Max pawed at the gun on the seat again.
Tess was almost out of her harness.
They were in an amphitheater. No, that wasn’t right. But there were a lot of rocks—boulders. Big, round, vanilla-colored boulders and spears of yucca. There was a place in California where they used to shoot otters—he and his dad had gone out there once; most of it was long gone, but the area looked somewhat like this…Why was he thinking about that?
Pick up the gun.
He did.
Magically, his fingers came alive, wrapped around the butt.
Fire a warning shot at the kid. Scare him off.
He aimed through the window, shot to the right of the kid and down. Didn’t want to hurt him. He’d wanted to once, when he was in the culvert, but now he realized that he’d been wrong. You don’t hurt a kid.
Just scare him.
Both hands holding the gun, he shot. The gun kicked. He thought the butt hit his jaw.
Funny thing—the kid reacted. He fell over like a rag doll. Flopped for a second and was still.
Tess, who was still struggling with her harness, turned her head in the kid’s direction. Her face was pale. She said, “Did you shoot him?”
“No, no, I was aiming away from him!”
“Ricochet,” she said.
He looked at the surrounding rocks. The kid lay still, blood seeping out underneath him. He was dead. No question about it.
“Help me with this,” Tess said. “You may have to cut me out.”
He reached over, still in shock. He had a jackknife and he sawed on the shoulder harness belt’s heavy material. His thoughts were slow, but he knew he was missing something.
“Where is the woman?” Tess said.
The woman.
He squinted past the kid. Everything surreal. “I don’t see her.”
“Maybe she’s still in the truck. Maybe she’s hurt. Get me out of this and I’ll go look.”
He cut her loose and she shoved at the door. It creaked open. She slipped out. She ran from boulder to boulder, just like they did in the movies, and all Max could do was watch.
He stared at the kid. Thinking: get up .
The kid lay there. The blood soaking into the ground. It was a reddish stain, diluted by the dirt.
“Get up,” he mumbled.
Time floated.
Shower Cap peered in through the window and grinned.
“Where’s your boat?” Max asked.
He heard the Caprice door grate open. Tess leaned in. “You OK?”
“I think so.”
“The woman’s in the truck. She’s not moving—has a big bruise on her forehead. There’s a place up the road—I’m going to call it in. You should stay still. I don’t like that cut on your leg.”
He wished he hadn’t thrown her phone out the window. But it had seemed like a good idea at the time…He glanced down and saw blood. Moved his foot and heard the squishing sound of blood.
“Wait! I’ll go with you.” Realized he was shivering.
It was the wind. The temperature was dropping, the sky dark. The car must be facing west, because he saw the sun near the horizon like a baleful red eye, narrowing against the onslaught of the clouds.
She stared back up the embankment at the truck. Nodded. “OK, let’s go.”
They left the car and started walking along the highway. Max felt himself shivering. Thunder grumbled and the wind picked up even more. Rain spotted the highway with drops the size of quarters.
Then came the onslaught.
He looked back in the growing twilight of rain. One last ray of sun gleamed off the windshield. He squinted. Did he see movement? Or was the woman inside unconscious, or even dead?
He was so tired. He didn’t want to think about the boy. Put one foot in front of the other. He held the gun, though. He wasn’t going to give up the gun. But he stayed with the cop. She was the leader.
Did that mean he would be turning himself in?
He cleared his throat. “I didn’t kill anybody.” Amended it. “Except for the boy, and that was an accident.”
She said nothing.
“You believe me, right? Those guys that died in the house—I saw the woman and the boy searching the house. They were there. I could put them there. I’m a witness.”
“What about the two men at the mine?”
“What two men? What mine?”
The detective said nothing.
He reached for her arm, but stopped short of grabbing her. It was as if she were protected by a force field. “What’s going on? They killed someone else?”
She looked at him, her face inscrutable in the gloom and the rain. “Are you just being a good actor?”
He stepped back. “Actor? No! I didn’t kill the guys in the house. I did not ! Why should I? Why would I? I have everything I want in the world. I have a career. I’m well paid— very well paid. I have a wife and…”
He faltered. He knew she could read through him. He knew the question that was coming.
She said it. “Then why are you in rehab if your life’s so good?”
“You don’t believe me?”
She started walking again. “It’s not what I believe. It’s what the county attorney will believe.”
“Then I’m under arrest?”
“Look at it this way: you’ve got a chance to tell your story.”
He laughed. “It’s a moot point, isn’t it? You can’t hold me if I don’t want to stay. What are you going to do? Shoot me? If I try to escape, are you going to shoot me?” He glanced at her holstered weapon. “You might need those bullets, if that woman wakes up and comes after us.”
Silence.
“Who else did she kill?” he asked. “Who else is dead?”
“Ah, the right question at last.” She looked up at him. Those steady eyes, so calm. Calm and in control. “We think she killed a man named Hogart and a man named Riis. They were the men who kidnapped you in the limo.”
And that was when he knew he was well and truly fucked.

DAVE FINLEY CHECKED his watch for the hundredth time. He’d been parked on the street by the tamarisk tree for almost an hour, had walked over to check out the Subway twice and the Pizza Hut once. He’d driven around the parking lot and up and down the main drag of Paradox and onto the patchwork of intersecting streets, which petered out quickly into desert. Not much of a town, that was for sure.
Now he just sat in his truck, waiting.
He’d tried the number Max had called him from, but it just kept ringing. Max wasn’t answering his cell either.
“Where the hell are you, buddy?”
Dave took a drag off his cigarette (his fifth—he always smoked more when he was nervous). He had the radio on, but so far all he was hearing was country music.
For all he knew, Max was on a nice cushy jet heading back to LA. While he sat out here waiting.
But he doubted it.
Max had always attracted trouble. Look at that wife of his, Talia. Now ol’ Max had painted himself into a corner with that baby from Africa and no matter what he did, he was screwed.
Dave flicked the cigarette out into the street and watched the cherry bounce. He needed to quit. In fact, he needed to do a lot of things. Dave stared into the rain and darkness, watching the light show over the mountains. Still keeping an eagle eye out for Max, but he had the feeling Max was gone. Had no idea where he was, or what he should do now.
He’d already done that little favor for Jerry—Dave had found a woman and her daughter who fit the bill. The mother and daughter had been ahead of him in line at the Safeway, believe it or not, and he had seen the mother using a food stamp card. He’d struck up a conversation with the mom and handed her a line of bullshit about an audition for a small part in a film, that it would mean good money—“union scale.” She was starstruck, all right. He told her not to tell anyone because they were behind schedule and didn’t want to audition too many people—they wanted to cast the film as soon as possible.
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