High-Caliber Concealer Read Online Free PDF Page A

with her hand on the door handle.
    “I don’t actually, but I have a friend who’s
an undercover cop. I think he’s in trouble and I know he’s going
after Ruiz. I need to find my friend before something happens to
him.” Melissa nodded and opened the passenger door. Sitting in the
passenger seat was a little girl of about nine or ten. She had big
dark eyes and clutched a purple backpack nervously.
    “This is Elly Ruiz,” said Melissa. “She’s
going to stay with her grandparents.” The little girl nodded.
    “Hi, Elly,” said Nikki softly, kneeling down
to look Elly in the eye.
    “Hola ,” whispered
Elly.
    “Do you know where your father is?”
    “She doesn’t speak a lot of English,” said
Melissa.
    “Donde està su padre,
hoy ?” asked Nikki switching languages.
    “Èl va al
parque .”
    “Park?” repeated Nikki. “Which park? Que parque ?”
    “MacArthur,” said Elly. “ Por el carmelo grande .”
    “By the big candy?” asked Nikki, looking up
at Melissa in confusion. Melissa shook her head.
    “Caramelo rojo
grande ,” repeated Elly, nodding. She let go of her backpack
and gestured with both hands up above her head. Suddenly Melissa
laughed.
    “The Big Candy. It’s a sculpture in
MacArthur Park. Big red thing with white blobs on it. Sits up on
these stilt things. On the 6th Street side of the park.” Nikki
nodded.
    “Do you know when, Elly?” asked Nikki.
“ Cuando ?”
    Elly held up one hand, her fingers
spread.
    “Cinco ?” asked
Nikki, and Elly nodded.
    “Gracias ,” said
Nikki, leaning into the car to hug the little girl. “You were a big
help.”
    “Is she going to be safe with her
grandparents?” asked Nikki, as Melissa shut the car door.
    “Should be,” said Melissa. “I’ll have
someone keep tabs on her.”
    “Thanks Melissa, I owe you one.”
    “No sweat. I’ll call in the favor
someday.”
    Melissa got back into the Honda and drove
off, the neon green car sliding along the road like a slot car,
cornering evenly and weaving in and out of traffic.
    Nikki shook her head, and patted the Impala
affectionately. Walking back toward their spot on the beach, Nikki
scanned the sand, looking for Z’ev. She was nearly to the blanket
when she spotted him talking to a middle-aged guy in a straw hat,
who was almost certainly not the ice cream vendor. Nikki could tell
by the lack of an ice cream cart.
    As she watched, Straw Hat handed a slip of
paper to Z’ev, who scrutinized it and then put it away in his
pocket. They shook hands and Straw Hat moved away at an easy amble,
heading in Nikki’s general direction. Nikki frowned. Z’ev was
working. She knew what working looked like and Z’ev was doing it.
He was working on their only weekend together this month! The CIA
weren’t even supposed to work inside the country.
    Nikki flopped down on the blanket, fuming.
She kicked off her flip-flops and placed her bag in the original
indent it had left in the sand before her trip to the car.
Stripping off her wrap, she shoved it back into the bag, only then
noticing that Z’ev’s gun wasn’t inside. If there was any doubt
before, there wasn’t now. No one took a gun to get ice cream. He
must have gotten it when he reached in for his wallet. The fact
that she hadn’t noticed irritated Nikki even further. And now he
was going to come back and wonder why she was mad and then he would
know that she knew and then he would wonder how she knew when she
was supposed to be being lazy on the blanket.
    Nikki took a deep breath and let it out
slowly. Maybe there was another explanation. She had to get over
this in a hurry. He always knew when she was mad. She just wasn’t
very good at acting. Maybe he had taken the gun out of habit. Nikki
knew that lately she felt a little defenseless when she went out
without some weaponry, and he had been in the business a lot longer
than she had. Maybe that was it. And maybe Straw Hat had been just
some guy, handing Z’ev a business card. It could