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Rocky Mountain News. Ten steps later the light caught her at California. In another block or two she’d be at Taylor Sutton’s office.
    Her phone rang.
    She checked the number.
    It was Condor.
    Damn it.
    She answered.
    “Where are you?”
    “I have a coffee meeting with a client,” she said.
    A pause.
    “Cut it short and get back here,” he said. “There’s a detective who wants to talk to you.”
    “About what?”
    “About the text Jackie sent you yesterday.”
    “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
    The light turned green.
    She dropped the phone into her purse and walked forward.
    What to do?
    What to do?
    What to do?
    She didn’t want to get carted out of the firm in handcuffs. She called Condor back and said, “See if that detective can meet me at Marlowe's. I don’t want to push the client off.”
    A pause.
    “He can,” Condor said. “About half an hour.”
    “I’ll break away when he gets here.”
     
    Marlowe’s was the place to see and be seen in downtown Denver but right now, in the dead zone, there wasn’t much of either going on. Pantage took a booth near the back and sipped coffee as she watched the front door.
    Half an hour later a man walked in.
    He was the man with the one blue eye and the one green one.
    He spotted her.
    The corner of his mouth turned up ever so slightly.
    He headed back and slid in next to her on the same side of the booth.
    “I guess I have a name now,” he said.
    “It looks that way,” she said.
    A waitress showed up with coffee and wanted to know if Drift wanted anything.
    “How are your pancakes, on a scale of one to ten?”
    She lowered her voice. “Honestly, about a six.”
    He smiled.
    “Can you stick some strawberries and whipped cream on top and get ’em up to a seven?”
    “I think that can be arranged.”
    Drift looked at Pantage.
    “Anything for you?”
    A pause, then she said, “Same.”
    “Two seven’s coming up.”
     
    Pantage put her hand on Drift’s. “I have a favor to ask you,” she said.
    “Shoot.”
    “I don’t want to go out of here in handcuffs,” she said. “I’ll go peacefully. I won’t be any trouble. You don’t need to put me in anything.”
    Drift nodded.
    Then he put his hand lightly on her head, bent it towards him and pulled her hair back. He looked at the wound for a moment then took a sip of coffee.
    “I pictured it as worse,” he said.
    Pantage narrowed her eyes.
    “I don’t get it.”
    “Tell me what happened last night,” he said. “You went over to Jackie’s to pick up a file, right?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “You’re not in any trouble,” Drift said. “All I want to know is what happened.”
    “I don’t remember.”
    “You don’t remember?”
    “No.”
    “Are you sure?”
    “Trust me, I’m sure,” she said.
    “You don’t remember anything?”
    “I woke up this morning with blood in my hair,” she said. “That’s all I remember. I don’t know what happened last night. I’m pretty sure I killed her but I don’t know why. It’s all blocked out.”
    “You didn’t kill her,” Drift said.
    “I didn’t?”
    “No,” he said. “You went over there.”
    She nodded.
    “Okay.”
    “What I think happened is that you interrupted the murder in progress or shortly after,” Drift said. “The neighbor across the street saw a black-haired woman run out of the house being chased by a man. That black-haired woman, in hindsight, was you.”
    “I don’t remember being chased.”
    “Do you remember a man?”
    “No.”
    Drift exhaled.
    “He was closing in on you. Another man was coming up the street, a man with black, shoulder length hair. You screamed out, Help me! Help me! Help me! Do you remember doing that?”
    “No.”
    “The guy chasing you hit you from behind. You slammed headfirst into a fire hydrant. Do you remember that?”
    “No.”
    “The two men fought,” Drift said. “The one chasing you broke away and ran up the street. The one with the long hair ran after him but