“Some dude.” He didn’t get a description of the driver. “I was too focused
on staying alive. Van almost creamed me, booking ass out of there.”
A technician from ECU had found Salena Kaye’s shoulder bag under the deli steam
table. Rook said, for the benefit of all in earshot, “She must have dropped it—
when I took her down.” Heat was too busy placing the bag’s contents out on a table
to pay attention.
She laid out a slim Eagle Creek travel wallet with the fake ID, a credit card in the
same alias, a few hundred in cash, a popular lipstick and compact available from any
drugstore, and a hotel room key with the identification tag removed. Heat also found
a clip of 9mm ammunition. “A gal always needs a spare,” said Nikki as she set it
beside the other items. To her gloved touch, the outer pocket of the bag felt like
it held another clip, but it turned out to be a cell phone. Nikki opened Recents and
saw the last call received. It matched the time Kaye had been in the rental office.
Using her own cell, Heat called the squad. Hinesburg picked up.
“Hey, Nikki,” she said, the only one in the house who used her first name, a trait
residing about midpoint on her list of annoying qualities, “did that tipster guy
ever reach you?”
“You heard about him?”
“Yeah, some guy called and said he spotted Salena Kaye and wanted to talk to you. I
started quizzing him to make sure he wasn’t a crackpot, and he got all cranked and
said he couldn’t waste time and hung up on me.”
Heat recalled the rental car manager saying he made two tries to reach her.
“Detective, how come you didn’t tell me?”
“I am.” And then Hinesburg actually giggled.
“Detective.”
“You mean before? I didn’t bother you earlier ’cause I thought he was a nut job.
”
As she had so many times dealing with Sharon Hinesburg, Heat made a silent three-
count before she continued. “You have a pen? Write this down.” Nikki recited the
Recents number from Salena Kaye’s phone and asked her to run it. “And Sharon? Do
call me immediately when you get the trace.”
After she hung up, Heat furrowed her brow, considered the screwup potential, then
pressed the speed dial for Detective Ochoa’s cell. When he answered, she gave him
the phone number and asked him to trace it. “And Miguel, don’t let Hinesburg know
you’re doing this. I asked her to run it, and I’m having second thoughts about her
follow-through.”
“You mean just now?” He laughed and hung up.
“You think someone called and tipped Kaye off, don’t you?” said Rook.
Heat continued to go through the shoulder bag. “Could be. Why do you ask?”
“Because back at the rent-a-car, when you asked me to go out and reenact walking in
—playing the part of you—there’s no way Salena Kaye could have spotted you
without you spotting her, too.”
“Not unless she has X-ray vision and saw me coming through the wall when I was on
the sidewalk.” She glanced up from her bag search and gave him a smile. “That’s
good deduction, Writer Boy.”
“I walked a mile in your shoes, Nikki Heat.”
“You can stop now.”
“Stopping,” he said.
“OK, here we go…” From a fold at the bottom of the shoulder bag she pulled out a
small plastic card, about the size of a supermarket rewards chip. “Somebody joined
a gym.” She held up the membership card with the bar code on it so he could see. “
Coney Island Workout.”
Macka, the owner of the gym, paused his chore of rolling towels and stacking them in
cubbies to scan the bar code on the infrared gun at Reception. “She bought a
month-to-month. This who you’re looking for?” He spun the computer flat-screen
toward them. Salena Kaye’s unsmiling ID photo, taken right there against the powder
blue wall, stared out. But the name matched the fake credit card and license, not
her real one.