Gregg Hurwitz - Last shot

The 5:00 A.M. sky was a sheet of blued steel. After a few minutes, Bear made an impatient noise, but Malane held up his hand. They'd let Dean get dressed.

The other agents milled around the porch. A lot of rumpled button-ups and bad ties. Melissa Yueh was there, too, with a sized-down team. Tim had tipped her as repayment for her help earlier. She was made up and vibrant, her face flushed with an excitement that bordered on sexual.

The immense door opened with a groan of wood. Dean tugged a cuff free of his jacket sleeve. "The hell is this?" His glare pulled to the team of agents, the rolling TV camera.

Malane said, "I'm placing you under arrest for mail and wire fraud, health-care fraud, securities fraud, failure of corporate officers to certify financial reports, destruction of audit records, and criminal conspiracy to commit involuntary manslaughter. Those are just the Title Fifteens and Eighteens. I have an SEC investigator waiting to pile on charges. The asset-freeze order went through an hour ago-you'll have a hearing on it in ten days. In the meantime you can relax in the Metropolitan Detention Center."

Melissa Yueh slid into the scene as if on wheels, now front and center with her crew, offering the play-by-play. Instinctively, Dean raised a hand to hide his face, but Malane grasped his wrist and bent it down to the handcuff.

Dean was too wise and experienced to comment.

Gripping the handcuff chain, Malane steered him down the walk past the cameras, past the agents, past the deputies. Dean slowed when he caught sight of Tim and Bear.

Dean hunched against his cuffs, and Malane rested a hand on his coiffed hair, dipping him into the dark sedan. Malane nodded at Tim, who walked over and leaned in. The interior smelled of new leather and old cigarette smoke.

Tim spoke quietly. "You're right. We couldn't link you to Tess's murder. But she's responsible for your takedown. Remember that. See her face when you close your eyes."

Dean cast a vaguely bored gaze forward. "Whatever document you may possess means nothing on its own. You've got no evidence. I'll shake you boys off like fleas."

Tim lifted his stare to the tinted opposite window. Dean's brows drew together, and then he turned. Across the wide Bel Air street, Dolan leaned against Tannino's Bronco, his arms crossed. On one side of him the marshal, Guerrera on the other.

Dean's shoulders curled in an inadvertent cringe. His chin quivered ever so slightly.

Tim slammed the door and banged the roof, and he and Bear watched the sedan drift up the street, beginning the long drive downtown. It turned the corner.

When Tim looked back, Tannino's Bronco was gone, Dolan along with it.

"Well," Bear said, "that's that. What's for breakfast?"

The desert scent of sage drifting through his open window, Tim cruised up Pearblossom Highway. Unfiltered by smog or clouds, the sun was a perfect blood-orange disk, hanging low in the western sky. He was due home for dinner, but he'd found himself on a detour after leaving the office.

This morning's L.A. Times had held no mention of Walker Jameson or Dean Kagan. In the five weeks that had passed since Walker's shooting, they-and the arrested Vector employees-had slipped farther back in the paper, the headlines moving on to terrorist chatter and earthquakes in India, until they finally fell off the back page. Tim's colorful career had left him familiar with the wax and wane of public interest. There'd be an upsurge before the trial, scheduled for early next year.

The task force had found no direct evidence linking Pierce to Walker. Morgenstein could've acted on his own, though they all knew he hadn't. His body had been found the morning after he'd been shot, the end of Walker's blood trail. The city was pressing forward with a suit against Pierce for his creative plumbing, but that would be months, if not years.

Tim threaded through the run-down community and parked in a long shadow across the street.

In his front yard, Sam Jameson crouched over the rebuilt anthill, his younger friend watching apprehensively from a few feet away. Sam lit a match, dropped it into the hole, and stood back. His little friend turned, ready to run. Red ants spilled out, swarming the top of the hill, and Sam giggled.

Kaitlin's voice sailed through the screen door. "What are you doing out there?"

Sam shoved the matches into his pocket. "Nothing."

The boys waited to see if she'd emerge, but she didn't. Sam picked up his Coke and carefully poured a rivulet down the side of the anthill, rewarding his charges.

They watched the ants dine.

A thrumming of bicycle tires over asphalt, and then the bully on the Huffy pedaled into view, approaching. Sam's head snapped up, his body tensed for fight or flight, but rather than slowing, the burly kid hoisted himself up on the pedals, lowered his head, and pumped harder. He flew past in a blur, his dirt bike curving out of sight into the park at the street's end. After a moment Sam relaxed.

Tim wondered what the hell that was about.

Kaitlin stepped outside and settled into a wicker chair on the porch, looking sad and tired and fulfilled. After a few minutes, she glanced over. Tim raised a hand in greeting, but she remained expressionless. She called out to Sam, then rose, the screen door knocking behind her. Sam said good-bye to his friend and headed in for dinner. He paused on the porch, his back to Tim. Somehow Tim knew he'd just registered his presence.

Walker Jameson had moved through prison bars and clawed his way from the trash-filled earth to avenge his sister, but in the end what he'd found to offer was a piece of himself. Blood type O, in all its universal glory. He'd balanced a cosmic account, spending his life to grant another.

On the porch Sam turned and looked across the street. He held Tim's gaze for a moment. His eyes were bright and curious, the sclera white as ivory. His mouth curved in a partial smile.

Then he went inside.

Tim stared at the dusty screen door for a few minutes before starting the drive home.

The alarm chimed at 2:00 A.M. Dray's complaint was unintelligible. Tim got dressed quietly. She made a more forgiving moan when he kissed her on her sleep-soft cheek on his way out. The Typhoon had managed to flip upside down so his head was pressed to the footboard. Tim rearranged him, gripping his sweaty torso tightly so he wouldn't slip free.

Tyler flopped back onto his pillow, chuckled to himself, remarked, "Elmo wearing diapers," and resumed sleeping.

Tim enjoyed his first traffic-free drive to Pasadena. When his headlights swept the house, he was oddly relieved to see that the lawn had been cropped, the bushes fastidiously tended. Cleanly shaven and smelling of aftershave, his father opened the door before Tim could ring. He wore a double-breasted charcoal pinstripe that looked new. Tim wondered if he'd bought it for the occasion. They nodded at each other like competing salesmen. Tim's father stepped out and locked the door, then regarded the keys in his palm for a moment before sliding them under the mat. He followed Tim down the path to the Explorer.

Tim said, "What are you doing with the house?"

"I know a guy."

Tim nodded and pulled out. Corcoran State Prison was up the 5, between Bakersfield and Fresno. The trip would take the better part of three hours. They coasted wordlessly along the freeway, his father sitting still as a mannequin, watching the scenery roll by. As they headed over the Grapevine Pass, Tim realized he hadn't had time to check to make sure his father's prison sentence was real, that Tim wasn't being deployed on leg one of a scam. All through the flat wasteland of Kern County, Tim kept alert, waiting for his father to redirect him, for a car-jacking, some new twist, but they just drove straight and silent. A glow came over the big squares of farmland flying past on either side, the first half hour looking more dusk than dawn. It wasn't until the sally-port gate came into view that Tim fully believed it was going to happen.