CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Benny had silenced his phone hours ago and stopped looking at texts. He knew his buddy Matthew Parker was in agony waiting on a jury with an innocent client. He didn’t blame him for blowing up his phone. But there was nothing Benny and the team could do about it, except work the case, which is what they were doing almost around the clock. So he’d muted the text conversation with Parker.

Suddenly, he was shouting from his desk chair again. “Okay, here’s a weird one on Gina.” Before he could go on, Nora leaned in the office door so he lowered his volume and continued: “I’ve been talking to my sources—both crooks and cops—tryin’ to come up with a list of unsolved mob hits anywhere in the country over the last ten years, right? So I’ve got about a dozen, mostly in the Northeast, but a few near Vegas, Chicago, Atlanta, stuff like that. I took what you got me on Gina’s historical cell location. And that’s where it gets weird. On the date of every one of those hits, her cell is at her Palm Beach Gardens condo. And not just the day of. On the days around those hits, it’s still at her condo. Doesn’t go to the grocery store or nothin’. What are the chances that her phone, which is always boppin’ around in Florida, goes no place whenever somebody gets whacked by a mystery killer?”

“And so, Mr. Holmes?” Nora asked.

Benny gave her a confused look.

“Sherlock,” she added, shaking her head. “I was going for Sherlock Holmes. But the moment is ruined now, so please just tell us what you make of this.”

With a quick smile, he continued. “She’s traveling with a burner phone whenever she goes out on a job. Thinks she’s bein’ smart leavin’ her phone at home, but she’s now done so many jobs, it ain’t smart any longer. It’s a pattern of its own.”

“Wait,” Nora said, “what about on D’Amico and Tony Burke?”

“Phone was home in bed in Palm Beach Gardens for both of those. They’re two of my dirty dozen.”

“Whoa,” Nora answered.

“So what next?” Jessica asked.

“We see if we can show she traveled around those dates and to those places,” Benny said, “to see if Sherlock’s hunch is right. Unlikely she drove to those places, so we gotta put her on a plane somewhere, or at least in an airport. Gotta assume she’s got an alternate ID for travel. Once we get that, we can find her other flights.”

Jessica spoke up. “No way she drives her own car to the airport. I’ll check for cabs or Ubers from near her place to an airport on the days bracketing the killings. If we can put her in an airport at an approximate time, then we can narrow the flights, maybe get an ID that way or from airport cameras.”

“Yup,” Benny said, “and my guess is she flies outta Miami. Bigger than West Palm or Lauderdale, and she’s less likely to see somebody who knows her as Gina.”

“FBI has got this,” Jessica said, picking up her desk phone.

Nora moved her chair closer to Benny’s desk to avoid interrupting Jessica’s call. “And I can give you Jessica’s update on Conor’s movements,” she said. “He’s less careful, takes his phone everywhere, so we see him on every trip to Miami picking up a rental car and driving straight from the airport to Gina’s condo. He keeps the visits short, usually just a night or two—never more than three. We checked every visit and his phone never leaves the place until he drives back to make his flight. You must be right about the meshing.”

“They go no place together, because they don’t want nobody to know about them.”

“They sure don’t,” Nora said. “But now we do.”

“I’ll get all his Florida dates from Jessica so I can see if he’s ever there when she’s traveling to kill people.”