Save Me from Dangerous Men (Nikki Griffin #1)(58)

Jess blew an exasperated mouthful of water. “Sorry, I don’t get it. We thought about everywhere she went—everywhere she drove, at least. This is why I run a bookstore and don’t solve cold cases, Nikki. I thought my spa idea was genius. After that I got nothing.”

“It wasn’t a bad idea,” I said. Jess had been right about the Seder. I had always been the one to find the carefully folded napkin every year. It drove the older boys crazy. They couldn’t figure out why a little girl always beat them to it. It wasn’t coincidence. While they ran around straining adolescent muscles to lift up the couch or checking the sleeves of the record collection, I’d stood thinking. Not looking for hiding places that I’d choose, but places that Mr. Berkovich would pick. That was the difference. Adding up both the physical and nonphysical characteristics I had observed in him over the years: a mischievous, playful side; fairly short; deliberate by nature; a bad knee that made him less likely to bend low; very proud of his creativity. Adding up those things told me a lot about where he might hide something. Everything there to see, so long as I looked. Each year the hiding places got tougher as Mr. Berkovich became more determined to stump me.

I always figured them out. Because I knew how to look.

Like now. The answer lay somewhere in the papers we’d gone through, somewhere in Karen Li’s life. And her life had been here. She hadn’t gotten on a plane and deposited it thousands of miles away. I was certain. Yet Jess was right. We thought about everywhere she went. Everywhere she drove, at least. We had considered everything.

Where she drove.

Drove.

And then I knew.

“The airport,” I said.

Jess was surprised. “The airport? I thought you said she didn’t take it on a plane.”

I was thinking about the pages of timestamped locations we had pored through. “Not the airport, exactly.”

“Then where?”

“She went to the rental car center next to the airport.”

“Nikki. Not sure how long it’s been since you got on a plane? That’s kind of how things work. Take a flight, rent a car—what’s weird about that?”

“Exactly,” I agreed. “Take a flight, rent a car. Normal. But Karen Li didn’t get off a plane in some other city and rent a car. She rented a car here.”

“So?”

“She had a car. Why rent one?”

“Maybe her car broke down?”

“The woman drove a brand-new Porsche. The dealership would’ve given her a loaner. And besides, if the car had broken down I bet anything it was still under warranty, so the last address the tracker would show would be the dealership service center, or at least a mechanic. But she never brought it anywhere for service.”

“So what does that mean? If she didn’t want her car for some reason, why not just bring it into the dealership for some made-up reason and get a loaner? Or rent one in San Jose, where she lived? Why bother going through the inconvenience of renting from the airport?”

I nodded. “Exactly. The airport is the last place you rent a car if you have a choice, because it’s not only out of the way, it’s always the most expensive. Have you ever looked at one of those mile-long receipts, a dozen different fees and surcharges? Travelers don’t have the luxury of choosing. They’re rushed, they don’t know the area, so they pick the nearest option. Meaning the airport. Maximum convenience. But anyone needing to rent a car in their home city would go anywhere except an airport. Why would Karen Li rent a car here?”

“I don’t get it, then. Why?”

“For the same reason we missed it. We overlooked it just the way she planned. Maybe she thought she was being followed. Maybe she even suspected her car was on someone’s radar. She was scared. Rent a car out of the blue and it draws suspicion. People wonder why. But park at an airport, visit a rental car center? No one thinks twice. Those two actions fit together. Like getting popcorn at a movie theater. We don’t notice things that seem to add up. We notice things that don’t.”

I was already getting out of the water, reaching for my robe. “Her car was at SFO for a day. But nothing says she even got on a plane. Karen Li didn’t go to the airport to fly somewhere. She went for cover.”





31


At San Francisco Airport we followed signs to the rental car facility. Different car companies were arrayed in a line of desks: Avis, Enterprise, National, Hertz, Budget, Dollar. It was busy. Lines in front of every desk. Travelers, most looking frazzled or sleepy. People wanted very different things out of life, but they united around certain commonalities. For instance, no one wanted to be standing in line at a rental car center. Didn’t matter who you were.

“How do we know which one?” Jess asked.

I had thought about this. I remembered Karen pulling the Narwhal’s card out of her wallet. The colored edges of the credit and membership cards. The strip of yellow. “Hertz,” I said. “That’s the one.” We skipped the front desks and lines, instead heading for the elevator. I pushed the button for the Hertz floor and we rose smoothly.

“What are we going to do?”

“Now we try plan A,” I said.

“What’s plan A?”

“I am.”

“And what if plan A doesn’t work?”