Greywalker - Kat Richardson [7]
I twisted, pulling my shoulder down and shoving him with my other hand. The layers of his clothes were warm and furry and gave under my hand, but he stumbled back and I spun away, putting a couple of paces between us.
I shook the smell out of my head, saying, “I think you should back off.”
He stumbled another step back, muttering, “No? Can’t y’see? No?” He whimpered, confused.
I made an aggressive feint forward, leaning in and glaring at him, my hands coming up, curling.
He darted in, trying to grab for me again, but I roared at him and swung one hand hard over his nearest ear.
He yelped and turned, skittering off into the alley and sliding away in the shredding fog that swirled and sucked behind him.
I let out a breath and hurried for the bus, shaking off a shiver.
I was a fashionable five minutes late. I hate to be fashionable.
Colleen Shadley had picked an espresso bar with pretensions of clubhood, paneled in cherrywood and dark green leather, with clots of business-suited men and women muttering together among the big armchairs and glossy mission tables.
I spotted a lone woman in the rear right corner and headed for her. She was paging through a copy of Wine Spectator at a desultory rate and ignoring a cup of coffee.
Her hair was styled in a soft, chin-length bob that curled smoothly forward at the ends, the color a gentle beige. She wore an Audrey Hepburn sort of black silk dress as if it were armor. A sleek leather attaché case leaned against her chair legs.
I stopped in front of her. “Mrs. Shadley?”
She looked up at me. Her eyes were violet.
“You’re Ms. Blaine. Please sit down. And call me Colleen.” She waved to the chair at an angle to hers, studying me. I expected to be graded on the grace of my transition from upright to seated. “You’re not what I expected, but Nan did recommend you very highly.”
Nanette Grover does not give gushing reviews. In two years of running legal backgrounds for her, the best I’d heard was “This is good.” I wondered what she had said.
Colleen continued. “Where did you get that blackened eye?”
“Complications of a now-closed case. I can recommend a less scrappy investigator if it makes you uncomfortable.” My offer was a little stiff, I admit.
She smiled. “That won’t be necessary.” Then she beckoned over my head.
I pulled my notebook and pen from my purse. “Let me recap what you told me on the phone. Your son, Cameron, is a student at U-Dub—the University of Washington. He disappeared recently, has not, apparently, been attending classes, and has not been paying his bills, though his ATM card seems to be showing regular use in the Seattle area. You’ve filed a missing persons report with the Seattle PD, but you don’t expect any satisfaction from that quarter.”
She nodded. “Very concise. We have a joint account into which I deposit funds to cover his expenses every two weeks. I didn’t know anything was wrong until I got a call from his landlord. Cameron has not paid his part of the rent for a month and, since I’m a cosigner on the lease, the landlord contacted me. When I called to speak to Cameron’s roommate, the boy told me he hadn’t seen Cameron in six weeks or more. He also said Cam had been sick the last time he did see him. I remember that Cam seemed rather pale and said he’d had the flu the last time I saw him. That would have been just under six weeks ago.”
Her recitation was interrupted by the arrival of coffee, preordered.
“According to Richard—his roommate—Cameron left most of his things behind, so it didn’t seem that he was going away for any prolonged length of time. I haven’t been by to talk to Richard myself, though I suppose I should have done that. I just kept thinking Cam had finally caught a wild hare and would turn up again anytime. Then I got the latest bank statement. No checks had been written for any bills, and all the transactions were for cash taken from ATMs in Seattle.”
“Is this his normal pattern?” I asked.
“No. He writes