The Long Island Mutual Life Insurance Company was located in a squat four-story office building on a busy street in Hempstead. There was a parking garage entrance to its left, a bank to its right, and a block of apartment buildings across the street. Behind the building, a fire lane allowed for deliveries and emergencies. Jess and Mike arrived in separate cars with less than ten minutes to spare until Caroline’s four o’clock appointment with Lily Chen, the claims adjuster who’d contacted Mike. Jess set up in the alley, covering the rear entrance and the building’s loading docks. Mike set up in front of the Regency Arms Apartments with a clear view of the building’s front entrance and the entrance to the parking garage. They agreed on the need to assess every vehicle to determine whether Caroline Stark was inside it. Her Escalade and Jason’s Mercedes had both been impounded as evidence, and they didn’t know what she’d be driving.
They synced their radios and waited.
Three thirty came and went. Five more minutes passed, then ten. Jess was getting antsy.
“Anything yet?” she said to Mike over the radio.
“A couple people in and out of the front entrance. Two cars into the parking garage, one out. None of them was Caroline. You?”
“Nothing. It’s dead back here.”
They waited some more.
At four, Jess radioed Mike again.
“You think maybe you should check in with the claims adjuster?”
“Good idea. Hold on.”
A moment later, Mike came back on the line. “Lily says she just left!”
“What? How did we miss her?”
“No idea.”
“Do you have eyes on her now?”
“Nope. And I’ve been watching. Anything out the back?”
“Nothing. Do you think she’s disguised somehow?” Jess asked.
“Huh. Hold on. I’ll see if Lily has further information.”
Jess waited. Mike came back on a minute later.
“You’re right. Lily says she looked older than she was expecting. Short gray hair and glasses.”
“Was it even Caroline?”
“I don’t know. Wait. Wait, I think I see her. That might be Caroline in a wig. Yes. It’s definitely her. Short gray wig. Nobody does that unless they’re guilty as sin.”
“Or, hiding from the Russian mob,” Jess said.
“Come on. You can’t possible still think she’s innocent. Uh, she just pulled out of the garage. Proceeding southbound in a silver Nissan Rogue with New York plates. Pursuing.”
“Got it. Moving out. I’m behind you but I don’t have visual.”
A couple of stoplights later, Jess spotted Mike’s car in the distance. But she didn’t see Caroline.
“I have eyes on you now,” Jess said. “I don’t see her.”
“She’s getting on the Southern State, eastbound,” Mike said.
“Copy that. I’m behind you.”
They followed Caroline for a good forty minutes, until she got off the Southern State Parkway and headed into Central Islip. Jess was familiar with the area from an MS-13 investigation she’d worked a couple of years earlier. But as soon as she saw the name of the street they were on, she realized there was another, more salient connection to this case.
“I know where she’s going,” Mike said, over the radio.
They were on a busy surface road in an area of warehouses, strip malls, and fast-food joints, not far from the LIRR station.
“Me, too. Lombardo’s trucking company,” Jess said. “Never been there but I recognize the address.”
“I’ve been there, as you know, since I surveilled Lynn to that location. You said Lynn visiting her husband’s company was significant. You were right. She went to the grocery store first and brought two bags of groceries with her.”
“She was feeding someone. Caroline’s been hiding out there.”
“That’s got to be it. Okay, the subject vehicle is pulling in to the Lombardo Trucking lot. I see two buildings. One is the main building, plate-glass windows. Looks like the office. Five passenger cars parked in front. The second is a hangarlike structure with four garage bays. To the right of the office building. The subject vehicle is entering that hangarlike structure, specifically, the third garage bay from the left. Door closing behind her.”
“Should we pop her now?” Jess asked.
“The place looks busy. It’s not even five yet. I say we sit on it for a while and see if it clears out, so we don’t risk any interference.”
“Got it. Pulling into the parking lot directly across the street.”
“Heading around the back.”
They sat and waited. At some point, Jess realized it was after five o’clock. Aidan Callahan had pleaded guilty by now. To Jess’s mind, that made it more, rather than less, urgent to apprehend Caroline Stark. If Aidan acted alone, let Caroline convince them of it and explain the evidence to the contrary. And if he didn’t, Aidan could testify against her, and Caroline would face the music.
More sitting, more waiting. Jess wished she had a cup of coffee, but she didn’t. She didn’t even have chewing gum.
It was nearly six thirty. The sun had set. Jess had watched five different men leave the Lombardo Trucking offices, departing in the vehicles that had been parked in front of the building with the plate-glass windows. Towering streetlamps lit the parking lot, illuminating several rows of tractor trailers and the large garage facility that Caroline’s Nissan had disappeared into an hour earlier. But the lot was empty of people.
Jess radioed Mike. “Office lights out. No individuals visible on the lot. Time to move in.”