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Who?

Had a neighbor come by? Or did Max Conroy have a fit of conscience?

Jimmy was on his own—for now. He would be all right. He’d hear the cop cars coming and go to ground.

She continued to canvass the town. Didn’t talk to anybody, just played tourist. She knew she didn’t look like a tourist, but she also knew that if she looked at anyone who regarded her with curiosity, the person would likely look uncomfortably away. They said the best assassins were nondescript and blended into a crowd, and that was true. But she’d made a living being the other kind. She knew she could be mistaken for a man, depending on what she wore and how she carried herself. People would remember her. But they usually looked away, embarrassed and guilty because they didn’t want to gawk. They tried to forget her. They thought of her as a freak, not someone who might be dangerous.

She could change clothes, put on a wig, and be a different person. She’d made the transformation dozens of times.

She called Jimmy and he answered on the first ring. “Where are you?”

“I’m laying low,” he said.

“They at the house?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Can you get around them?”

“Sure. I’m up on the hill. They can’t see me, but I can see them.”

“You talk to anybody?”

“I saw one lady out with her horses. She looked smart, though, so I stayed away.”

“So what do you think?”

“I don’t think he’s here.”

“He’s probably headed for town. Meet me outside the Subway, OK? Don’t let anybody see you.”

“It might take a while.”

“That’s OK. I’ll keep looking for him, but now that they know what’s in the bomb shelter, we’ve got to get out of here. So try to get there in an hour, all right?”

“Roger,” Jimmy said.

MAX KNEW AT some point he had to leave the culvert. He could hear thunder, and if the rains came, the dry arroyo would fill up fast and funnel into the culvert—he could drown. But he was tired. After all he’d been through—the adrenaline rush—he could barely keep his eyes open. Being here, under the road, made him feel that he was not only safe, but invincible. He’d locked all three kidnappers into the prison of their own making. He’d survived a gunfight with a tough guy like Corey. He’d managed to give the woman and the boy the slip, as well as the sheriff. The only thing standing in his way now was a need for stealth and a need for transportation.

In fact, he felt better than he had in a long time.

For so long Max had been a victim of circumstances—a victim of his own making. He’d gone along to get along. He’d dutifully done what his press agent told him to do, what his manager told him what to do, what his business manager told him to do, what his CPA told him to do, what his financial advisor told him to do, what his wife told him to do. They all had their own agendas, and Max realized he’d just drifted, hating himself more and more, drinking and taking whatever prescription drug was available at the time. And, since he was a star, the drugs were always available, all the time.

Strangely, he didn’t feel a craving for the drugs. How could he have lost the dependency on prescription drugs so easily? He remembered Gordon telling him that sensory deprivation therapy was the most useful tool in combating addiction, that in many cases, people just…lost the urge.

Here he was, sitting in a culvert with possibly two killers coming after him, and now Max finally felt as if he was his own man.

That feeling lasted about fifteen minutes. Then he heard footfalls.

At first, he thought he was hearing things. The footfalls were so light. Just the faintest tap on pavement, hardly enough to register. But the humming. Tuneless, barely there, like someone was thinking aloud by humming.

Then no sound at all.

He waited.

His heart rate jumped into the red zone. He eased the Smith & Wesson out of the duffel. How many people had he pointed the thing at? How many shots had he fired? It didn’t seem like him, but right now he was the hunted, and he went by pure instinct.

Max felt as if he’d been melted down to the steel of his own core. He tasted it, like metal in his mouth. Determination. Anyone who poked his head into the culvert would risk getting it blown off.

He aimed at the half circle of sunshine and shadow. The white sand of the wash, the weird green cornlike grass, stalks rustling slightly in the ozone-scented breeze. The sky like a dark bruise beyond…

The click of shoes on gravel.

Was he imagining it?

Another shift of the shoe on pavement. No, he was not imagining it.

The kid.

The skinny little kid with the big gun.

We’ll see whose gun is bigger.

The sound of the voice in his own head shocked him.

Whatever was in his head wanted the boy to come down here. Wanted to blow him to kingdom come.

Thunder grumbled.

The air seemed both electric and still. Everything stopped. He was suspended, here in this tunnel made out of corrugated tin, with the accumulated trash hooked onto the rocks, the whole world standing still…

The kid plopped down off the bank. Max saw his elbow and one sneaker-clad foot. Just the side of him. Kid had a purple yo-yo, was playing walk the dog.

Max sighted down the barrel of the Smith & Wesson.

Make my day.

Then he heard canned music—a ringtone.

Max watched the kid’s legs. The knees bent. The kid sat down on the bank of the wash, his legs swinging, kicking back at the dirt. The ringtone stopped. The kid said, “What?”

Then he said, “I was just going—”

Then he said, “OK.”

His knees came into the frame briefly, his elbows flapping, the tip of his head. Then he scrambled up the bank.

Max realized his hands, which had trained the gun steadily on the half circle of daylight, were beginning to shake.

Adrenaline.

He waited. He did not lower the gun.

The Smith & Wesson seemed to weigh a hundred pounds. His arms were tired. He knew it wasn’t the weight of the gun. He knew it wasn’t the way he held his arms out in front of him. He knew it was the weight of anger, fear, and determination.

And he knew that the weight was an acknowledgment of something else: he would have killed that kid.

Killed that kid, and rejoiced over it.

Chapter Twenty-Five

PAT ACTED AS if Tess were still a deputy. That was OK with her. He had his pride. But she didn’t like the fact that he was phoning it in. He stared down at the three bloody corpses in the bomb shelter and said, “This is going to be one bad mother of a day.”

Tess had met Sam P. and Luther. She’d arrested Corey once for assault. She’d had no idea Sam had a bomb shelter, but the house was old and built in a time when bomb shelters were popular.

Tess knew she’d be seeing this tableau in her nightmares—every stark detail. At will, she could see any and all of the crime scenes she’d been called to as a detective in Albuquerque. The familiar stink rose up, a bloated miasma, along with the flies that had already found the dead men. There was the overwhelming stench of death, nine parts spoiled meat and one part the coppery odor of blood, which lay in the membranes of her mouth. She felt her gorge rise but willed it to back down.

“So, what do we do now, hotshot?” Pat said. He kept his voice light, as if it were a joke.

She said, “I’m kind of new on the job.”

“Right.” Pat started giving instructions. Everyone out of the house, now that they’d cleared it. Crime scene tape around the house and yard, make sure to rope off the carport. One deputy to keep people from coming in—that would be Derek, who’d have the police log. Then it was just the two of them. Gloves and booties. “You wanna take the photos?” Pat asked Tess. “Or is just looking enough? You probably have it all memorized down to the fly on ol’ Corey’s ankle.”