Breaking Steele (Sarah Steele Legal Thriller)

Chapter 24

HEATHER DADE LIVED IN the not-so-expensive part of Eagle. The whole town had been remade down to the cobblestone streets, but the old Eagle still had trailers and older homes from when all the stoners lived there twenty years ago before the housing boom.

I parked behind a beat-up Nova and walked to the door of the single-wide trailer. I could smell something funky coming from inside, and when a skinny girl with dark rings around her eyes opened the door, the smell hit me in the face, almost taking my breath away.

“What do you want?” Her voice was gruff and it sounded like she just woke up. She eyed me suspiciously, but her gaze softened when she saw Joshua. He was like a big teddy bear.

“Heather?” I asked in my kindest voice. Joshua smiled tentatively.

“Who wants to know? Are you reporters?”

“No, I’m with the DA’s office. I need to ask you a few questions.”

“Not interested.” She started to shut the door, but I held up my hand and took a gamble that most of her information on law enforcement came from CSI: Miami.

“We can come back with a court order if you like, but then you’d have to talk to me down at the courthouse.”

Two court-order threats in one day. I was getting my money’s worth out of that one.

Heather looked at me through faded blue eyes. She was in her mid-twenties, but looked forty. I was guessing meth.

“Fine. What do you want?” she asked, opening the door a smidge.

“Can we come in?”

She opened the door all the way and we walked into her trailer. I couldn’t believe the mess—beer cans, cigarette butts, rotting food, animal feces, and trash littered every surface. My stomach churned. How could someone live like this? She lit a joint and I was about to protest until I realized the scent covered up the other smells in her house, so I decided not to say anything.

“This is my associate, Joshua.” I motioned toward Joshua, who stood with a fake smile on his face. His eyes watered and I had the feeling he was suffering from the smell a lot more than I was.

“Sorry about the mess. I don’t get many visitors.” Heather cleared a spot on the flowered couch and I sat down. She slouched on the arm of the couch and peered over at me. She looked like a crow perched on the edge of a headstone.

“Heather, first I want to ask you why you changed your name.”

“I never changed my name,” she mumbled and took another draw from her joint.

I cleared my throat. “It was filed on July 7th.”

She tilted her head. “Don’t even remember.”

So this was the way it was going to go. She wasn’t going to sing so easily for me. Well, I could pull a song from just about anyone if you gave me enough time, bribed or not.

“Are you related to Hank Williams?” Joshua asked. I stiffened. If he ruined this for me, so help me . . .  

The question clearly agitated her. She flushed, and her hands trembled so hard the ash crumbled from her smoke.

She wasn’t going to answer. Joshua looked at me and shifted uncomfortably. Taking out his handkerchief, he wiped the sweat from his brow.

I started with something easier. “Do you know a Glen Williams?”

Heather shot me a glare, and then she nodded as if the memory pained her.

“I understand why you don’t want to talk. I know how that works.” I thoughtlessly put my hand on the couch cushion, right into something white and gooey. I yanked my hand away, trying not to make a big deal of it, and wiped the goo on my pants. Hopefully it was just rotten yogurt and not something worse. “It doesn’t have to be about the name change, Heather.” I leaned back. “Just tell us a story.”

Joshua looked at me, confused. Heather finished her smoke and put it out in an ashtray shaped like a skeleton hand. She eyed me sideways. “A story?”

“Yep. A story. Any story.”

Heather suddenly looked like she was a million miles away. She stared at nothing, her eyes flashing with memories. I waited, trying not to tap my toe or shift or do anything that would distract her from her thoughts. Joshua looked around for a place to sit. He dragged out a kitchen chair, dusted off the seat with his handkerchief, and sat down heavily.

It pulled Heather from her reverie.

She took a deep breath and sighed. “I haven’t thought about him in a long time. This trial and the news just brought back a lot of bad memories.”

She seemed so breakable and her face was sunken in, as if she was dead but her body hadn’t received the memo.

“We want to hear a story, Heather,” I said.

“Okay, but all I know is a horror story. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”