Free Last Impressions (The Marnie Baranuik Files) by A.J. Aalto Page B

victim.
    I said, “There are five pictures of Britney Wyatt in the car with us.”
    He retrieved his folio again, flipped open the notes, took a paper clip off the inner pocket, and fanned two photographs for me. One was a picture of three young people, two male, one female. The girl in the middle had a brilliant smile and a heart-shaped face, long dark hair with a thick shock of turquoise painted across the brow, and a silver nose ring. The other picture was a college graduation picture, between her parents. Same dark hair, lacking mermaid colors.
    “Two,” he said.
    I flipped the sun shield down above his head and a picture was tucked there, stuck with a piece of medical tape. Britney Wyatt, solo, posed with one fist under her chin, a professional picture with fair lighting, taken by a chain department store photographer.
    “Three,” he conceded. “Lucky guess.”
    “There’s an official print-out with her picture in your briefcase. Four.”
    He nodded, unimpressed. “Paperwork. You’ve worked with cops before.”
    I smiled and took off a glove. I reached for his jacket. He let me. The inside pocket above his heart yielded to my questing fingers the rough corner of photo paper. I flicked it around to look at it; a snapshot of Britney, not looking at the camera, holding something that looked like a digital voice recorder. The photo was dark and grainy, but she was stunning, a flash of ghostly beauty lit only by the moon, pale and delicate, the set of her brow serious. Another shock of color at her brow, but the night and the poor picture quality washed it out, and I couldn’t quite tell if it was blue or purple. I showed Schenk the picture and said, “Five.”
    His slate eyes considered me for a long moment before he took the picture back and tucked it away in his jacket. We listened to the car idle, warm air blowing softly from the vents.
    “This might get cold and ugly.”
    “Like the last guy I dated,” I said, cramming my froggy hat back on. “Awesome.”
    “You let me know when you start regretting this.” He stretched an arm behind me to put his folio in the back seat.
    “Eleven o'clock last night,” I said, putting my glove back on. “But that won't do Britney Wyatt much good. I'm here, and I'm tenacious, and I’m tough like a cinder block.”
    “Of course you are.” Schenk nodded like he believed me, but his lips did a little yeah-right pucker. “All right, you’re on a one-day trial. Buckle up, Miss Cinderblock.”
     

C HAPTER 6
    ON THE OTHER side of the canal, a few locks up, was a dirt lot speckled with cars and trucks and factory workers smoking on their breaks. Schenk pulled into what could have been a giant pot hole in the far corner of the lot. Under a slick layer of black ice dusted with snow, broken asphalt heaved and buckled. I held onto the car getting out, scuffing my Doc Martens to get a good idea what I was walking on.
    Schenk unfolded impossibly long legs and got out of the Sonata, giving me the first real sense of his size: I pegged him at about six-eight, and nearly three hundred hard-hitting pounds. At five-zilch, I should have been intimidated; I wasn’t. In fact, standing in the wind break at his right side, I felt sheltered.
    When we walked into the Oh Yeah! Café, Schenk had to duck. What was going to be so exciting about diner eats? Maybe they put something fun in the eggs . After removing my frog hat, I ran my gloved hand over my hair to smooth the fly-aways. That was the theory. In practice, not so much.
    The interior of the café was older than I was; the tables and chairs were pine, the floor, ceiling, and walls were covered with wide, knotty paneling. When we seated ourselves, both chairs creaked loudly enough to announce their retirement.
    Schenk set his leather folio on the table and his pencil reappeared as if he'd conjured it from thin air. He lifted his face to the air and I thought he looked hungry; if he had a well-honed cop face like Hood or Batten, he