Steven Womack - By Blood Written

Carol looked down at her watch: nine-thirty. The package was supposed to have been delivered by eight. She’d been unable to get through to the toll-free number to check on the package, and the front desk had been unable to find it if it had been delivered. She was tired, but too restless to eat.

Just as she sat down on the side of the bed and reached for the remote control, the phone rang.

“Yes,” she answered.

“Front desk, Ms. Gee,” a friendly male voice said. “We found your package. The concierge got busy and forget to let us know it was here. I’m terribly sorry.”

Carol felt the muscles just below her rib cage relax. At least she could let go of that worry now. “Good, thanks. I’ll be right down.”

“I can have it sent up,” the clerk offered.

“No, I’d rather come right now. I need the walk anyway.”

Carol hung up the phone and left her room. On the elevator, she stared ahead at her own image in the polished brass.

Her hair needed trimming, she thought, and in the slight distortion of her reflection on the brass, she saw that she looked even more tired than she felt.

She exited the elevator and wound her way around a group of large men wearing fezzes, smoking cigars, and laughing.

She heard laughter and bells ringing and shouts from the casino. She wondered how people stood it.

The front desk was dark mahogany, polished to a bright luster, with a mirrored tile wall behind it. She walked over to the corner, smiled at the desk clerk, and motioned with her hand. He picked up the package and brought it over to her.

“Ms. Gee, I take it,” he said.

“Yes, thanks. We’ve been waiting on that.”

“Great,” he said brightly. “I’m glad we were able to locate it. Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“No,” Carol said, taking the package.

“Have a pleasant stay.”

Carol turned and headed back across the lobby to the bank of elevators. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she spotted two people walking toward the main entrance to the casino from deep inside.

It was Michael Schiftmann, and on his arm was a curva-ceous blond nearly as tall as he. She wore a sequined, body-hugging dress, makeup so thick it could have been slathered on with a butter knife, and high heels of the type usually characterized as “do-me pumps.”

My God , Carol thought. Not again …

The two were walking straight toward her. Carol turned quickly and stepped behind a tree that was perhaps fifteen feet tall and in a pot as big around as a tractor tire. She turned her head away from the center of the lobby and peeked out from between the thick branches. Michael and the blond walked arm-in-arm through the lobby, weaving in and out of the throng of people, oblivious to the crowd around them.

As they passed by not ten feet away from Carol, she stepped out from behind the potted trees and watched as the two headed toward the main entrance of the hotel. A bellman held the door open as they stepped outside into the arid Las Vegas night.

Carol’s eyes tracked them through a bank of windows that ran along the front of the hotel. She strained to see past the blazing reflections of dancing, chaotic, multicolored lights in the massive plate-glass windows.

But she could see well enough to follow Michael and the blond as a taxi pulled up next to them and they climbed into the backseat together.

Carol Gee watched as the cab pulled away, then shook her head slowly and turned back toward the elevator bank.

How does he do it? she wondered. Night after night …

This will all be over soon , she reminded herself, as she went for the safety of her own double-locked hotel room.

Monday morning, Nashville

Andy Parks hit the pedal on his rust-streaked, ancient Datsun 280Z and prayed the brakes would hold one last time. He meant to have the car serviced before leaving Chattanooga, but he’d gotten too busy-as usual-and simply hadn’t gotten around to it. The pedal had been soft for weeks, and now with the wet cold of the last few days, they’d begun squealing terribly each time he touched them.

The construction on I-24 around Nashville wasn’t helping.

The traffic was bumper-to-bumper and a light mist was falling that Andy hoped wouldn’t turn to snow anytime soon.

He knew he couldn’t afford to spend the night in Nashville.

His boss at the newspaper had told him yesterday afternoon in no uncertain terms that he was about to max out his mea-ger expense account. The Chattanooga News-Free Press wasn’t known for hard-hitting reporting or for spending tons of money in pursuit of the news. This was different, though.

This was the kind of story that was guaranteed to get attention, maybe even a Pulitzer nomination, and in any event a ticket out of Chattanooga and away from that sorry excuse for a newspaper. And at twenty-seven years of age, with five years of dues paying already behind him, Andy Parks was ready for a bigger market.

The brakes screeched as the traffic came to a stop just before the Davidson County line. The outlying counties of Nashville, especially Rutherford and Williamson, were some of the fastest-growing counties in America and they each had the traffic to prove it. Andy came to a stop behind a tractor-trailer rig and tapped his fingers nervously on the steering wheel. He looked to his left, where a blond behind the wheel of a bronze Lexus smoked a cigarette and stared straight ahead. Behind him, the massive grille of a tractor-trailer rig loomed in his back windshield.

Forty minutes of stop-and-go traffic later, Andy parked his car in the garage across from the Justice Center and walked out into the icy sleet falling steadily on the city. He strode quickly toward the James Robertson Parkway, then cut right across the plaza and through the revolving door into the main lobby. A bulletproof kiosk blocked the way into the heart of the building, with a heavy sheriff’s department deputy-shaved head, regulation brown uniform-ensconced inside. It reminded Andy of the entrance to a prison.

“Yeah?” the guard asked through the small, slotted metal vent.

Andy reached into his back pocket, pulled out his wallet, and held his Hamilton County press pass up to the glass.

“Andy Parks,” he said. “ Chattanooga News-Free Press .

I’d like to see Detective Gary Gilley.”

The guard stared at the pass for a moment, then slid a clipboard out through a small slot in the glass.

“Sign in,” he said, “and I’ll need to see a driver’s license.”

“But my press pass-” Andy insisted.

“I’ll need to see a driver’s license.” The guy didn’t even look up at him again.

Andy pulled out his license, signed the visitors’ log, then slid the clipboard and his license back through the slot. It sat there for maybe fifteen seconds while the guard completed filling out some other form. Andy cleared his throat, which had no visible effect on the guard. Finally the guard reached up, took the clipboard, examined it, checked the license, then slid them off to one side of his desk. He reached into a drawer and pulled out a yellow tag that read VISITOR and slid it through the window.

“Attach this badge to your coat lapel,” the guard recited without looking at Andy again. “Keep it visible at all times.

Stand over there. Someone will come and get you.”

Andy took the badge and wished he’d stopped for a cup of coffee before parking the car. He was sleepy, fatigue like a brittle cap jammed too tightly on his head. He crossed the large lobby and only then noticed there was no place to sit.

Not exactly user friendly , he thought.

He leaned against a column and rolled his neck around on his shoulders, trying to work some of the tension out.