Wonderly Square, Pennsylvania
“He’s a big fat liar,” Waggs said through the phone.
“You don’t know that,” Zig replied, gripping the steering wheel, the small earbud microphone swaying near his chin.
“I do know that, Ziggy. And y’know how I know?”
“Because you looked him up.”
“Because I looked him up . . . and more important, because of what I found,” Waggs said. As head of the FBI unit that gathered terrorists’ biometrics from explosive devices, Amy Waggs was a master at uncovering what people left behind. As Zig’s first friend at Dover, back when her husband had decided he was gay and asked for permission to date his law partner Andrew, she was also a master at Zig.
“Can I make a prediction, Ziggy?”
“Is this a real question, or is this like that time when you tried to convince me that oatmeal cookies were real cookies, even though we both know they’re cruel insults made of cardboard?”
“Wow, going with an old joke about oatmeal cookies,” she said, well aware of how Zig always dealt with nervousness.
“That’s a new joke.”
“And an old habit. Remember that night on the first anniversary of your divorce,” she said, “when Charmaine posted all those Facebook photos of her and her friends at some bar, all of them making horrible kissy faces and toasting with their fruity pink drinks like it was some middle-age bachelorette party? Y’know how many jokes you made that night, Ziggy?”
Zig stayed silent, remembering the photos perfectly, especially the one where Charmaine, his ex, was smiling wide, looking genuinely happy. On that night, Zig didn’t call anyone. But Waggs called him.
“This is me, Ziggy. No more jokes. Whoever’s chasing Nola, however she’s tied to Colonel Mint’s death, I’m telling you . . . the more you dive into this, the more you’re gonna get hurt.”
“Waggs, I appreciate the concern, but—”
“You’re not listening. This is what Nola always does. The moment someone puts their neck out for her, she chops their head off.”
Glancing in his rearview, Zig spotted a black Acura. Washington, D.C., plates. Not a big deal. D.C. was barely an hour and a half away. “Can you please just tell me what you found about her brother?”
“No. Not until you open your eyes. I know you and Nola have a history—she grew up in your hometown, and more important, was friends with your daughter . . .”
“This has nothing to do with Maggie!”
Waggs let out a laugh. A real one. “You really can’t make peace with her, can you?”
“Who? Nola or my daughter?”
“There’s your problem, Ziggy. Sometimes I’m not sure you can even tell the difference.”
With a tug of his sweaty hands, Zig pulled off at the exit for his small town of Wonderly Square. Where Nature Smiles for Five Miles, read the homemade wooden sign. On his right was the town’s main strip mall, which always reminded Zig of the Twin Pines Mall from Back to the Future, where the DeLorean first hits eighty-eight miles per hour. Doc Brown had it right. Time travel was risky.
“By the way, Ziggy, in case you haven’t noticed, Nola didn’t ask for your help. In fact, near as I can tell, even after they tried to nab her, Nola actively avoided your involvement. So let’s start again: Why’re you suddenly so obsessed?”
Hitting the brakes at the end of the exit ramp, Zig eyed a heavyset Hispanic woman on the side of the road. She was dressed in a ratty Philadelphia Eagles T-shirt, selling flowers from a white plastic bucket. Locals called her Big Philly. Zig called her Luciana.
“Gerbera daises,” Luciana mouthed to Zig, pointing to her beat-up assortment of red, orange, and yellow flowers that everyone knew were the week-olds from Bouquet of Sun, the local flower shop. As usual, Zig rolled down his window and gave Luciana a dollar. As usual, he didn’t take any flowers.