The man looked up at her. He was short, maybe five-six and a hundred and thirty skeletal pounds. Physically he would have no chance against her, even without the gun. But she hadn’t come here to pick a fight. She needed information.
The man’s name was Michael Gioffre. He worked in a GameStop store at the mall, principally because he was an expert gamer and loved the thrill of the competition. He was in his early forties and had never really grown up. He wore a T-shirt stenciled with the title “Day of Doom.”
He also had been a spy. He could talk out of both sides of his mouth glibly and could sell sand to a man dying of thirst. Now retired, he looked out only for himself.
And for Jessica Reel.
Because she had saved his life, not once but twice.
He was her gold card, one of the few she possessed.
Gioffre eyed the gun. “Serious shit?”
She nodded. “Is there any other?”
“Wouldn’t have recognized you without the chin flick signal. Nice plastic surgery, by the way. Very becoming.”
“When someone’s cutting you, only go with the best.”
“I’ve heard the official story. Gelder and another guy dead.”
“That’s right.”
“Your doing?” His expression showed he did not expect an answer. “What can I do for you, Jess?”
Reel put her gun away and leaned against the sink. “I need information.”
“Big risk you coming here.”
“Not as big as three years ago. You’ve been off the grid for a while, Mike. I know where your cover team sets up. They’re not there. In fact, they haven’t been there for six months.”
Gioffre folded his arms and leaned back against the door. “I have been feeling a little naked out there. But I guess they figured I was really retired after all and am officially into my retail gaming career. So no more cover. What information?”
“You knew Gelder?”
He nodded. “Lots of us did. He’d been there a long time.”
“What about the other dead guy, Doug Jacobs? Cover was at DTRA?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“They knew each other. And not just in agency circles.”
“How do you know that?” asked Gioffre.
“Not relevant. But it’s true.”
“What’s that got to do with me?”
“Nothing, but I need you to do something for me,” said Reel.
“What?”
“Like I said, information. Not anything you know. Something you have to find out for me. And I need it right away.”
“I don’t have many contacts left inside.”
“I didn’t say it was on the inside. At least not anymore.”
CHAPTER
28
ROBIE SAT BACK AND RUBBED his eyes. Janet DiCarlo hadn’t yet sent him new files electronically, so he had gone over the redacted ones several times looking for things that might have escaped his notice before.
But there was nothing.
Reel’s last several missions had all been outside the country. Robie could travel to each of them, but he wasn’t convinced it would benefit his investigation.
He would have to go back the two years in her life that he had set as the outside time parameter. The only problem was, that would take time too.
How many more people would she kill in the interim?
If she kept the body count going, Robie could imagine himself being dismissed from the task of finding her. And maybe that would be perfectly fine with him.
He had called the number DiCarlo left him, but it had gone to voice mail. He wondered about the rose petals and what they might mean. He doubted Reel had left them as symbols of her pious lifestyle. Had she left them as symbols of bloody deaths with funerals certain to follow? That also didn’t make sense to him, which meant he was looking at the issue in the wrong way.
So what was the right way? he asked himself as he poured out a cup of fresh coffee. He checked his watch.
Two a.m. He poured the coffee into the sink.
It was time to go to sleep. Without some shuteye he was going to be of little use to himself or anyone else.
Five hours later he awoke reasonably refreshed. He spent several hours going back over the files he had been given. Even with the redactions he felt there might be something in them that could help.
Again he didn’t find much. He made some calls that were similarly unproductive. He worked out for a quick thirty minutes in the gym in the basement of his apartment building and then snatched a meal, eating it standing up in