High Country Nocturne (David Mapstone Mystery 8)

“This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

I grabbed her arm hard enough to leave a bruise and steered her twenty feet down the hall, out of hearing of the uniformed officer by the ICU entrance.

“What wasn’t supposed to happen? And how the hell do you know about rough? You said rough.”

“Lindsey was never supposed to get hurt…”

“You were in on it with him.”

She shook her head. “No. Not at first.” She stammered. “Well, not much. Friday morning, he told me he was going on a special case. He gave me a prepaid cell phone and told me to only use it if he called or texted me on it. He told me not to be home between ten a.m. and two p.m., to be near the Piestawa Parkway, and not to trust anyone but you. Then he was out the door.”

“But you didn’t think to tell me this until now?”

“He didn’t want you to know about this case. He thought you’d be safer if you didn’t.”

“And dumb.” I shook my head.

She said, “He called me on his new cell around noon Friday. Now I know it was a little after the robbery. Something had gone wrong. A woman had tried to take them while he was changing the tag on his truck. I met him in north Phoenix and he gave the diamonds to me.”

“Where are the diamonds right now?” I demanded.

“They’re beneath the spare tire in my car. In socks.”

My whole face throbbed. “What about when the FBI-executed the search warrant?”

“They were all over the house, but didn’t spend much time on my car.”

I tried to shake off the shock of the lie. I asked her what Peralta’s plan was.

“I don’t know. He said wait for his text. If everything was clear, he would call.”

I hemmed her in with my arms and called her a liar.

“I’m not! He said the less I knew, the better. And there wasn’t a lot of time. He wanted to get on the road.”

I asked if it were possible he meant for her to give the rough to Matt Pennington? She said she didn’t know, only that she was to follow his instructions. He was afraid the FBI might be able to pick up her prepaid cell if she used it more than once or twice.

When he thought things were safe, he would send her a text with the words, “ready for dry cleaning pickup?”

If someone else saw her phone, it would seem innocuous. If she were in trouble, she would respond “no.” If she were safe, she would text “yes,” and he would then call with fresh instructions for her. It was a more elaborate version of the asterisk signal between Lindsey and me. But his text had not yet come.

For me, pieces came together.

Not only had the original plan been blown when Peralta encountered Strawberry Death, he also began to doubt even Eric Pham or one of his agents. Peralta was careful that way, seeing possibilities five moves ahead. So he had gone to ground. His worry must have only increased when he didn’t hear from the real Pennington.

I pulled out my iPhone and read out the number I had called and Peralta had briefly answered.

I said, “Is that the number you have?”

She nodded. “He made me memorize it. It’s not even in the new phone.”

“I called that number and he acted as if he didn’t know me.”

“He hadn’t texted me and I hadn’t responded,” she said. “He probably thought you were under duress to make the call.” She thought about it and asked how I found his secret cell number.

I told her.

She dropped her head. “Oh, no. No!”