I backed out of the trailer and closed the door. I turned the hangar lights back on, dropped the padlock into an outside drain, and hustled to my car. The marshals by the Crown Victoria remained unconscious.

Each new thing that I learned so far-the murders, the aliens, my orders from the Araneum, the crashed airplanes-was like another big rock in my mental knapsack. More weight to carry to what destination?

I got back to Midway Airport, bought a round-trip ticket for Kansas City, and sat with a cup of coffee in the passenger terminal where the morning sun could hit me. I watched the red orb rise over the ragged horizon beyond the airport perimeter.

As a vampire, I’d seen the sunrise through the thick, dark lenses of welder’s goggles, while wearing heavy clothing to protect my skin. Now I was so used to my human skin that I didn’t feel the slightest tremor of fear when the sun advanced past the edge of the earth. The sun grew bright enough to sting my eyes through the contacts and I looked away, a reminder that I only looked human. I felt the gentle warmth against my cheek and the back of my hands.

Because of all the stupid pain-in-the-ass security rules, I had to sneak blood with me. I hid three ounces of B-positive (a whole three ounces!) in a travel-size bottle of shampoo the TSA screeners had waved through.

I emptied the bottle into my coffee. The small amount of blood was enough to quench my vampire thirst until my next big fix. The rest of my supply had to travel in checked baggage.

Again, as before, the question was where to find Goodman. The man flitted before me, elusive as a mirage.

Once in the Kansas City airport, I scouted the counter for Prairie Air. I followed a maintenance worker to the men’s room, zapped him, pushed him into a stall, and took his badge.

I swiped the badge to unlock a door to the secure part of the terminal. The employee lounge for Prairie Air wasn’t anything fancy: two long tables in the middle, stackable plastic chairs scattered across the linoleum floor, a microwave, refrigerator, and coffeemakers. Copies of the Kansas City Star and the Chicago Tribune lay on the tables. Headlines on the newspapers announced yesterday’s crash. A wipe board on the far wall had been scrawled with red and blue markers:

There was a list of names with one crossed out. Karen Beck. Who was she?

Women and men in Prairie Air uniforms-shirts or blouses that were dusty brown at the shoulders and faded to a bleached straw color around the waists, plus meadow-green trousers or skirts-hustled through the doors leading to the check-in counters. Everyone looked busy and it would’ve been difficult to snag anyone without attracting attention. Maybe I could find someone outside on a smoke break or getting off work.

I went out the employee exit and stepped into the bright sunlight. I slipped the badge into my pocket. The smell of cigarette smoke lingered in the air, menthols and unfiltered, but the smokers had since left. A concrete walkway led to an employee parking lot on the other side of a chain-link fence.

The door opened behind me and slammed against the stop. A short blonde with a pixie cut, in her early thirties, slender, wearing the Prairie Air uniform, carried a cardboard box jammed with framed photos, stuffed animals, ceramic cups, her brown work shoes, and a wadded pair of panty hose. She was bare-legged. Cheap flip-flops slapped the bottoms of her feet. A paper visitor’s tag pinned to her collar had her name written with a felt-tip pen. Karen Beck.

She plowed past me. The box raked my arm and she didn’t even glance back to apologize.

I raised my sunglasses. Her aura looked like the surface of a red sea in turmoil. Tendrils of anger writhed from the periphery of the penumbra.

I lowered my sunglasses. “Ms. Beck.”

She kept walking.

I followed and repeated her name.

She stopped and turned around. Her green eyes burned like twin flares. “What do you want?”

“A talk.”

“I’m done with talking. If you need something to do, go fuck yourself.”

Interesting Midwestern pleasantry. I smiled to deflect her anger. “Need help with the box?”

She gave me the once-over. “I can manage.” Her voice softened. “Sorry. I had a really bad day. I just got fired.”

Was that why her name was crossed out on the wipe board?

“Sorry to hear that.”

“Not as sorry as I am, believe me. It was a shitty job but I needed the money.” Karen shifted her grasp on the box.

“Why’d you get fired?”

“The real reason? I work for a bunch of assholes.”

“Is there an official reason?”

“I wouldn’t cooperate.”

“With what?”

Karen opened her mouth and stopped. She closed her mouth and her forehead creased in puzzlement. “Where’s your badge? Who are you?”

“My name is Felix Gomez.”

Had Karen gotten canned for refusing to cooperate with a crash investigation? What did she know or do that made it worth losing this job? The hunch returned and I decided to chance it.

“I’m here because of Vanessa Tico and Janice Wyndersook.”

The creases in Karen’s forehead deepened into a V. “Are you with the media?”

I shook my head. “I’m an investigator. A friend of the family hired me.”

Karen squinted suspiciously. “Which family?”

“Vanessa’s,” I lied.

“The crash happened just yesterday,” Karen said. “Seems pretty damn quick to hire an investigator.”

Time to redirect the conversation to the questions I wanted answered. “Were Vanessa and Janice on Flight 2112 to Chicago Midway?”

Karen looked past my shoulder to the entrance. “If I talk to you, are people going to get in trouble?”

“Some will.”

“Good.” She nodded toward the parking lot. “Let’s continue this discussion someplace else.”

Karen loaded her fork with cashew chicken, pea pods, and steamed rice. We were in the Ling Ding Chinese Palace and Karen was finishing her fourth plate from the lunch buffet. The torn remnant of the paper visitor’s tag dangled from a safety pin on her collar.

“Good thing it’s a big buffet,” I said.

Karen brought her hand to cover her mouth while she chewed. “Sorry, but I was starving.” Rice dribbled onto her blouse.

Having lunch had been Karen’s idea. If someone with information you needed wanted to talk, then put them in a comfortable environment and let them blab.

I moved food around on my plate and didn’t do much except pick at it. The buffet looked good enough, but without blood even the most sumptuous of gourmet meals tasted like wet sawdust.

“What do you get from all this?” Karen asked.

“It’s my job.”

“How did Janice Wyndersook’s parents get you on the case so fast?”

Had Karen forgotten that I said Vanessa’s folks had hired me or was she testing me?

“I work for Vanessa’s family.”

“Oh, that’s right.” Karen nodded. She looked away for a moment.

“You don’t act like you’re heartbroken about being fired,” I said.

“You can’t believe what they expected me to live on,” she replied. “I’m trying to get back on my feet financially, so I scrimp on everything. I’ve been living on cream of wheat and canned ravioli from the food bank.”

“Back on your feet from what?” I brought a helping of Szechuan pork to my lips and set it back on my plate.

“What else? An asshole criminal of an ex.”

“Criminal?”

“Really. A fucking crook. He cleaned out our joint bank account, maxed out our credit cards buying gold coins, and split town in my car with his cousin the stripper. First cousin, I need to add, the incestuous tramp.” Karen shoved food into her mouth between sentences. “God, if love is blind then my eyes must have been plucked out of my head on this one.”