Read Online Stalker's Luck (Solitude Saga Book 1) by Chris Strange - Free Book Online

they won’t react kindly.”
    “Arrested?”
    “Didn’t get the chance. She wasn’t the only one with a forged pass on board. The pilot tried to run the Fed blockade. The Feds locked weapons and blew them out of the sky. And that was that.”
    Eddie nodded. “I’m sorry about your friend.”
    “I never said she was my friend.”
    “I’m looking for someone who used to work here. A dancer.”
    “I might recognise her. Do you have a picture?”
    Eddie shook his head. “Her name was Cassandra. But I thinks she went by ‘Daisy’.”
    He thought about it. “Sorry, honey. A lot of dancers come and go from these sorts of places. She might not even be on the station anymore.”
    “Maybe not. But I have to try to find her.”
    The prostitute dropped his cigarette and crushed it under his stiletto heel. “Why? Does she owe you something?”
    “No. She owes me nothing and I owe her nothing. But if I can find her, I will. I couldn’t tell you why, Jack. That’s just the way it is.”
    The man was quiet for a moment. Eddie studied the building’s burnt facade. Music drifted out of the handful of strip clubs up and down the street. There’d be records on Lady Luck somewhere: ownership, tax, booze licences, all that. There’d be names and addresses. But he had no way to access any of that. He was nothing but a stalker, a concerned citizen with a gun and some flimsy legal justifications for hunting fugitives. Neither the Feds nor the local administrators would give a shit about his ex-girlfriend.
    Finally, the cross-dresser spoke. “Most of the people who worked here are long gone. But I know one woman. A girl who ran the bar.”
    “You know where she is?”
    “Sure. But I don’t want to bring her any trouble.”
    “There won’t be any trouble. I just need to talk to her. I just want to know what she knows about my friend.”
    He nodded. “I’m going to die on this station. A couple of weeks, they say. I’m scared.”
    “You could try to run.”
    “There’s no running. The Feds have this place locked down. No, I’m going to die here. My last few weeks alive and I can’t even enjoy it because I’m so scared.” He looked sideways at Eddie. “Can you help me? If I help you, will you help me?”
    Eddie stared straight ahead. He held no judgement. Everyone died differently. He’d learned that. Some cried, some blanked it out, some fought, some tried to run. Some watched the others dying, recording it, trying to understand it.
    He dug the blister pack of downers out of his pocket and handed it to the prostitute. Five more Bluens remained. Enough for a couple of days, if the man was careful. Enough to blank out the panic as doom ticked closer.
    The cross-dresser popped a pill out of the foil and slipped it into his mouth. The tension drained slowly from his shoulders.
    “Thank you, honey,” he said.
    “The name and address.”
    “Victoria Palmer. Green Acres apartment building, five blocks that way. Apartment nine-oh-three.”
    Eddie committed the information to memory. “Tell me. What kind of place was Lady Luck? Did they treat the girls right?”
    “Do you want the lie or the truth?”
    “The truth.”
    “It was the worst kind of place. The kind of place even the most perverted bottom feeders would be ashamed to be seen going into. The kind of place you only worked when you had nowhere else to go.”
    Eddie nodded.
    “Do you wish you’d asked for the lie?” the cross-dresser said.
    “What would’ve been the point?” Eddie turned away in the direction of Green Acres and raised two fingers in a wave. “Thanks for your help.”
    “I hope you find who you’re looking for, honey.”
    Eddie thrust his hands into his pockets and kept his head down as he walked away.

7
    Roy Williams picked up the wrench once more and slammed it down on Scott Hudson’s knee. The bound man screamed into the socks stuffed in his mouth, sweat pouring down his cheeks. The chair rattled beneath him as his body shook in