“Not well, but yeah, I knew him. He was a decent guy.”
“Why was he killed?” Tabby asked.
“He knew things that somebody didn’t want exposed. The irony is that he’d been talking about it for years, and nobody listened to him. Me taking him seriously is probably what got him killed. As it is, I still don’t understand how they—”
Frost stopped in midsentence.
“What?” Tabby asked.
He didn’t answer. He sat there, frozen to silence, thinking through the chain of events from the previous night. The meeting with Fawn’s sister. His phone calls to Coyle. The attack on Coyle’s office. He realized it couldn’t possibly be an accident that Lombard had targeted them just minutes after Coyle told Frost about the connection between Fawn and Detlowe.
“They knew,” he murmured to himself, barely aloud.
“Knew what?” Tabby asked in a normal voice.
Frost put a finger over his lips to warn her to stay quiet.
“Nothing,” he said. “I’m just thinking aloud. Hey, would you mind making me a cup of coffee? I need some caffeine today.”
Tabby gave him a puzzled look. “Sure. Okay.”
She headed for the kitchen, and Shack followed her. Frost got up from the sofa with a wince and retrieved his black sport jacket from the chair where he’d thrown it when he returned from the hospital. He held the jacket up in his hand and rifled through the pockets. Left side, right side, breast, inside. He found nothing. Maybe he was wrong.
Tabby came back into the living room with coffee from his Keurig machine in a Mark Twain mug. He took a sip and put the mug down. She waited for him with her arms crossed and a curious, expectant expression on her face. He studied the sport jacket in his hand again, and this time he flipped both of the lapels back. Still nothing. Then he turned the jacket around and flipped up the collar.
There it was.
The square electronic device was smaller than a postage stamp. It clung to the inside fabric of the jacket with little metal teeth. He tried to remember who’d bumped into him and where it might have happened, but it could have been anywhere.
Tabby saw the bug and opened her mouth in horror to say something, but he quickly held up his hand to stop her. She shut her mouth without saying a word. He put the jacket back on the chair and walked up to her. Without even thinking about what he was doing, he put his arms around her waist and put his face next to her cheek and whispered in her ear.
“It’s a listening device.”
She murmured back. “Well, don’t you want to destroy it?”
“Not yet. I don’t want them to know I’ve found it.”
“How long has it been there?”
“I’m not sure.”
“That’s so creepy. Who would do that?”
“That’s what I want to find out.”
There was nothing else to say. At that moment, they had no reason to be as close as they were. And yet they didn’t move. His hands were on her waist, they were face-to-face, but he didn’t let go right away. She was warm and soft and close. The sun through the bay window turned her hair to fire.
Frost stepped back and let his arms fall to his sides. He bent down and retrieved his coffee. “I have to go,” he said. “I’m late.”
“Me too.” Tabby’s voice was hushed. Her eyes blinked with confusion.
“Thanks for checking on me.”
“Of course. Do you want me to come back tonight? I mean, if you want me to cook dinner for you, I can—”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I know. I just thought—”
She didn’t go on. Her words hung there, unspoken, and they both left them there. Without saying anything more to him, she turned and walked away. He heard the quick tap of her shoes in the foyer, then the opening and closing of the front door. She was gone.
He was alone.
Then he looked at his jacket and remembered that he wasn’t alone at all. It was time to figure out who was behind this.
21
When Frost drove toward the headquarters building in Mission Bay, the charcoal BMW showed up on his tail again, as he’d expected. The driver played it smarter this time, leaving several cars between them. Frost had to keep a careful eye on his mirror to see the BMW come and go in traffic. The car was far enough away to disappear if necessary, but close enough to listen in on the bug.
When he reached Mission Bay, Frost didn’t stop. He headed past the police headquarters building and continued south on Third Street. His wary follower stayed a couple of blocks behind him.
Frost tapped a button on the steering wheel and used the voice commands to dial his brother.
“Bro!” Duane answered, and Frost could hear a crowd of voices in the background. “I’m wrapping up the lunch rush. You okay?”
“I’ll live.”
“I asked Tabs to check on you. Did she show up?”
“She did.”
He heard a metallic bang as Duane put down the phone, and his brother’s irritated voice grew muffled in the background. “Raymonde, you call this al dente on the linguine? Are you kidding me? Dump it, start over, hand this crap out to the kids as shoelaces.”
Frost smiled to himself. In the kitchen, Duane was still the Beast. But his smile faded as he thought about his conversation with Tabby.
His brother came back on the line. “Sorry. Usual craziness. What’s up?”
“I have a question. Tabby mentioned an Asian chef named Mr. Jin. Do you know him?”
“Sure. Man’s a genius. First time I had his xiaolongbao, I swear I cried. Why, what’s up?”
“He’s missing, and I’m trying to find him,” Frost explained, and then he shifted into a lie for whoever was listening in the BMW behind him. “I got a text from a guy who claims he’s a sous chef for Mr. Jin and might know where he is. I’m meeting him down at Candlestick Point. I thought maybe you knew some of the chefs on Mr. Jin’s team.”
“Sorry, bro. I don’t.” Duane’s voice became muffled again. “There’s too much ginger beer in the marinade, damn it! You’re not making a fricking Moscow Mule!”
“I’ll let you go,” Frost said.
“Yeah, sorry to rush you off. Glad you’re okay.”
“Thanks,” Frost said, but then he continued before his brother could hang up, “How about you, Duane? Are you okay?”
“Me? Great, never better. Why?”
“It’s just something Tabby said.”
“She told you about our fight, huh? Don’t sweat it. The harder we fight, the hotter it is when we make up. We’re fine.”
Frost knew that wasn’t true, but he didn’t know how to tell his brother. He wanted to say something more, but he didn’t want to say it this way, and he didn’t want to say it with someone listening to every word. “Well, good.”
“I’m glad she talks to you, you know,” Duane went on. “You need somebody to talk to, Frost. Nobody’s ever going to replace Katie, but I like that you and Tabby are already like brother and sister.”
“Yeah,” Frost replied, his voice clipped. “I like that, too. Later, Duane.”
“Later.”
He clicked on the wheel to end the call.
He cleared his head and checked the mirror again. The BMW lagged behind him, but it was still there. The trap was laid, and now it was a question of who walked into it. He turned off Third Street as he approached the waterside trails near the old site of the Candlestick Park stadium. This was an area that had a lot of memories for him. As a teenager in the 1990s, he’d gone to dozens of Giants and 49ers games at Candlestick, huddled under thick blankets against the frigid night winds off the bay. Sometimes it was the whole family. Sometimes it was just him and Katie. She’d always been the rabid sports fan between the two of them, yelling herself hoarse at every game.