Free The Filthy Few: A Steve Nastos Mystery by Richard Cain

two drinks were starting to work their magic she clearly recalled making it today. Falconer had been in there. A sick feeling hit her like cresting the first hill of a roller coaster. She forced herself to check the wastebasket by the bed and found balled-up Kleenexes.
    When she worked the Sexual Assault Unit with Nastos she had to escort the Child Protection Workers while they checked in on single moms with drug habits or vulnerable lifestyles. She had learned to find the most subtle signs of women working in the sex trade. Dozens of balled-up Kleenexes was a sign. Living with a former and suspected prostitute and seeing evidence like this was enough that she could no longer deny the obvious. Falconer had been working in the apartment all day, and planned on working all night on the streets.
Hell, if I had one of those
CSI
blue lights they’d see the apartment from the fucking Space Station.
    Karen gingerly grabbed the sheets and blankets from the bed by the corner and dragged them to the floor. She was going to stop at the laundry room but with the objectivity that alcohol provides she decided
what the hell
. She heaved the bedding and pillows down the hallway. She propped open the door and flipped the top swivel lock so the door couldn’t lock behind her, then snaked the bedding down the hall and left them in a heap near the garbage chute.
    She came back inside, washed her hands in the kitchen sink then took the last two lemonade coolers out of the fridge. They weren’t going to be enough but there were a few bottles of wine in the cabinet in the dining room. Her cellphone hadn’t charged enough to reconnect to the network but she did see that four messages waited for her, all from her boss, Megan Swan. Two were voicemail, the last were text messages.
Karen, you need to produce
SOMETHING
, you’re two weeks
OVER
deadline. Call me when you get this.
    Megan had begged her to at least produce some fluff work. Ten reasons women can live without men, things to pack into carry-on luggage,
anything
, but it wasn’t in her nature. When she thought she’d have the Rob Walker story, being a few days late would not have been a big deal. Then the Ann Falconer story came to her and it was worth the next few days of being late. Now she was two weeks behind and she hadn’t produced anything and it was slowly exploding in her face.
    She resigned herself to the fact that she would be fired within days and decided she’d rather ignore the messages than call Swan and say something self-destructive.
    She dialed the local pizza place by memory and ordered a large Hawaiian with extra pineapple then retreated to her previous position the balcony. She listened to the sound of the city. The pervasive din of traffic, thunder from a passing jet. She observed the serenity of a clear blue sky being sliced in two by the aircraft’s vapour trail. With Falconer ripping her life apart, she thought she could relate.
    Ann, you bitch.
She sipped at the third cooler hoping it would last until the pizza arrived and pondered Ann’s strategy.
Trying to make so much money so fast means you’re planning on running. You’ll go to the streets, won’t make it alone and will eventually trust the wrong person. You’ll get found and be dead within a week. You’ll bring them back to me and I’ll be dead too.
She forced herself to pause after the third bottle. She had plenty more booze but it was wine and didn’t taste as good with pizza as the hard lemonade.
    She regretted meeting Ann, regretted the death of her man Rob Walker — even though she had nothing to do with it — and regretted about a million other things in her life. She sighed and thought of Nastos.
If I got him would it be worth this? Yeah, probably.
With him in her mind she stood and checked her phone again. This time it was able to connect to the network. She brought it and the charger outside and plugged it in again.
    It was