Page 88 of Red Line

“How do you think he comes across the bodies to do that with?”

“He’s strong. Maybe he digs them up?”

“Wouldn’t that be too tiring?”

“Do you think that’s why he fell asleep so quick just now?”

Nomad felt them lean and peer again.

“Hard to tell. But look, he has manicured fingernails. There’s no dirt under them.”

“Isn’t that what the bad guy would do after hitting someone with their car? They go to the car wash to clean off all the evidence?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Do you think he hits them with a car? The dead bodies he sleeps with? You know, like makes his own?”

Nomad was having trouble keeping his face slack. He’d remember this conversation to share with his Echo brothers. This was nuts.

“Then he’d be a serial killer, wouldn’t he?”

“He would, and he didn’t say that. He said he had narcolepsy.”

After watching him fold into his spot, the woman in front had been kind enough to leave her chair upright. But she leaned it back and looked at his row mates through the crack. “That word you’re using is necrophilia. Necrophilia has to do with dead bodies. The word he said wasnarcolepsy. Narcolepsy is a sleeping disorder that makes someone sleepy during the day. And they can go to sleep at any time. He was probably kidding. He was trying to tell you he was tired and going to sleep.”

“Oh, he was tired,” the middle seat said. “He was just tired. That’s different than what I was thinking.”

The woman in front pulled her head out of the crack and turned around, putting the chair back upright.

Nomad worked to keep his chuckle internal.

“Yeah.” The aisle seat said, “I wonder if there’s a step down from—what did she say? Necrophilia?—like not wanting to get with someone who’s dead, but maybe just sleeping.”

“I honestly wouldn’t mind with a guy that looks like him.”

“Heispretty while he sleeps.”

“Ladies,” the flight attendant held out napkins, “what can I get you to drink?”

Chapter Thirty-Four

Nomad

Nomad took the rental car to the Marrakech airport. He wasn’t missing anything. With the mic on Elena’s phone open, he could hear her snoring lightly in her sleep. As long as her phone held some battery life and there was a bit of WIFI, Langley would record her continuously, and the AI would pull out the conversation pockets.

Besides, it fit their cover better that Nicholi went to collect his wife, Cassie.

After Red made it through exit security, Nomad took the handle of her suitcase and wheeled it out. “Hey Cassie, how was your flight?” He laced her fingers with his.

“Good. And yours, Nicholi?”

“I survived,” he laughed. “Elena is taking a siesta. And I thought it would be nicer for you if you didn’t have to navigate to our place on your own.”

He was mission-focused.

So, the fact that he missed her and looked forward to being with her was pressed to the recesses of his awareness.

“Much appreciated.” Red climbed into the left-hand passenger seat while he put the luggage in the back. As soon as Nomad slid under the wheel on the right-hand side, she asked. “What have you found out?”

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