She’s stalkingit.
“Are you there?”
Heraldo’s voice snaps her back into focus.
“Yeah, sorry, I’m here, Heraldo,” she says, and then takes a leap of faith: “My colleague Jordan Sanchez wanted me to follow up on the conversation you had with him—was it yesterday or the day before?”
“Who?”
“Jordan Sanchez? He says he called you?”
A confused pause.
“About what you saw in Bel-Air?”
“I ain’t talked to no Sanchez.”
“Maybe he didn’t give you his surname, then. But Jordan’s a journalist like me and I think he called you at some point over the last couple of days?”
“Uh-uh,” Heraldo says.
“You would have told him about what you saw up at the Sloan house—”
“No.”
Hallie frowns. “No one’s called you?”
“Like I say, I ain’t spoken to no one called Sanchez.”
Hallie’s mind is racing. Why the hell hasn’t Jordan phoned this guy? He’s had the Sloan tip for two days. The gardener is literally the first port of call.
“Gilloway,” Heraldo says.
“What?”
“That was the name of the guy that called me.”
“Gilloway? You got a first name there?”
“No, that’s all I remember.”
Hallie has no idea who Gilloway is. He’s definitely not freelance, because she’s been working the circuit for five years and knows the names of her competition. Is it just Sanchez using a false name? It doesn’t sound like something he’d do because, for him, this whole job is about personal fame and glory. So could Gilloway be on staff at one of the newspapers? Could he work at one of the local TV networks? Could he benational? Hallie’s screwed if he is. There’s no way she can compete with the kind of resources and manpower the national press could throw at this.
Except, somehow, that feels unlikely.
An eyewitness tip passed along from a gardener to a snitch, and then onto Malcy Simmons isn’t the sort of thing that would wind up in the national press—at least, not without it blowing through the local media first.
“Did Gilloway say who he works for?” Hallie asks.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know if he told you or you don’t remember?”
“Why are you asking me this? I already told you people what I saw up there. I literally got a two-second look at Sloan. That’s it. I don’t know any more.”
“I understand, Heraldo,” Hallie says, using his name deliberately and calmly, trying to keep him onside. “But to confirm, you don’t know who Gilloway works for?”
“No.”
