Chapter Twenty-Four
Nomi rolls over in bed, only wakes up properly when a brilliant crackle of lightning outside brightens the room like a flashbulb and penetrates the fog of sleep. What sounds like handfuls of gravel being thrown at her window is actually rain. Goddamn, it’s really coming down out there.
She sits up, swaddled in blankets, scratches through her hair.
After leaving Simon to descend the stairs and go to work, she indulged herself with one more session and a double dose of Valium before finally getting to bed at close to four in the morning.
It’s now . . . She checks the clock—oh crap, it’s just gone midday.
The dark skies and her benzo hangover have shoved her wakeup time into the afternoon.
She clambers out of bed and pads to the kitchen in her sleep tee and socks, drinks water.
She told Simon she’d meet him at eleven; hopefully he’ll be cool about a minor delay.
Tidiness was kind of beaten into her at an early age, so her kit bag is already put away, and there’s no debris from last night in her living area—except for the cardboard box full of packing peanuts still sitting on her kitchen benchtop.
Nomi dumps that in her office and, with the reminder of Brittany’s teeth now ricocheting in her mind, goes straight for a hot shower.
If the warehouse location pays dividends, today may be the day she gets Brittany back.
Today is also going to be wet and dark and miserable—the first shitty storm of fall—so once she’s changed the dressing on her stomach, Nomi drags on warm combat pants and a black sweater that’s slightly thicker than the one she got damp last night.
In her office, she opens the drawer with her service weapon and holster and old police badge.
She clips on her holster, adds her weapon, puts the tin in the inside pocket of her jacket.
Pulling her jacket on, and with beanie and scarf in place, she grabs cash, keys, and the list of Galetti’s properties that she left on the newspaper pile in the hall; then she’s out the door.
There’s a little bead of worry lodged in her throat as she heads for the stairs.
Was she right to grant Simon Noone some measure of absolution last night?
It’s nonsensical: He breaks into her apartment, freaks her out, argues with her about his relative trustworthiness—seriously, what the fuck—then only a few hours later, she’s letting herself be won over by a little productive case research and a glass of mulled wine.
But what she said to him is also true: She has a knee-jerk desire to share the victories with him, when they occasionally come.
She thinks of him sewing up her eyebrow in Sofia Rosa’s apartment .
. . The way he checked on her overnight .
. . The little hoya in its soggy plant tube on her coffee table.
Can a serial murderer also be a decent human being?
Noone’s past life is a horror show—she’s just not sure whether he should be condemned for that stuff when he can’t even remember it.
It’s not like he was trying to conceal his past either; he hired her to find out the truth, for god’s sake.
But whether he’s a danger—to herself, or to other people in the community—she honestly doesn’t know. She’s not sure where she stands on it all.
Still turning the problem over, she reaches the third-floor landing and realizes that the door to Noone’s apartment is wide open.
Nomi’s skin prickles instantly. Slipping into cop mode, she moves on swift feet to flatten herself at the wall by the side of the doorway.
Pushes the door fully open with one hand so she can see inside.
Nobody’s home. Nobody’s hiding behind the door.
She can see a spill of blue fabric—Simon’s cashmere scarf—on the floor.
Outside the apartment’s windows, rain spatters against the metal fire escape.
“Simon?” she calls into the apartment while maintaining position by the door. “Noone, you here?”
No answer. When she steps inside, she sees Simon’s keys on the linoleum, and also blood spatter.
Shit. She looks in the kitchen and bathroom, then the fire escape.
No dice. The blood on the floor isn’t copious, and the drops haven’t dried yet; she’s probably only missed this by an hour or so.
If she’d been here on time, it wouldn’t have happened.
Dread rises up, black dye seeping through the fabric of her brain. This is bad. If Ameche has dragged Simon away to exact a little payback for the incident at Big Mouth, Simon may be in serious trouble.
Where could they have taken him? She chews at a nail.
The most obvious location is the warehouse she scoped out last night, where she thinks Lamonte has stashed Brittany.
But that could be all wrong—there could be another place on the list of Galetti’s properties where they take their abductees and potential torture victims . . .
Goddammit. It’s impossible to be sure, but all she can do is start with the likeliest option and work from there. Looks like she’s hitting the warehouse on her own after all. She’s not in love with the idea—storming the barricades solo seems ill-advised. But what choice does she have?
Nomi grabs Noone’s keys, exits the room and pulls the door closed, jogs back down to her own apartment.
Inside, she strides to her office. Another burst of lightning above the tenement.
It’s not until the office blind blows back, exposing the puddle of rainwater on the floor, that she remembers the glass is still gone from the window.
Dammit. No time for this. She hurries to the bathroom, grabs a towel, returns and stuffs it carefully into the hole—best she can do for now.
Then she grabs the phone and calls a number she hasn’t rung in person for nearly two years.
The call picks up as she’s scrounging for more ammunition in her drawer.
“Hey, Dez Rosado speaking.” A male voice, warm and casual.
Nomi tucks the phone between her ear and her shoulder as she unholsters her weapon and opens the chamber. “Dezi, good to hear your voice. It’s Nomi Pace.”
“Nomi? Oh man, it’s been way too long! So good to hear you. What you doing now?”
“Lots of stuff, but I can’t get into it this minute.” Nomi tips out and reloads the .35 Magnum shells, confirming that she won’t have a problem with misfires. “Can you do me a solid and put Irma on? I’m kinda racin’ here, Dez.”
“Ah shit, okay, one sec.” But Dezi understands emergencies, both because his wife is a cop and because he himself is a firefighter. Nomi hears him calling, “Irma! Irma—phone!” in a muffled way, like he’s got the receiver against his shirt.
Irma takes about ten seconds to arrive on the line. “Nomes, is that you? What the hell you doing, calling me at home? I thought we said—”
“Irma, listen. I’m about to do something really stupid, and I wanted to tell someone I trust about it.
” Nomi finishes the reload, clicks the chamber back into position, reholsters the gun under her armpit.
Explain to Irma about Simon Noone? Now may not be the time.
“Lamonte has a warehouse off West Nineteenth—I think he’s stashed my client’s daughter there, and I’m gonna go get her back. ”
“Nomi—”
“The warehouse should be on the list of properties that Galetti is trying to have rezoned.” Nomi’s holding the receiver in her hand again as she opens another drawer and scratches for her can of Mace.
“Ask Calvin Gaffney to check. And listen, Galetti’s leverage over Gloria Axedale is her son, David Jeremy Axedale.
Lamonte’s keeping the kid thoroughly doped and holed up in one of those cheap apartments on the West Street side of Perry Street, where my client is supposed to be keeping tabs on him. ”
“Jesus, Nomes—did you tell Balter about all this?”
“I tried,” Nomi admits, “but I only found out about the warehouse last night, and either way, nothing I say carries weight. You probably have more pull with Balter than me. So if you want to alert the cavalry, that would be fantastic, but I’m running out of time here—I gotta go. Wish me luck.”
“Wait! Hold on a second!” Irma sounds worried. “Nomi, don’t you run off on this alone—”
“Sorry, hon—you’re breaking up in this storm!” Nomi hangs up, grabs a knuckle-duster along with the Mace, bundles everything into her pockets and herself back out the door.
Out on the street, rain is flying into her face.
She squints and endures as she jogs to Greenwich—but she only needs to do one quick scan to decide there’s no point trying to flag a cab here, so she jogs onward to Hudson.
It takes more than five minutes of frantic waving to get a Checker that’ll stop for her. Finally, she gets lucky.
She gives the driver directions for West Nineteenth.