"I do."
"After Evelyn took the picture with the Easter Bunny, she walked through the mall and left something in a plant box. I was able to zoom in and upscale that footage. It looked like it was a small plastic egg. She kept walking, and the shooter followed her. From the footage, I don't think he was able to see her put the egg in the plant box.”
"I saw that.”
"Here's where it gets interesting. Some kid grabbed the egg after she left. That's when another woman came along and tried to take the egg from the kid. As you can imagine, that didn't go over well with the kid's mother. They fought about it for a moment, and the kid's mother made a scene. Needless to say, the other woman didn't get the egg.”
"What was inside the egg?" I asked in a rhetorical tone.
"That's what I'd like to know.” She paused. "I was able to get a match on facial ID for the woman and the kid's mother. This is where it gets really interesting.”
She had my full attention.
Isabella continued. "The woman's name is Tonya Hart. She works for the White Rabbit.”
"White Rabbit?”
"It's a codename for Paige Vesper, Tonya’s half sister. She runs a private intel firm that deals with risk mitigation, corporate espionage, that kind of thing. Discrete. Covert ops. Among other things, she's a data broker. Whether you're buying or selling information, she can make connections, for a fee.”
Through the haze, this case was beginning to come into focus. Still, there were a lot of pieces to put together.
"Evelyn must have acquired proprietary data and was looking for a buyer," I said.
"That's my guess. There must be something pretty important in that plastic egg. I'm guessing a thumb drive.”
"Rory Sinclair is starting to look like a prime suspect,” I said.
"I think you're getting warmer."
"So how does the Easter Bunny play into this?"
"I have a theory about that. You may think it's silly, but… I think Rory found out he had a data breach. I think he found out Evelyn had contacted the White Rabbit. Maybe he knew they were meeting at the mall and sent a hitman there to take them bothout. I think the hitman took the White Rabbit literally. When she sat on the Easter bunny's lap and took that selfie, the shooter made him for the contact.”
“That would explain it,” I said.
"Sometimes triggermen aren’t the sharpest tools in the shed," she said.
It was tragic. A miscommunication resulted in the death of an innocent life. Cody had no involvement in this whatsoever and had no way of knowing what was coming.
"You need to find out what was in that egg," Isabella said. “I can't say for certain where it is, but I'm guessing the kid’s got it. His mother’s name is Sherry Jackson. She lives on Channel View Court in the Chateau Del Mar." After a pause, Isabella said, “If she's got the data, you can bet Paige Vesper’s after it. So is Rory Sinclair. Sherry is not safe, and neither is her kid."
22
Ihugged the tank, and the wind whistled my helmet. The engine revved, and the exhaust howled as I cruised across the island to the Chateau Del Mar.
I didn't bother to disturb Jack. He needed his rest.
TheChateau,and I use the term loosely, was on the edge of Jamaica Village. I turned onto Channel View Court and looked for a place to park the bike.
The street was crowded, and most of the cars parked at the curb had taken a beating. Drenched in the sun, there were plenty of faded, peeling paint, door dings and scrapes, and a few bullet holes. Drunk drivers, wayward baseballs, bicycles… all posed a threat.
I parked the bike at the curb, killed the engine, and pulled off my helmet. I ran my fingers through my hair to straighten it out. My eyes surveyed the area, and it didn't take long to spot a stakeout. I knew one when I saw one.
Tonya sat in a dark gray Mustang with black rims and trim at the end of the block. It was a nice shiny new car with gray paint that gleamed in the sun. It stood out like a sore thumb. I don't know how long she’d been sitting there, casing out the joint, but this wasn’t the kind of neighborhood where you wanted to sit in your car twiddling your thumbs for an extended period of time. Someone was likely to put a gun to your head and take your shiny new vehicle. Something told me Tonya had a pistol in her lap and could take care of herself.
I hopped off the bike and strolled in her direction.
A couple of kids threw a football around in the yard of Sherry’s building. It was a rectangular cinderblock dump with eight units down and eight units up. It had drab olive green paint and looked like Army barracks. The grass was patchy, and the walkways were in desperate need of edging.
