“Is that their car we were in?”

“Their second car. Not used much. I sneaked it out of the garage in the middle of the night, drove it to the parking lot of that restaurant, and left it. I’ve been coming and going from there. As far as the neighbors know, the car is still in the garage.”

He felt his way along the wall till he reached the doorway to his bedroom. “In here.”

When they were inside and the door closed behind them, he released her hand and felt his way over to the desk. He found the lamp by feel and turned it on. They blinked against the sudden light. He motioned toward the window that overlooked the front yard. “Crude but effective.”

He’d stretched a dark blanket over the window frame and secured it all around with tape, so that not even a sliver of light would shine through. “From the outside all you see is drawn blinds.”

“Genius.”

“More like desperation.”

A laptop computer was on the desk. He switched it on. He’d found it in the spare bedroom. Coach had always cursed computers, saying they were “too damn hard to operate,” so Griff supposed it was Ellie who’d joined the age of electronics.

While it was booting, he watched Laura as she moved around the room, looking at photos, trophies, clippings, and other memorabilia of his life-starting at age fifteen.

“You began early.”

She was looking at a photo of him taken before he was old enough to shave. He was kneeling with one knee on the turf, wearing a football uniform with full pads, his helmet tucked under his arm, his expression as badass as he could make it. The photos and awards in this room chronicled his football career from those adolescent teams up to that fateful play-off game with the Redskins.

“You loved it, didn’t you?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Do you regret what you did?”

“You have no idea.” He glanced at the computer monitor. It wasn’t a speedy, streamlined new model. Programs were still loading. Laura sat down on the edge of the bed and folded her hands in her lap, like she was settling in to listen.

Griff looked at a framed photo of himself caught in the motion of throwing a pass. It had been taken during the game that had won his high school the state championship. Coach’s team. The school district had held a victory parade upon their return from Houston, where the game had been played in the Astrodome. Up to that point, it had been the highlight of Griff’s life.

“You know from the day you start that it can’t last forever,” he said. “Even if you go all the way to the pros, it’s short term. Thirty is old. Thirty-five is ancient. And that’s if you escape serious injury. You’re never more than one play away from the end of your career. Or even the end of your life. Each time the ball is snapped, it’s a tempt of fate.”

He turned his head and looked at her. “But I wouldn’t trade a day of it. Not a single day. I loved the buildup that was part of each game. By kickoff time, I’d have a knot in my gut harder than a fist, but it was a good kind of anxiety, you know?”

She nodded.

“I loved the snap, getting my hands around that ball. I loved the adrenaline rush I got every time I called a tricky play and it was perfectly executed. I received perks and favors all along the way, a college education, millions in salary. But the truth is, Laura, I’d have played for nothing.

“Because even on the worst days, I loved the game. I loved it even on the Monday mornings when I could barely get out of bed for the aches and pains.” He smiled. “Most mornings it still takes me half an hour before I can stand up straight.”

He looked at the computer. It was still grinding. “I remember one Sunday afternoon in Texas Stadium, lying on the turf after I’d been sacked by a thousand pounds of Broncos in front of a capacity home crowd. I looked up through that stupid hole in the ceiling of the stadium, and even then, knocked flat on my butt and having lost seven yards on the play, I was so goddamn happy to be there I laughed out loud. Everybody thought I’d had my bells rung, got a concussion, or just plain cracked under pressure. No one could guess I was laughing out of pure joy over the game. The game.” He shook his head and snuffled a sad laugh. “Yeah, I loved it. God, I loved it.”

Several moments elapsed. He heard Laura draw in a long breath and let it out slowly. “And they loved you.”

When he looked back at her, she was staring at a photo of him with the Millers. “You mean Coach? Ellie?” He shrugged uneasily. “Emphasis on the past tense.”

She indicated the walls, the full shelves, and said softly, “It’s all still here, Griff.”

He held her gaze for a moment, then turned back to the computer. “Finally.” He moved the cursor to the icon that would link him to the Internet. He felt Laura move up behind him and look over his shoulder.

“What’s your plan?”

“Haven’t got one. Go on some kind of search engine, I guess. See if I can find this address. Start with city of Dallas, move to Dallas County, expand to the whole damn state if necessary.”

“Is that your top speed?”

He typed by hunting and pecking. He looked up at her over his shoulder. “Are you faster?”

They switched places. She sat in the desk chair. He braced his arms on the back of it so he could see the monitor. She was a much more proficient typist. “Manuelo didn’t write down whether it was Lavaca Street or Road or Lane,” she remarked. “We’ll have to try them all.”

“How many Lavaca Streets, Roads, et cetera do you think there are in Texas?”

“Hundreds?”

“That’s my guess, too. And Rodarte’s got better computers and more people.”

“Can I make a suggestion?”

“Be my guest.”

“Tax records. Every property is taxed.”

“You think a person who provides fake documents to illegal immigrants pays property taxes?”

“The taxes would be assessed. Whether or not they’re paid is another matter.”

“Okay. Are there tax records online?”

“We’ll try. Tax assessor records for Dallas County?”

“Knock yourself out.”

She began searching for such a website. “Tell me about Bill Bandy.”

The request surprised him, and for a moment he didn’t say anything. Then, “What do you want to know?”

“How you met. How you got involved with him.”

He gave her a condensed version. “When I got in over my head, he introduced me to a syndicate. They canceled my debt, in exchange for a few interceptions, fumbles. Nothing that couldn’t happen to any quarterback on any given Sunday.”

“Bandy betrayed you.”

“The feds offered him probation in exchange for setting me up, and I’ll bet they didn’t have to twist his arm too hard.”

“There’s a Lavaca Street in Dallas, but the addresses have three digits, not four,” she reported.

“Try Lavaca Road.”

“The newspapers said that Bandy delivered the two million to your Turtle Creek condo.”

“True. He was wearing a wire. Second I took the box of cash from him, agents came busting through my front door, read me my rights.”

“You were put in jail?”

“Yes,” he said tightly, remembering the humiliation of that experience. “Wyatt Turner got me released on the condition that I give up my passport. Soon as I got out, I went looking for Bandy.”

Laura stopped typing, turned and looked up at him.

“Right. It was a stupid thing to do. But I was furious. I guess I wanted to frighten him into thinking he was as good as dead for setting me up.” He cursed himself under his breath. “What a goddamn fool I was. When I got to Bandy’s place, the door was open. I went in. I almost walked out without seeing him. He’d been stuffed between the back of the sofa and the wall. His neck had been wrenched so hard his head was practically facing backward.”

“Who killed him?”

“I’m sure the Vista boys were behind it. They wanted him silenced, so he couldn’t give them up like he had me.”