Read Online Blood Flag: A Paul Madriani Novel by Steve Martini - Free Book Online

of the theater and the location.
    “What time did you get home?” he asks.
    “I think it was about eleven thirty.”
    “Did you go home alone or did you get lucky?” he says.
    “I’m always lucky. We live together,” I tell him. “Going on five years now.”
    “But you’re not married,” says Noland.
    “Is that all right with you?”
    “Absolutely,” he says. “That way there’s no marital privilege. She can be compelled to testify against you. What’s your girlfriend’s name?”
    I give them Joselyn’s name, the fact that she’s a lawyer but doesn’t work for the firm, and some background on the Gideon Foundation, where she’s employed. “You seem to be working the theory of the jealous or jilted lover,” I say. “Can I ask why?”
    “You saw the girl. She was a looker,” says Noland. “She have any boyfriends?”
    “She was a sweet kid,” I tell him. “She was trying to work her way to law school.”
    “Then she couldn’t have been that sweet,” says Noland.
    “Cut it out, Jer.” Owen shoots him a look. “Do you know if she was seeing anyone steady?”
    “I don’t know. She had her share of dates. Who they were, I couldn’t tell you. I didn’t pry into her private life. You might check with her roommates.”
    “How did they get on, your Joselyn and Sofia?” Noland is relentless.
    “I could tell you that Joselyn liked her, but that would be a lie.” He sits up in the chair and looks at me. “ Liked is too mild a word. They bonded the minute they met. Birds of a feather, I suspect. They had a lot in common. They were both smart. Both of them came up the hard way. Poor families, worked hard. Joselyn is a lawyer. Sofia wanted to be one. They were supposed to go out to dinner tonight. Joselyn had a surprise she wanted to share with her. I’m afraid Joselyn might call before she comes by. If she does, I’m not sure I can take the call. I don’t want to have to tell her over the phone . . .” My voice starts to crack as it trails off.
    “I understand.” Owen, his immense frame sitting in the chair, his head hung low, looks at me like a bear.
    “What was this surprise?” says Noland.
    “What difference does it make now?”
    “I’d like to know.”
    “You’re not going to like it.” Given his attitude toward lawyers.
    “Humor me.”
    “Joselyn was going to tell Sofia that she and I were willing to spring for a three-year scholarship, a full ride through law school, anyplace Sofia was accepted.”
    “And you agreed to this?”
    “Yeah.”
    “What would something like that cost?” he asks.
    “I don’t have any idea.”
    “Then how did you know you could afford it?”
    “I hate to break this to you, but money is not a problem,” I tell him.
    “You must either have a thriving practice or you just bought your own printing press?”
    “Something like that.”
    As I sit there bantering with him, my mind turns over the constant question: How am I going to tell Joselyn that Sofia is gone, that she will never see her again?
    “So what you’re telling us is everybody loved Sofia?” says Noland. “Someone musta had a problem with her.”
    “You had to know her,” I say.
    “Sorry I missed the chance.”
    “So am I.” I look past him to the couch against the wall and think to myself, It was only three days ago she sat there fidgeting with her phone, fiercely independent, competent and confident, perhaps to the point of foolishness. We’ll never know. I can still see her, the ghost of Sofia, her gaze riveted on the tiny screen in her hand, the lost little girl struggling to get out, striving to grow, but now frozen forever in time.

TEN
    L ike the country it served, the headquarters of the Mossad, Israel’s principal intelligence agency, was small. It consisted of a collection of modern high-rise buildings, dark obelisks, each connected to the other like modules on a space station. It was located in an agricultural area of orchards and farm fields south of the