Chapter 3 - THE NIGHT NAOMI FORGOT
Naomi did not forget the garage.
She had forgotten the man.
That distinction mattered.
Six years earlier she had been twenty-four and three weeks into a summer internship with the county Organized Crime Unit.
Warren Pike ran the prosecution team.
He liked sending interns places.
Courthouse archives.
Police headquarters.
Records divisions.
Once, a dry cleaner where an undercover officer had hidden a phone in a suit bag.
Naomi had loved it.
She hated admitting that now.
Pike made law feel alive.
One Thursday afternoon he handed her a sealed envelope.
“Reed garage. South entrance.”
Naomi remembered the address only after Renee said it.
She had driven here.
Not to a wedding venue then.
To a working motorcycle shop.
The black Indian had been near the wall.
Tools everywhere.
A man in a dark work shirt met her.
Long hair tied back.
Grease on one hand.
Pike told her his name was:
“Mason.”
No last name.
Naomi handed him the envelope.
He signed nothing.
She stayed perhaps three minutes.
Maybe four.
Then somebody from the shop took a photograph.
Why?
She could not remember.
Renee handed her the old print.
“Look at the corner.”
A date was stamped in faded orange.
Six years ago.
Two days before the fire that killed Elias.
Naomi sat down on the edge of a bench.
Her wedding dress spread around her.
Marcus stayed several feet away.
Good.
She looked at him.
“I met your brother.”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t know.”
“I know.”
“You knew he used the name Mason too?”
Marcus shook his head.
Renee answered.
“That was a source alias Pike used with unbriefed personnel.”
“Unbriefed.”
Naomi almost laughed.
“I was the unbriefed personnel.”
“Yes.”
“What was in the envelope?”
Renee said:
“That’s one of the things I’m trying to establish.”
Naomi frowned.
“Trying?”
“The official courier log says Pike personally transferred the packet.”
“He didn’t.”
“No.”
“He sent me.”
“Yes.”
“Is my name anywhere?”
“No.”
Naomi felt heat rise into her face.
Then remembered something worse.
After the garage fire, Pike had called her into his office.
He asked whether she had ever spoken substantively with anyone connected to the Reed garage.
Naomi said no.
He asked whether she had received confidential information from any source.
No.
Then he gave her a short memorandum.
Intern contact review.
She signed.
Naomi remembered reading only the top half.
The line at the bottom:
I had no investigative contact with any confidential source associated with Operation Nightglass.
She had signed that too.
Marcus looked at her.
“You signed that after you came here?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know he was a source?”
“No.”
“Did you tell Pike you had delivered the envelope?”
Naomi swallowed.
“He knew.”
“Did you put it in the memo?”
“No.”
“Why?”
Rachel? No, Naomi.
Naomi looked toward Renee.
“Pike said delivering administrative material wasn’t investigative contact.”
Renee said nothing.
“He told me the memo was to keep interns out of disclosure litigation.”
Still nothing.
Naomi knew what Renee was waiting for.
“I wanted the internship.”
There.
“If Pike said it was administrative, I wanted to believe him.”
Marcus leaned against the motorcycle but did not speak.
Naomi continued.
“I didn’t ask what was in the envelope.”
“Could you have?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because I was a summer intern trying not to annoy the man who decided whether I came back.”
Gloria stared at her.
“That envelope ruined everything.”
Naomi looked up.
“What was in it?”
Gloria’s eyes filled with anger.
Not tears.
“Ask Renee.”
Renee’s jaw tightened.
“I never saw it.”
“You knew what Pike was doing.”
“I knew Elias was being handled badly.”
“That is not the same sentence.”
“No.”
Renee accepted that.
She had been a state investigator assigned to Nightglass.
Elias was not formally her source.
He belonged to a joint task force.
But Renee interviewed him twice.
Then three times.
He kept bringing information about a motorcycle theft ring that was using salvage auctions and legitimate restoration shops to wash stolen frames.
Elias wanted out.
Not of the source agreement.
Of the people around him.
He believed someone in law enforcement was warning the ring.
Renee said:
“I asked Pike to stop off-book contact.”
Naomi stared.
“When?”
“Three days before you came here.”
The garage seemed suddenly smaller.
“You told him not to contact Elias.”
“I told him every meeting needed to go through the source team.”
“And two days later he sent me.”
“Yes.”
Gloria looked toward the scattered photographs.
Then said:
“I saw her.”
Naomi turned.
“You were here?”
“Yes.”
“In the garage?”
“I was upstairs.”
“Did you know who I was?”
“No.”
“What did Elias say?”
Gloria’s expression changed.
“He said, ‘Pike sent a kid.’”
Naomi felt something twist in her stomach.
May you like
Then Gloria looked at the picture in Naomi’s hand.
“And he said if Pike was willing to use someone who didn’t know what she was carrying, he was done trusting him.”
