secrets. And something else: Despite the gun and Lau-ren’s street smarts, someone managed to hog-tie her and shoot her in the head. Maybe she got caught off guard because the killer was someone she never imagined would hurt her. Someone she knew and trusted. As in big-bucks steady customer who’d been generous for years. Notblackmail—fee for service. But then the customer decided to end the relationship, realized the potential for blackmail existed, and took preven-tative measures.”
We got in the car. He sat behind the wheel, staring at the dash.
“For all we know,” I said, “Lauren was killed with her own gun. Mi-chelle said a little silver shooter. Plenty of small nine-millimeters around. Someone she trusted and allowed to get close to her purse.”