Free Shot Girl by Karen E. Olson

gear," he said.
    He was wearing a Patriots T-shirt, baggy shorts, and Crocs. Something bulky was in the bag, could have been hiking boots that he’d change into, but I wouldn’t count on it. It was too damn hot to hike, and anyway, even though the state tried to lure hikers with the promise of trails and the magnificent vista at the top, West Rock was more for illicit rendezvous and drug deals.
    Oh, yeah, Jack Hammer had a history of the former. Maybe "a hike" was code. I shrugged. "Okay, sure," I said, like I believed him.
    He started to walk past me, toward the Visitor Center, but I stopped him by grabbing his arm. It was tight, muscled, and not unpleasant feeling. I pulled my hand back before he got the wrong idea.
    The grin told me his head was full of wrong ideas.
    I ignored it. "Can you tell me where Felicia Kowalski is?"
    His eyebrows rose slightly. "Still looking for her? Thought you’d find her at the newspaper."
    Asshole. He knew all along she was an intern at the Herald . "She didn’t show up for a meeting this morning," I said curtly.
    Something crossed his face, an odd mix of concern and amusement. "She’ll turn up."
    "Where?" I asked. "Do you know where she’ll be working tonight?"
    Jack shrugged. "Might want to check Bar. Maybe Alchemy. She could be anywhere; she could hit both in one night." He stared at me a long second, then said, "I have to get going. I’ll see you around."
    "Do you have a number I can reach you at?" I asked, determined not to let him get away that easy again.
    But the lazy smile was back, the twinkle in his eye. "I know how to reach you ."
    What the fuck did that mean? I let him walk away from me and watched him shift the black bag from one hand to the other. There was something heavier in there than hiking boots. I could see jagged ridges jutting out on the sides of the fabric. Maybe it was some sort of rappelling shit—not that I knew anything about climbing, but I’ve seen the Discovery Channel.
    When he reached the corner of the Visitor Center, he looked back and waved with his free hand. I climbed reluctantly into my Civic and started it up, all under his watchful eye. He was hesitant about having me see which direction he was headed, because he didn’t move, just stared at me.
    As I pulled into the road that led out of the nature center, I saw in my rearview mirror that he’d started to turn the corner, and the Reverend Shaw came up and shook his hand.
    I wasn’t supposed to see that. Jack Hammer had looked around behind him at me, but I was peeling out of the lot, like I had a fucking ambulance to chase. If I was lucky, he’d think I’d missed Shaw’s greeting. I couldn’t figure out the connection between the male stripper and the preacher, but I doubted Jack Hammer was there to help garden.
    It would be too obvious if I decided to turn around and ask a few more questions of the good reverend and his student gardeners. There was no way to get back into the nature center except the way I’d left, either, and I didn’t want to leave my new car on the side of the road and hoof it back. This wasn’t the best place to do that. I could taste my curiosity, though, and it was driving me crazy.
    I slid the Rolling Stones’ Forty Licks in the CD player and found "Mixed Emotions." It matched my mood as I drove down Wintergreen Avenue toward Southern Connecticut State University. Might as well follow through with my plan to find out if anyone there knew where Felicia might be on a Friday afternoon. Granted, it was the first week of June—school had been over for a few weeks and I wasn’t sure if summer school had started yet—so there might not be too many people around. But it was worth a shot.
    I wasn’t quite sure why I was trying to track down Felicia Kowalski. I could probably just wait her out at the paper—she’d show up eventually. But Tom had said the cops were looking for her, and given Jack Hammer’s comments, I knew she held some sort of key to