Five Card Stud by Elizabeth Gunn

Author:Elizabeth Gunn [Gunn, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery
ISBN: 9780373263899
Google: vy2VvyWwAZUC
Goodreads: 11939157
Publisher: Walker & Co
Published: 1987-04-01T05:00:00+00:00

SEVEN

Padding silently into the bathroom Wednesday morning, I turned on a light and looked at my watch. Damn, only four-ten. I was wide awake and seriously hungry.

We had gone to bed in late afternoon, after one giggly glass of wine and a deliriously sensuous shower. Slippery with soap and horny as a two-peckered billygoat, I had done a lot of boasting, under the hot spray, about my intention to ravish my lusty bathmate all night. But one glorious climax left us relaxed and murmuring endearments, in the course of which we fell asleep. Exhaustion overcoming sexual ambitions, we slept all night.

Now, hours before dawn, I was hungry enough to eat lug nuts. I turned out the light and got back into bed, where I lay twitching, listening to my stomach growl.

"Jake?" Trudy said softly in the darkness.

"Hey, babe," I whispered. "I’m sorry I woke you."

"You didn’t."

"It’s way early," I said. "Go back to sleep."

"I can’t," she said, sitting up. "I’m starving."

"You are?" I turned on the light and beamed at her. "Fantastic! Let’s go eat!"

She’d brought the duffel of clean clothes that she keeps in town when she works on the van. "I’ll stop at home on the way to work," I said, getting back into yesterday’s duds.

"It's a shame to leave the balloons," she said, "But I guess...here, you take the wine." She followed me to the twenty-four-hour diner I had spotted the day before. We ordered three-egg omelets, plenty of sausage, and mounds of hash browns. The first cup of coffee tasted so good it made my eyes water. I fetched the Pioneer-Press from a rack in front, and we passed the sections back and forth, commenting on headlines, sneering at politicians, and arguing with the editorial page, till our food came. After that we were silent for some time.

"I was thinking," Trudy said, leaning back and stretching over her third cup of coffee.

"Since it’s so early, would you like to come over to the lab with me before you head home? I could scan the prints from your victim into my database."

"We already identified my victim."

"I know. But I could show you how our new software works. It's so cool. And who knows? We might get lucky, get a hit, find out your victim has a notorious past."

"A spy in deep cover as a teamster. I like it. You're sure you've got time?"

"Yeah, the rest of my crew won’t be in till seven. Lots of time."

We strode through the almost empty, echoing halls, took the elevator to the third floor, and pulled up stools to a cluttered workstation in a corner. "Let’s see," Trudy said, pushing stacks of slides around, "Ted said he...oh, here." She peered at the labeling on a couple of plastic boxes, said, "Yeah, okay," and inserted a slide in the digital scanner by her elbow. She touched the keypad on the bench, and the screen in front of her flashed PRINTRAK and then displayed a fourteen-inch image of a latent print.

"Is PRINTRAK the database?"

"No, just the software.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.