can I say, Ray? I missed your sweet Texas charm.”
He scowled, charmingly.
She held up her hands. “Okay, okay. Jeez. So here’s the scoop—your pals at the FBI have got a ringer flying in from New York.”
“A ringer?”
“Her name’s Esmeralda Stuart. And you should’ve seen Special Agent Piper when he told his crew the news. It was like he was talking about the Second Coming. Apparently she’s some kind of savant. I don’t know.”
Lilly was lying. She did know. As soon as Tom Piper had made the announcement, she’d beelined for her Hello Kitty laptop and gleaned as much information on Esme Stuart as was available. But Ray Milton didn’t need to know that. Ray Milton needed to know what she decided he needed to know. Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day; teach a man to fish and baby, that boy won’t need you no more.
Ray studied his steering wheel for a moment. Then: “When is she arriving?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
“Thank you.” He smiled at her. His teeth were eggshell white. He must spray them or something—no smoker has teeth like that. “Maybe the FBI knows what they’re doing after all.”
“Nobody knows what they’re doing, Ray. That’s what makes it all so much fun.”
She saluted the middle-aged cop and exited the cinnamon cloud of his vehicle. She felt him watch her go. She couldn’t blame him. When she wore the right outfit, her curves could cause whiplash in the most modest of spectators. So what if she liked women? That didn’t mean she couldn’t appreciate being ogled now and again by the lesser of the species…
Sigh.
Spending Valentine’s Day outside of her hometown really blew.
Lilly meandered her way back to Motel 6. She hoped some of her friends would be online to distract her. She wrote her best journalism when she was distracted, and she didn’t want to squander this opportunity. Her articles on the task force had the potential to be front page, above the fold. The public loved to peek behind the curtain and see the wizard at play, and this time there was the sexy bonus of a serial killer. If she played to her strengths and created the rock-solid re-portage she knew she could produce, these articles would follow her portfolio until the day she died, when some other journalist would mention them at the top of her obit.
Her sixteenth (but not last) Marlboro of the day accompanied her on the short walk from the parking lot to her room. She passed a vending machine on her way, considered buying a bag of pork rinds, but continued on her way. The only thing worse than being stuck in Texas would be getting fat in Texas. It’s not that she was biased against the entire state. Austin, for example, was a wonderfully progressive city, and she had some friends who swore that the arts scene in Houston was thriving. However, most of the folk she had met, at least here in Amarillo, had been of Ray Milton’s ilk: a Bible in one hand and a shotgun in the other. Her lifestyle—hell, her very appearance (when she wore all her piercings and left her tattoos uncovered)—was diametrically opposed to everything these people held dear. She knew it. To them, she was the demon spawn. Worse yet, she was California. Not everyone here felt this way, of course, but the majority did, and in America, the majority ruled.
Whatever.
Back in her motel room, Lilly returned her Hello Kitty laptop from hibernation mode, instant-messaged with some friends for an hour, and wrote 500 words for her piece. Her editor Ben Blackman at the Chronicle wanted pages? He was going to get them.
She didn’t include anything which compromised the task force’s capability. She was a responsible journalist…and had only landed her plum source very recently. Still, as an exposé on one of this nation’s top crime-fighting units, her story had the potential to sizzle. It had colorful personalities. It had turf wars among different branches of government. It even had a hateful villain. Forget about Pulitzer—this could be her ticket to network television.
Lilly Toro nodded off around 1:00 a.m.; still in her black boots, stockings, the whole nine yards.
At 4:43 a.m., she awoke. Looked around, befuddled. Why the hell am I awake at—
BAM! BAM! BAM!
Someone was at the door.
BAM! BAM! BAM!
Someone not very happy.
Lilly padded over to the peephole.
BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!
“I’m coming.”
She peered through the peephole. Who the fuck would be banging on her door at 4:43 a.m.?
Lo and behold: it was Special Agent Tom Piper.
Even more confused, Lilly took a moment to straighten her hair, and then she pulled open the door.
“Special Agent Piper. What a semi-pleasant surprise.”
He stared at her for a full thirty seconds. Thirty seconds of nothing but his eyes on hers. He was trying to peer into her soul. She could feel it. She was terrified of what he wouldn’t find.
After thirty seconds, he reached some kind of conclusion. “Okay,” he said.
Then she noticed the blood on his palms.
What the hell?
He noticed her noticing.
“It’s Darcy Parr’s,” he said. “He shot her a few hours ago at Walmart.”
Darcy Parr was dead? Jesus Christ. Wait—Walmart? Where had she seen…?
“The license plate of the guy you met tonight? It’s registered to a Pablo Marx out of Lubbock. Pablo Marx—”
“Wait…”
“Pablo Marx was reported missing ten days ago.”
“How do you know I—”
“How do you think?”
Lilly shouldn’t have been surprised, but she was. Of course they would tail her. They knew she had an informant. Of course they would want to find out his identity.
“His name is Ray Milton,” she told him. “He’s a cop with the Amarillo Police Department.”
“Ms. Toro, all due respect, but I guarantee you the man you’ve been speaking to is neither named Ray Milton nor he has ever, ever, worked with the Amarillo P.D. We’re going to need you to come with us. Right now.”
Lilly nodded, reached for her coat. Her mind was spinning (and the lateness of the hour didn’t help).
“Am I going to look at mug shots?” she asked.
“No, Ms. Toro. You’re going to help us trap the son of a bitch.”
8
E sme had three days to solve the case.
