In Gallup,
Greed
by
Tower Lowe
...#6 in the New Mexico mystery thriller series
Jerry
floated before her, a vision of beer lights and brown leather vest, kind of
cute in an old white guy way.
“Wanna mash
me shot fer shot?” he slurred. Mirage laughed at the rich art collector.
"Why
not?”
“Two Wild
Turkeys, straight up.”
She
woke up in the alley by her brother’s wooden two bedroom house on Cactus Drive in Gallup. The relentless New Mexico sun stabbed
her eyes and fired a sharp pain in her forehead. Through a fog of nausea she searched black memories of
the night before. Jerry appeared,
a shirtless vision in electric blue bikini briefs passed out on a bed of beer
bottles. Mirage wretched, bringing
up a pittance of bile and
regret.
She
dragged her body off the sandy soil clumped with weeds and trailed slowly up
the path to her brother's weathered brown door. A long crack ran down the wood by the lock where someone had
clearly broken in, leaving the door ajar.
Mirage frowned through the headache, her brain slowly filling with
remorse.
Stumbling
over the wreckage of beer bottles and pizza, Mirage scouted the coffee supplies
and instantly voted for Starbucks.
"Heh,
Lonnie!"
No
answer. No doubt her brother was
passed out for the day in his bedroom.
She found him there, for sure, but not the way she expected. Blood soaked the gray linens and
drained, thick and rouge-brown, in a puddle that flowed from a wound in his
abdomen. He was clearly and obviously
dead.
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