The Book of Lies

38

There was a high-pitched bloop as the red triangle blinked and disappeared.

“Craparoo,” Naomi whispered to herself as she looked down at the GPS screen.

“You need to grab that?” Chief Benny Ocala asked through the phone as Naomi’s car zipped toward the rental car building.

Naomi stared outside, where a dozen passengers—most of them tourists—buzzed like bees from the rental car bus and flooded the front doors of the modern white building, making it far too hard to see. Based on Ellis’s last signal, he was close, but . . . No, there’s no way he knew Naomi was following. And to track her that fast? No way. But that didn’t stop her from staring at each and every passenger.

“Agent Molina?” Ocala asked.

“Sorry . . . I was—” She tucked the GPS back in her jacket and followed the signs for Departures. If she was lucky, Scotty would be calling in soon with the right terminal. “So you were telling me about Cal.”

“No, you were asking me questions about Cal. I was simply being courteous and trying hard not to embarrass you. Agent Molina—”

“Naomi.”

“Naomi, even when you dial our phone number, it’s like you’re entering sovereign land, as in sovereign nation, as in the most utilitarian use for your badge right now is as a Halloween costume, though to be honest, we Native Americans don’t much like Halloween.”

“See, I hate Halloween, too—my son dressed up as a Thug Life rapper this year, whatever that is. But I got a potential homicide I need to ask your pal Cal about.”

“Homicide’s a state crime. You’re a federal employee. Wanna try again?”

“The victim is a guy I partner with—Timothy Balfanz—he’s a friend,” Naomi explained, hitting the brakes at the crosswalk and carefully watching the small group of passengers that were now passing in front of her, on their way to Terminal 2. “So no offense, Chief, but if someone went up to one of your people—say, that sweet girl with the lisp that I left my message with—if someone nabbed her on a dark road and chopped her into hors d’oeuvres . . . I’d like to think, if it was someone you cared about and you needed my help, I’d do more than tell you off and bad-mouth Halloween.”

Ocala was silent as Naomi noticed a sudden blur in her rearview, where a tall man in a windbreaker stepped out of the crosswalk and cut behind her car.

“I just wanna know what Cal called about,” Naomi pleaded, glancing over her shoulder and out the back window. The man was already gone. And being out here, exposed to every passing airport stranger, she knew she wasn’t being safe.

“Y’know what the Seminole word for guilt is?” Ocala finally asked. “You.” She heard a sudden thunk through the phone. Like a file cabinet being opened and shut. “I got the bullet here that they pulled from his dad last night.”

“His dad?”

“Cal asked me to run it through the ATF folks, who traced it back to Cleveland and some obscure gun that was used to kill a man named Mitchell Siegel—”

“Mitchell Siegel,” Naomi said, jotting down the name as she heard a beep through her earpiece. Caller ID told her it was Scotty. “I’ll run him ASAP.”

“Think what you want, Naomi,” Ocala added, “but I’m telling you right now, Cal Harper isn’t the demon in this.”

“A dirty badge is a dirty badge—you know that. Besides, if he’s such an angel, why doesn’t he at least come in and talk with us?”

“Maybe he’s worried that instead of listening to reason, you’ll just spout silly catchphrases like ‘A dirty badge is a dirty badge.’ ”

“I appreciate your help,” Naomi said to Ocala as she clicked to the other line.

“Nomi, I think I found Cal,” Scotty blurted. “I need to double-check, but on that airport list of who paid in cash, there were a few tickets bought this morning—at least three headed to Cleveland.”

Naomi was about to re-enter the loop for departures when a high-pitched bloop whistled from her GPS device. Ellis’s tracer—the bright crimson triangle—was back in place and once again moving.

It took a moment to read the streets and orient herself, but as the crimson triangle turned onto NE 23rd Court . . .

Naomi’s eyes went wide. No. That can’t—

Oh, God.

“Nomi, you okay?”

“He’s there, Scotty.”

“Where? What’re you talking about?”

“Twenty-third Court. Ellis . . . he’s . . . I think Ellis is at my house.”