“I’ll be the one not in a Hawaiian shirt,” Vikki said. “See you then.”
Mayaheld out a handful of tiny red cherry tomatoes. “Look, Letty!” She crammed one in her mouth, the juice oozing down her chin. “I picked them!”
“They’re yummy, right?” her aunt asked.
Their new routine was to sit in the courtyard garden after dinner, watching squadrons of pelicans soar past on the darkening horizon. A wind-down time.
“Where they goin’?” Maya had asked, pointing to the birds in flight.
“I guess they’re going home,” Letty said.
“Where’s home?”
“Good question,” her aunt said. She’d been pondering that for weeks now. Living day to day as she had could not continue, but what was the alternative?
Maya picked up her worksheet. She loved playing school. Writing names was her new passion.
“Spell Letty,” she commanded.
“L-E-T-T-Y,” her aunt said, and Maya laboriously used a red crayon to form her idea of what the letters should be.
“How you spell Ellie?” Maya asked, holding up her stuffed toy.
Letty looked over and smiled. She’d done a sloppy job of stitching the elephant’s wound back together, but Maya didn’t seem to care.
“E-L-L-I-E.” As soon as she’d spelled the word, the light bulb switched on.
“Ellie!” Letty said, sitting upright. Why hadn’t she thought of that before? It was so simple. So obvious.
Ellie. It had to be the password for Tanya’s nanny cam. She reached for her phone and texted Isabelle’s teenage hacker friend, Sierra.
I think I figured out the password!!! Plz call me ASAP.
28
THE KA-TIKI WAS AN OPEN-SIDED,palm-thatched throwback.Kinda like the Murmuring Surf,Vikki Hill thought. She walked into the bar and spotted the cop instantly. He was sitting at a high-top table, sipping a draft beer.
“Joe?” she asked, walking up.
He nodded. “That’s me. You’re Vikki Hill?”
“Agent Hill,” she said, sitting down.
“No offense,” he said, “but could I see some ID? This is kind of a sensitive matter we’re here to discuss, and I’m not comfortable telling a stranger who walks in off the beach anything about Letty Carnahan.”
She pulled a leather badge holder from her purse and handed it across to him. “Satisfied?”
He shrugged.
The server, dressed in skintight shorts and a violently patterned tropical shirt showing off plenty of cleavage, appeared, and Vikki Hill ordered a Michelob Ultra. Joe grimaced and held up his plastic cup. “Try one of the local beers. They’re pretty good.”
“No thanks,” she said. “I know what I like. Now, let’s get down to it, shall we? First off, I don’t want to have to point out that you’re knowingly harboring a fugitive at that motel of yours. I’m meeting with you as a courtesy, but if I want, I can arrest Scarlett Carnahan tonight and turn the kid over to child welfare authorities.”
“What the fuck?” Joe leaned forward, his jaw muscles tensed. “Ionly agreed to talk to you because you said that was not your intention.”
“It’s still not my intention,” Vikki said.
“Then… what?”
