The Night Charter by Sam Hawken Read Free Book Online Page A

guess. You want it?”
    “Of course I want it,” Ignacio said. “Give it to me.”
    Pool held the paper out of Ignacio’s reach. “I want you to pick up a shift for me on the weekend. It’s my nephew’s birthday, and I want to be there for a change. You’ll have to pull a double.”
    Ignacio scowled. “You want to skip out for a kiddie party?”
    “I told you: it’s my nephew. He’s nine.”
    “Okay, fine. Give it here.”
    The Post-it swapped hands, and Ignacio looked it over. “This isn’t anywhere near Hollywood. What’s he doing at a 7-Eleven over that way?”
    “I heard Jackson Dewey has a place there. Clifford might be putting the old gang back together. Worth checking out.”
    “Yeah,” Ignacio said absently. He folded the Post-its in half and put them in his breast pocket. “Thanks, Brady.”
    “Anything for Nacho. Enjoy the sandwich, pal.”
    “Right.”
    When Pool left, Ignacio turned back to his meal, but his eyes drifted away to the computer monitor, where Matt Clifford kept on staring. Ignacio made a gun with his thumb and forefinger and mimed shooting the man in the face. Click-click. Boom.
    The sandwich tasted that much better when he took another bite.

Chapter Twelve
    S HE DID NOT have any charters that day, so Camaro slept in before going for her workout. When she was done, she looked out over the lawn and made up her mind to see to it. After changing into work clothes, she hauled out the old gas-powered lawnmower the landlord included with the house and pulled the starter cord a dozen times before the engine caught. The mower was junk when she found it, and it was hardly better now, but time with a tool kit had coaxed it into some semblance of life. Camaro started in the back and then, in a fit of ambition, mowed the front yard, too.
    When she was finished, Camaro went inside and stood in front of the air-conditioning unit in the window until she stopped sweating. After that she went to the little room she’d made an office and sat at her computer. It was locked with a password and she punched it in before navigating to the Internet. A search turned up a long list of sites that did background checks. She chose the top hit and clicked through.
    It was as simple as inputting the name Parker Story in the search box and weeding out the ones that clearly weren’t right. There was only one Parker Story in Miami. The site promised her a photograph and a full report on the subject if she paid twenty-five dollars. Camaro arranged for a debit from her bank account, and then she was in.
    His full name was Parker David Story and he was thirty-four as he said. His former spouse was Melanie Artis Story and the grounds for their divorce had been abandonment. There was only the one child, Lauren Victoria Story, and she was fourteen.
    The site went on to list Parker’s convictions, up to and including his time for motor vehicle theft. It even provided the locations where he’d been incarcerated. His current address was listed, as were the registration of his beater of a pickup truck and his employment record, which was patchwork.
    Camaro leaned back in her chair and looked at Parker’s driver’s license photo once again. He looked disheveled and half-awake. There was no photo for Lauren because she was a minor, so there was no telling what the little girl on the beach had grown into.
    After a while she got up and paced the small office, pausing only to nudge the mouse when the computer went to a screen saver. She looked at Parker’s image from all angles before sitting down once more and reading through all the information the site provided, including every address where he’d lived for the past fifteen years. He never stayed in one place for long. He had been sued for back rent in civil court ten times.
    “Goddamn it,” Camaro said out loud.
    She closed the browser and left the house with the keys to her bike in her hand. Out on the road with the wind in her face she could think a little