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Minka herself is not among them. My text thread with my wife is always up to date. Her messages to me, always read and replied to. Her missed calls, rare, but when they happen, they’re returned within minutes.
But everyone else—Felix, Tim, Cato, even Fletch—sits on unread until I have time to stop and think. They wait until Minka’s passed out in bed, exhausted and pain-free because of the medication I’ve encouraged her to take.
This is not that time, so I skip past each of my brothers and their search for attention from the one that left town sixteen years ago. But still, I have no way of contacting the person I want to speak to.
Another person with more than one identity. Another person who is neither operative, nor mafia. But they’re powerful. And everywhere.
“Um…” I hold my phone closer to my lips, like I want to record a voice memo. “Detective Asa? Can you call me?”
“What are you doing?” Fletch grabs my wrist and yanks my hand around to show him my screen. There’s nothing to see. No call has been made, no message is being sent. “You’re talking to your phone?”
“I’m running an experiment,” I tell him.
As CSIs wander closer, I turn my back to them and repeat, “Detective Asa. I’d appreciate it if you could call me right now.”
Fletch snorts. “Dude, what are you—”
But he startles when my phone trills. When ‘unknown number’ flashes on my screen.
His eyes widen in stunned disbelief. “What in the Mulder and Scully just happened?”
“Shh.” I lift one finger to silence him, then swiping my thumb across my screen, I hesitantly bring the device to my ear and frown. “This is Detective Malone.”
“I’m charging you by the minute, Detective. Don’t speak to your phone again and expect me to drop what I’m doing to call you.”
“You bugged my phone?” I challenge her. “Just like you bugged Tim’s.”
“Is that all you wanted to talk about? Because I hardly think this was worth a thousand dollars a minute.”
“I’m not paying for your time. You’re friendly with my wife and curious about my family. I figure that gets me a few minutes for free. While I have you, did you know it’s illegal, punishable by law and prison time, to listen in on a Copeland City detective’s private phone calls?”
“Oh yeah?”
Detective Asa, also known as Sophia Solomon, also known as Ace, is an enigma to me. A mystery. She is everywhere, controls every technology known to man, and has no fear.
Even when she was one of three women inside a den of mobsters with massive guns.
Unluckily for me, one of those other women was Minka.
Scared the piss outta me.
“Did you know I don’t care?” Sophia asks playfully. “You’re not gonna press charges. If you were mad about it, you’d have disposed of the phone already. You didn’t, and now you’re asking for my help. So what do you want?”
“You already know, if you’re really listening in on everything I say. I’m looking for a man’s history.”
“I haveaccessto everything you say and do,” she explains slowly, like I’m stupid and my existence is a drain to her. “Doesn’t mean I sit here all day, listening to your drama. You’re running a case. Dead dude, dumped in the river,blah, blah, blah. Give me the short version and tell me what you want. It’ll save us both time and energy.”
I clear my throat. “Roger Wilson, Aaron Davies, and Kyle Andrews. Three identities, one body. All three have jobs and families and histories. My captain thinks mafia, my partner and I think operative. Unfortunately, my captain also dislikes me enough to make my path harder and keep me from getting pertinent information.”
“So you want it from me?” She taps at her computer keyboard and hums in the back of her throat. “While I do this, I’d like to mention that the alibi yousworeyou didn’t need came in awfully handy recently. You think I didn’t feel the fingers of some low-rent IT employee reaching in and searching for chinks in the armor I fabricated for you?”
“Someone was hacking you?”
She scoffs. “No one touches me. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t hear them knock and ask for admission. So you owe me now, Malone. What’s happening in New York?”
“I don’t know,” I tell her plainly. “But the deal was that Felix doesn’t sell women, right? Malones can make a living the way the Malones make a living, but women are off the table.”
“Such a low bar,” she drawls. “Felix behaving himself? And before you tell me to mind my business, remember I’m the wall that stands between you, Mayet, and a lengthy prison sentence. Your honesty is appreciated.”
