I suggested we all meet at my apartment later tonight to share information. We set a time—nine p.m. This was turning out to be the longest workday of my life. Or at least the most eventful. I swallowed hard, remembering the convenience store parking lot again, Edward Piro’s gun jammed into my neck.
“By the way, Sunny,” Tony said. “I was able to get hold of Detective Gleason, and I let him know about that name you gave me.”
“What did he say?”
“He told me that he’d look into it,” he said. “But I think he was bullshitting me.”
“Why?”
“Well, for one thing, he started talking about his screenplay,” he said. “And for another, Melanie Joan was arrested an hour after we talked.”
I exhaled. “So it’s not just that he doesn’t trustme.”
“Nope. He’s also a dick.”
“It’s just as well,” I said, Piro’s words in my head.I’m watching. We’re watching.
“Why?” Tony asked.
“I feel like there are already too many dicks involved in this thing.”
“Am I supposed to take that personally?” Tony said.
I laughed a little. “I didn’t mean you.”
After the call ended, I found myself thinking of that car again. Of Piro showing up at Mimi’s house. And then at the convenience store. Both times, it had been between ten and twenty minutes after I’d arrived. And what had his purpose been, parking outside Mimi’s so obviously, peeling away from the curb as soon as I ran out? Holding a gun to the back of my neck and releasing the safety, just so he could remove it? And then there was that repeated use of the wordwe.
We’re everywhere…We know everything about you…We’re watching.
Piro wanted to scare me off. He wanted to stop me from investigating Leila Donnelly’s murder by making me feel hunted, surrounded.
It was a campaign. And it had started after I told Gleason about the Porsche convertible. Not that Gleason was involved.Not necessarily. He was probably just someone who couldn’t fathom being wrong about something. Not a great trait in a cop, but it didn’t make him part of a criminal conspiracy. Did it?
I shook my head. Already, Piro was accomplishing what he’d set out to do, which was to make me paranoid and confused. I wasn’t going to let him.
To my mind, the first thing that needed to be addressed was how Piro kept finding me. And as far as that went, I had a pretty good idea. I was on the turnpike now, the next service plaza three miles away, according to the sign I’d just passed. I glanced into the rearview mirror. Checked the whole area behind me for headlights that appeared to be driving a little too close. I didn’t see anyone, but that didn’t mean anything. I’d never seen him. Not until he wanted me to.
I saw the exit for the service plaza. I pulled off at the last possible minute, without using my blinker. There were a few cars in the lot, but no Porsche. I drove up to the pumps and filled up my tank. After I was done, I scanned the area one more time. Then I grabbed my phone and gun from my purse.
I clicked the phone’s flashlight on and then I crouched down and checked the undercarriage of my car, the gun clasped in my right hand in case someone came up behind me. I saw nothing unusual, and so I checked the front and rear bumpers. Nothing. I tried the wheel wells next, one by one, running my fingertips around their circumference. It was nerve-racking. I had to act thoroughly, but I had to be fast. Finally, I found it,affixed to the left rear wheel well. A small, round tracker.Knew it.
I removed it quickly and dropped it in the trash can between the pumps. Then I slipped back into my car and got back on the turnpike. “Fuck you, Edward Piro,” I said.
Forty-seven
By the time I got back to my loft, Tony and Spike were already there. Blake had let them in. They were sitting at my kitchen table with my assistant, who was toiling away on his laptop as Rosie slept at his feet.
“What’s up?” I said.
Rosie jumped up and greeted me. I don’t know that I was ever happier to see anybody.
“A lot’s up,” Blake said. “And it’s literally just happened within the past ten minutes.”
“Talk to me,” I said. I reached into my purse and pulled out the homemade dog biscuit I’d bought at the convenience store. Rosie sat back on her haunches and put her paws up—a trick I hadn’t seen her do in so long, I’d thought she’d grown out of it. I gave her the biscuit.
“Good girl,” I said as she scurried over to the dog bed with her new treat. “Good girl.”
“Blake found Edward Piro,” Tony said.
