Whistler's Angel Read Online Free PDF Page B

chance.”
    But she didn’t. What she said was, in essence, “Don’t blow this.”
    The odd thing was, he could almost believe it. There was Claudia’s survival. A miracle in itself. She should have been a vegetable at best. And if there really were such things as angels, he’d expect them to look very much like Claudia. They would, like Claudia, have an inner glow about them. A radiance that sets them apart. The first time he’d ever laid eyes on Claudia, he could have believed it right then.
    He’d first met her four months before any of this happened. He did not then, however, think in terms of the celestial. He thought in terms of a warm and friendly girl of the sort he wished he’d met ten years before. A girl who, because of what he had become, seemed hopelessly out of his reach. He first saw her on a ski slope at Aspen.
    He’d gone to Aspen to meet with his father. His father had flown over from Europe where he’d lived for almost all of Whistler’s life. Whistler first had called him, not to meet, just to talk. He said he’d tried to believe in what he’d been doing, to believe that it was making a difference. But the cure, he’d come to realize, was worse than the disease. The war on drugs, as fought, was unwinnable. It ruined more lives than it saved. And that war, for some, was as profitable as dealing. He’d known traffickers whom he would sooner have trusted than some of the people who opposed them.
    “You’ll forgive me for saying I told you so, Adam.”
    “I know. I just didn’t want to see it.”
    “The first casualty of war is always the truth. What has happened that opened your eyes? Are you in trouble?”
    “I might be. You know Felix Aubrey?”
    “Know him? I warned you about him, remember?”
    “Yes, you did and I heard you. Will you listen?”
    “Go ahead.”
    “Aubrey keeps a set of records. Or he did. I have them now. And he’s probably guessed that I took them.”
    “What’s in them? How hot?”
    “They could put him in prison. He would have lots of company.”
    The line went silent for a moment. Then, “Get over here, Adam. Get on the first flight you can.”
    “If I disappeared, he would know that I’m the one. I’m not sure that Aubrey knows who you are, but that might be the first place he’d look.”
    “ Your point?”
    “I don’t want to cause trouble for you.”
    “U m…Adam, not to sound as if I’m full of myself, but I think I can probably
    deal with it.”
“Even so, it’s my problem. Could you meet me over here?”
“Name the place. But be careful. Don’t say it straight out.”
“Last Dollar. You remember? I can be there tonight.”
“Last Dollar. I got you. So can we. I’ll buy a ticket.”
     
    His use of “we” meant he’d bring the Beasley twins. He seldom traveled without them. The “I’ll buy a ticket,” meant that he’d fly commercial. He had his own plane and had access to others, but a private jet’s movements were too easily monitored. Sometimes it was better to get lost in the crowd. “Last Dollar” was the name of a ski trail at Aspen. He’d skied that trail with his father many times, beginning when Whistler started college in the States. Before that, they’d skied all over Europe. He and his father had often gone skiing whenever there were problems that needed thinking out. Either skiing the Alps or going for a sail on the boat his father kept on Lake Geneva. There was something about a big stretch of open water, and especially the mountains with their clean air, vast snowfields, that helped put the rest of the world in perspective.
    Whistler got to Aspen first. He waited at the airport through several arrivals before spotting one of the twins disembarking from one of the last incoming flights. The twin must have seen him, but did not acknowledge him. About ten people back, his father appeared. Or rather he loomed. A big man, he was wearing a brown Stetson hat and a three-quarter-length shearling coat. Shaggy hair and