WHEN Finn arrived to pick her up, Mona noticed that he was still in his utility uniform, the words CBP FEDERAL AGENT stenciled in large letters across his back. They drove to the AmeriCo office in Anaheim and pulled in next to the loading dock, where five or six workers were loading a truck.
Mona considered them for a moment. She turned to Finn.
“Some of those guys, if they see you dressed like that, might get a fright they don’t deserve,” she said.
Finn leaned on the steering wheel and watched the workers. “You need me, just wave.”
Mona got out of the truck and climbed the short flight of stairs to the loading dock. She waved at a young guy pushing a pallet jack—the same guy she’d spoken with last time she’d visited. He took out his earbuds.
In Spanish, Mona said, “Remember me? I’m looking for someone who I think might work here.”
“Who?” said the young guy.
Mona took out her phone, brought up a picture of Soto, and showed it to the guy. The guy nodded.
“I’ve seen him. One time only,” he said.
“When?”
He scratched the side of his head.
“Not long after Easter, maybe the end of April? He came with us in the truck.”
“Where to?”
“Out to the desert, to the prison out there.”
“You mean Paradise?”
“Yeah. We usually go in pairs. But that time we were three, with that guy in the middle.”
“Who told you to take him?”
“The boss. He died.”
“Had you ever seen this guy before?”
“No.”
“Have you seen him again since?”
“No. Like I said, just the one time.”
“What did you talk about in the truck?”
“We didn’t talk.”
“It’s a four-hour drive. You didn’t talk?”
“We didn’t talk.”
“What did he do when you got there?”
“He helped us unload. He acted like one of us. He was wearing overalls like us.”
“Then what happened?”
“He told us to wait in the truck, he had something to take care of.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
“Where did he go?”
“Into the prison.”
“How long was he gone for?”
The guy shrugged. “Maybe one hour? I slept in the cabin.”
“What happened when he came back?”
“We drove back here.”
“Then what?”
“Then I went home. I don’t know where he went.”
“Anything else stand out about him? Anything you remember?”
The guy thought for a moment. “He carried a stick.”
“Like a walking stick?”
“No. With a hook on the end, like they have on boats.”
“Do you remember what he used it for?”
The guy shook his head.
“I don’t know. It was creepy looking, though,” he said.
Mona got back into Finn’s truck. They drove out of the business park. She dialed Marius Littlemore. She had promised to let him know as soon as she found out anything relevant to the suspicious payment or Maws’s death.
She told him what the worker on the loading dock had told her about the passenger in the truck.
“I’ll ask the judge for a warrant to get the PDC’s visitor log for that day,” said Littlemore. “And I’ll get their surveillance footage, too. It’ll take a few days. I’ll keep you in the loop.”
Mona thanked him. Then she asked him what he’d learned about AmeriCo.
“There are only two shareholders,” said Littlemore. “Maws’s ex-wife has 49 percent. The rest is held by an entity called Loyola Holdings, in the Cayman Islands. Maybe the ex-wife knows more than she’s saying.”
“I’ve met her. I don’t think she’s involved. Can you find out who owns Loyola Holdings?”
“Not easily. That’s why people have companies in the Cayman Islands. Not to get found out.”
They agreed to stay in touch. Mona hung up. Finn suggested they head home. Mona shook her head.
“I have to go back to work,” she said.
Mona worked till midnight. She was the last to leave the office. She switched off the lights and rode the elevator down to the parking garage.
She got in her RAV and started up the ramp to the street. Her phone started vibrating, rattling around in the dash recess. She picked it up. No caller ID. Nobody calls with good news at midnight. She answered, holding her breath.
A man’s voice said, “Jimena Jimenez.” He knew her real name.
“Who is this?” said Mona.
“You are the lawyer for Carmen Vega,” said the voice in Spanish.
Mona recognized the voice. The one who’d said, “Turn it off.”
“You drive a red Toyota RAV,” said the voice. “Your license plate is 1AEG972. You have just left your office.”
Mona scanned the street. There were no people about. No other cars on the road. Both curbs were lined with parked cars. Was he sitting in one of them, watching her? She gripped the steering wheel so tightly her knuckles turned white. She hit the gas—her tires squealed.
“Drop your suit,” hissed the voice. “Or what happened to Carmen will happen to you.”
The line went dead.
Mona drove straight to the nearest police station and reported the phone call. The night-shift officer at the counter took notes. Mona gave her the time of the call, the duration, and what was said. The officer advised Mona to report the call to her phone company. Then the officer explained that there wasn’t much the police could do but that Mona had done the right thing reporting the call.
“It gives us something to go on, should anything happen.”
Mona shuddered. Should anything happen? The officer suggested that if Mona was really worried, she should go to a safe location.
Mona gave her a withering stare. She said she would call the phone company first thing in the morning.
She was relieved to see Finn’s truck outside the condo when she got home. It was 1 A.M., and she had expected him to be home, but she was relieved nonetheless.
Inside, she turned on all the lights as she made her way through the living room, down the hall past the bathroom and the spare room, to the bedroom. Finn was asleep. She climbed into the bed on his side and curled up next to him.
Mona and Finn had been married long enough to develop certain routines. Mona never climbed into bed from Finn’s side, for instance. She always got in from her side, even the nights he was out on patrol. When they made love, each came to the other from their own territory and met in the middle, a kind of erotic commons. And if they fell asleep holding each other, it was always in the same configuration: Finn on the left, Mona on the right. So although Mona made no noise when she lay down next to him, Finn sensed her body on the wrong side, and it sent a signal to his slumbering brain.
“What’s wrong?” he said.
She told him about the phone call.
He sat up, instantly wide awake. He looked at Mona’s shape lying in the dark. His mind raced. He was angry with the police for doing nothing.
“We have to set up a phone trap,” he said. “If he calls again, we’ll trace the call.”
“God, please tell me he’s not going to call again.”
Finn looked in the dark in the direction of the closet. On the closet floor was a gun safe. Inside the safe was a Glock 19 semiautomatic that Finn had bought three years earlier for Mona, after she’d been kidnapped by a murderous human trafficker that Finn had intercepted.
“To protect yourself,” he’d said when he’d given it to her, which had made her laugh.
“Nick, how long have you known me? I hate guns,” she had replied.
After that, he’d put the gun away in the safe and hadn’t mentioned it again.
Until now.
“You think maybe it’s time to reconsider the Glock?” he said.
“I’m not carrying a gun, Nick.”
They lay in silence for a while.
Then Finn said, “I’m going to take some time off.”
“No. I don’t want a bodyguard.”
“What, then?”
Mona rolled onto her back. “You know when you go out on patrol, and you’re on your boat out on the sea, out beyond the cell phone towers, out where I can’t reach you?”
“Yes?” said Finn.
“What you’re feeling now is what I feel every time you do that. Anything could happen to you out there.”
Finn sighed. “This guy. If I find this guy…”
“Forget about him,” said Mona. She pulled his head toward hers. “Focus on me.”