Pros and Cons Read Online Free PDF Page B

wondering if money changed hands during these one-night stands of hers, although it seemed to me a pro would not get careless about protection as she claimed to have done. Then again, the human capacity to act like idiots sometimes astounds me.
    One thing I knew for sure: Heather had lied to me. I wasn’t taking another step in the search for Doug until I’d pried the truth out of her.

    I figured my next conversation with Heather wouldn’t be the kind we’d want to have in public, so I decided to drop in on her unexpectedly at her house on Thursday evening. I’d had to fight off the momentary urge just to call and tell her I was dropping the case. I hadn’t liked her all that much in the first place, and the lies and omissions really pissed me off. However, every instinct was telling me there was more to this case than met the eye. Heather seemed desperate to find Doug. I remembered thinking that she seemed scared when I first met her, and that didn’t make sense if she was just looking for a sugar daddy. Something wasn’t adding up.
    When I pulled into the driveway of her house, I was once again struck by the incongruity between her chosen profession—if you could call her parade of crappy jobs a profession—and her standard of living. She wasn’t exactly living high off the hog, her house being of moderate size and sporting a postage-stamp-sized lawn, but with her income, she should have been living in some cheap, small apartment in a less-than-ideal neighborhood, maybe with a roommate or two to help foot the bills.
    I parked in the driveway, then went to the front door and rang the bell.
    The Heather who answered the door was an interesting compromise between the ordinary Jane who’d met me at the coffee bar and the femme fatale from the photograph. She was dressed casually in skinny jeans and a baby-blue hoodie, but her makeup looked like it had been done professionally, as did her hair. From the neck up, she looked like she was ready for a fashion shoot. She blinked her sooty, mascaraed eyelashes in evident surprise at finding me on her doorstep.
    â€œNikki!” she said. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
    I bit back a caustic remark. “I know,” I said with admirable restraint. “But we need to talk. Like, now.”
    Another dramatic blink, but although batting her eyelashes might win her points with her gentleman callers, it didn’t work on me. She wasn’t as innocent as she’d have liked me to believe.
    â€œDid you find Doug?” she asked. There was no true hint of hope in her voice. I wasn’t yelling at her or being openly rude—yet—but I was sure she’d noticed the stiffness of my body language. She knew I wasn’t there with good news.
    â€œMay I come in?” I asked, instead of answering.
    â€œOf course.” She opened the door wider and smiled at me, but the expression was false, and her voice was tight. She might not know exactly what had brought me to her doorstep, but she wasn’t exactly clueless, either.
    The interior of Heather’s house wouldn’t have looked out of place in the home of a corporate mover and shaker. I took in the expensive furniture, the art on the walls, and the Bose home-theater equipment as she guided me to the living room and invited me to take a seat on her plush leather sofa. The lamp on the end table nearest me looked suspiciously like a genuine Tiffany, although I supposed it could be a high-quality knockoff.
    Heather sat on the other end of the sofa and folded her hands in her lap. She tried the wide-eyed-innocent look again, but the way her teeth worried at her lower lip was yet more evidence that she suspected the jig was up.
    â€œSo . . . what brings you?” she asked with another false smile.
    Wordlessly, I pulled the photo I’d printed out of my pocketbook and handed it to her. Her jaw dropped open, and a small, startled gasp escaped