“Your suspect gets around, right?” Johnson asked. “Shilo, you said. Also north of Miami. Maybe here.”
“Yes.”
“Well, this guy hasn’t left his house in a year.”
The detective motioned the patrolman back to his station, and we left the building. Outside, Johnson turned to face me, his forehead wrinkling into lines that indicated an emotion I read as pity.
“Listen,” he said. “We just met today, so I don’t wanna judge. But it feels like you’re grasping at straws. Sleep helps, Agent Camden. Maybe you try again in the morning.”
“I’ve got a colleague in the hospital,” I said. “He may not make it ’til morning.”
The detective looked down but didn’t answer.
My phone rang, and I glanced at the screen. The number read “Blocked,” and I mentally prepared myself to hear that the atipamezole had caused some deadly reaction in Richie.
“Camden,” I said.
“Agent Gardner Camden?” a female voice asked. “Detective Eloise Curtis, Lucas Beach PD.”
“Lucas Beach PD?” I repeated, and Johnson looked up.
I’m at the home of Natalie Kastner. She had your card in her pocket.”
“What do you mean—had?”
“She’s been murdered, Agent Camden.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Detective Johnson grabbed his Kia Sedona and drove out of the gated area behind the Lucas Beach PD, picking me up where I’d been standing when I’d received the call. The water feature outside was lit with a blue glow at night. I watched it fade into the darkness behind us as he turned onto the state highway.
Johnson’s concern for my sleep habits had disappeared, and his body seemed tighter now.
“This is the house of the woman you mentioned?” he said.
I nodded but did not speak. The area west of the station was home to a variety of industrial companies that made tile or bent metal, their logos glowing and wet on the sides of the buildings at night. Past this, the neighborhood gave way to shopping centers that housed regional insurance companies and smoke shops with the wordgatorin the name, each anchored by a 7-Eleven or a Family Dollar store.
I was thinking of Richie. Having faith was difficult if you didn’t grow up with it, but I knew someone who did. As Johnson drove, I texted Rosa.
I have a friend who is hurt. His name is Richie. Can you pray for him?
An answer came back fast.
Right away.
Up ahead were the bridges that led to the beach. I motioned for Johnson to turn right before them. He slowed at the mouth of Avalon Street, where Frank and I had visited Natalie Kastner five hours and fifty-three minutes ago.
The neighborhood that had appeared pristine before sundown, with its curved sidewalks and American flags, was aglow in the red and blue lights of four cruisers parked at angles to each other, blocking the flow of any traffic.
Twelve neighbors stood gawking from the surrounding properties as Johnson introduced me to his colleague Detective Eloise Curtis, who had phoned me minutes earlier.
Curtis was early forties and wore the black-and-pink athletic-wear uniform of half the moms at Camila’s school, save the white crime-scene booties that covered her feet and the disposable smock over her hair. She’d come from her son’s ice hockey game a half hour ago, she told me.
“Ms. Kastner held what role in your case?” she asked.
“We spoke to her on background,” I said. “She wasn’t a suspect or a person of interest. Her cousin had been shot.” I explained about Freddie Pecos and how he’d been a confidential informant on a federal case.
Detective Johnson left us then, and Curtis and I walked toward the home. She lent me a pair of latex gloves, and I snapped them on, staring at a Ring camera outside the front door.
