“Every house?”
“Pretty much.”
“Was there something special about them?”
“Not really, other than the fact that they hit so many houses without getting caught.”
“How is that possible?”
He raises a shoulder. “Low priority, lack of resources. It happened over several years, and most of what was taken was covered by insurance.”
“Not like what happened to me, then.”
“True,” he says. “Anyhoo, about five years later, they caught the guys, and the funny thing was, they had this massive storage locker out in Jersey City. They hadn’t gotten rid of most of the stuff they’d stolen.”
“Why not?”
“They hadn’t thought it through. They were good at casing places, getting in and out undetected. But they didn’t have a way to offload what they stole. All the VCRs—this was in the early nineties—and family jewelry and such. I’ll tell you one thing, though.” He leans forward, mimicking me.
“What’s that?”
“I was there when the folks whose stuff was stolen went to the warehouse to identify it.”
“That must’ve been nice.”
“It was a letdown, actually.”
“How come?”
“The family heirlooms, people were happy to get those back. Their charm bracelets and such. Their memories. But the VCRs and other electronics that had been replaced with newer models by the insurance companies? You could see them, one by one, recognizing their things and turning the other way.”
“Isn’t that insurance fraud?”
“Probably. But who was going to do anything about it?”
“You?”
He straightens up. “Like I told you, personal-property crimes are a low priority. But I learned something that day. Even the most honest people, when it’s their interest on the line, well, they’re often willing to look the other way.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Just making conversation.”
“And what about my crime?”
“The other Jessica?”
“I call her Jessica Two.”
He loosens his tie. “Probably not her real name, though. But you never know . . .”
“She showed me her ID.”
“That’s easy enough to fake.”
“But she went through airport security . . .”
He nods. “There is that . . . though she could have used other ID to get through security.”
“She had it planned out,” I say.
“Clearly. How did she know you’d be at the airport, though?”
I explain to him about Twitter. Show him the tweet I’d sent. “She had at least a week to plan. And I was in the news a whole month before that.”
He nods again. “Clever little scheme. You did make it simple for her, being so public and all.”
“I guess I did.”
“Your generation, living your life online. Makes it easy picking for the criminal class, I’ll tell you that. Like that Kardashian woman with that robbery in Paris—”
I cut him off before he goes on another long tangent. “Could you get a warrant to get information on the account she transferred my money to?”
“I doubt it’s still there. It’s more likely that she transferred it right away to another account, and then another, et cetera. See those numbers there?” he says, pointing to my account statement. “That numbering means it was transferred to an offshore account. Untraceable.”
So that’s why she needed the ATM cash. If her money’s offshore, it’s probably not as easy as just going to an ATM and making a withdrawal to get access to it.
“It’s worth trying, though, isn’t it?” I ask with a note of hope in my voice.
He turns and taps on his keyboard. “There’s nothing in the system under that name. If that is her real name, she doesn’t have any priors.”
“You have access to the DMV database, don’t you? What about finding the other Jessicas born on my birthday? That’s not a long list.”
He looks at me over his shoulder. “Didn’t you tell me her driver’s license was from Ohio?”
“Yes, but—”
“We don’t have jurisdiction there.”
“How about the airport? Can you check if she used that name to go through security or buy a ticket?”
“That’s the TSA’s bailiwick.”
“I thought that stuff was all connected now, because of 9/11?”
He gives me a look. “That’s for stopping terrorists. Not catching grifters.”
I slouch down. “So, you can’t do anything.”
“I didn’t say that.” He hits print, and his dot-matrix printer starts to buzz. He takes the paper off the printer and puts it at the bottom of a large stack. “I’ve put it in my to-do pile. That’s the best I can do for you right now.”
“Are you trying to make me mad?”
He swivels toward me slowly. “Course not, ma’am. I’m simply trying to give you a realistic expectation about what’s going to happen here. I’m sorry it’s not any different.”
When the ma’am-ing starts, I know I’m done for. I stand to go.
He hands me his card. “If you learn anything else, you feel free to call me.”
I take it and stow it in my pocket.
“You’ll receive the police report by mail in four to six business days.”
“Thanks.”
“Good luck to you, Jessica.”
I thank him again, though it’s not luck I need now.
It’s Liam.
Chapter 4
Enter Liam
Liam finds me sitting at the bar in Fiddlesticks, not my regular haunt, but a place I started going to a couple of months ago, right before everything started.
There’s nothing special about this place. A shiny bar top, a mirror along the back wall with gold lettering that’s half-covered by beer bottles and glasses hanging from a rack. Flags of the world paper the ceiling, each dipping slightly toward the floor in the middle. I like the fish tacos and the Coney Island IPA on draft. It’s a neighborhood bar in a neighborhood in which I’ve been mostly anonymous. No one here knows my name.
It’s five o’clock on a Monday in the second week of June. The city hasn’t heated up yet to that suffering sauna it becomes in full summer. The bar’s a quarter full, and even though it’s a bit dark in here, I can feel the sunlight on my back through the stained-glass windows. I should be outside, soaking it in. Instead, I’m inside, planning, plotting, anxious.
“Job hunt?” Liam says, taking the stool next to me without asking, motioning to the notebook on the bar that I’ve been making notes in.
My heart hitches. I flip my notebook over. “Something like that.”
“You drinking the IPA?”
“Yep.”
“Any good?”
“It’ll do.”
He catches the bartender’s eye, points to my glass, and puts up two fingers. The bartender nods and takes two glasses down.
“What’s up, kid?” Liam asks.
“Shouldn’t you stop calling me that by now?”