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
Esme had three days to solve the case.
She solved it in nine hours.
While the rest of the task force was prepping Lilly Toro for the sting operation, Esme sequestered herself in a conference room, set her iPod to random selection, and through careful analysis of the case files and aggressive prodding of the FBI computer database, was able to deduce not only Galileo’s next likely target, but also his endgame.
This is how she did it:
Tom met her at the airport. The new lines on his long face weren’t just from age. It was obvious he hadn’t slept. Nevertheless, he put in the effort to smile.
“Esmeralda,” he said. “You look good.”
“So do you,” she lied. His left arm hung useless in a mauve sling. Oh, Tom.
They hugged, two old friends, and waited beside the baggage carousel for Esme’s two Louis Vuitton suitcases to emerge. Outside the bright Texas sun foretold a day luminescent with possibilities.
“Do you have any new photos of Sophie?” asked Tom. “She has to be, what, in grad school by now, right?”
Esme smirked. “Practically. Don’t worry, I’ve got a whole bunch of pictures in my digital camera. I’ll show them to you later.”
“Great.”
“How’s your family? Is your cousin still married to what’s-her-name with the Komodo dragon?”
“They’ve added a second pet to the household.”
“A unicorn?”
“A sea otter.”
“Oh, God.”
“It lives in their swimming pool in the backyard.”
“Of course it does.”
Her baggage arrived, intact and unblemished.
As they lugged it outside, Esme wondered how it all would fit on his Harley. To her surprise, a black sedan pulled to the curb and its trunk popped open. Behind the wheel sat 242 pounds of Norm Petrosky.
“The prodigal returns,” he said. Norm was one of the task force’s expert profilers.
Tom took the passenger seat and Esme sat in back. It felt odd to Esme, being chauffeured like that, but times had changed…
“How was your flight?” asked Norm.
“It didn’t crash.”
“Oh, well. Maybe next time.”
They accelerated onto the highway. Esme had never been to Amarillo. It looked modest, wholesome, which made what had happened here all the more insidious. Tom filled Esme in on Darcy Parr’s murder.
“You would have liked her,” he said. “She reminded me of you at her age.”
Then I probably wouldn’t have liked her, decided Esme.
By the time they pulled up to city hall, the perfect blue sky had faded to a tin hue. Esme followed the men into the building. By way of explanation, Tom told her that Mayor Lumley had insisted the task force operate