“They could’ve killed you, too.”

“I think they thought it would be more fun to keep me alive, let me be charged with Bandy’s murder. I’m sure it was them who tipped off the cops.”

“How did they know you were going to be at Bandy’s place?”

“I guess they figured I’d go after Bandy, at the very least to tell him how disappointed I was in him,” he said with sarcasm. “I was still kneeling beside the body when two squad cars showed up, responding to an anonymous 911 call from a pay phone, they said.”

“Vista was watching you.”

“Obviously. And if you could see this guy called Bennett, you’d think he could sit through a tornado without blinking. Anyway, here I was, facing federal charges of racketeering and illegal gambling, and there was my bookie, the one who’d ratted me out, dead on the floor.

“Enter Detective Stanley Rodarte, who’d been dispatched to investigate the crime scene. He came in and introduced himself, told me what a great ballplayer I’d been, and what a shame it was that I’d turned crooked. Then he looked at the body, looked back at me, and started laughing. It seemed that open and shut.”

“No address like this on Tarrant County’s tax records, either,” Laura said.

“Denton? What’s on the western side of Tarrant?”

She consulted a map on the screen, where the counties were delineated. “Parker.”

“Try that, too. Damn,” he said, looking at the map and realizing the scope of this effort. “This could take all night.” He consulted his watch, wondering if Rodarte had already isolated the address and was speeding toward it.

“It wasn’t the open-and-shut case Rodarte thought it would be,” Laura said.

“Bandy’s back room had been torn all to hell. Ransacked. My prints were on the sofa, the wall behind it-hell, I was kneeling beside his body when the police arrived. But they couldn’t place me in that back room, hard as Rodarte tried. The grand jury found it impossible to believe that I would avoid leaving prints or other evidence while ransacking the place, then take off gloves before killing Bandy. And if I had, where were the gloves?”

“Why was his back room ransacked?”

“Rodarte is of the opinion that Bandy had money squirreled away in there somewhere and that I helped myself to it.”

Again she turned and looked up at him. “But you didn’t have any cash stuffed in your pockets at the time, did you?”

“No. But it wouldn’t necessarily have been cash I was looking for. It could have been a bank account number. A combination to a safe. Something I could commit to memory. Later, when I was out of prison, I’d have a treasure waiting for me.” He looked at her hard. “Just so you know, I never went into Bandy’s back room. I didn’t know what was or wasn’t in there. As far as I know, he didn’t have any funds stashed away for a rainy day.”

Quietly she said, “I didn’t ask.” She turned back around and, after scanning the information on the monitor, said, “There’s no Lavaca anything in Parker County.”

Griff opened the duffel bag and removed Manuelo’s map. “Pull up that map of the state again.” She did. When it appeared on the monitor, he tapped a spot. “That red crayon star is here.” He pointed to the southern tip of the state. “Somewhere between Mission and Hidalgo.”

“We assume that’s where he entered the country. Lord, how far is that from here?”

“Four hundred miles at least. Probably closer to five.”

“Lots of counties.”

“Yeah, but I’d bet his contact wouldn’t be too far from this area. Say Manuelo came north through San Antonio and Austin.”

“Basically following I- 35.”

“Basically. Let’s concentrate on the counties immediately to the south of Dallas-Fort Worth.”

“Hood, Johnson, Ellis.”

“Check those and work your way down.”

They found it in Hill County. “Griff! There’s a Lavaca Road in Hill County. On the outskirts of town it turns into FM 2010. We thought it was a house number!”

He leaned over her, and she pointed it out on the screen.

“What town is that?” he asked.

“Itasca.”

“Repeat that,” Rodarte said.

“Itasca.”

“Where the hell is that?” He was driving with one hand, holding his cell phone to his ear with the other.

He’d had a desk cop back at the police station searching for the address Griff Burkett had rattled off to him before hanging up. Thanks to a satellite and technology he didn’t understand, Laura Speakman’s cell phone had been tracked to a movie theater. Before he could even get excited about it, they’d found the damn thing lying on the parking lot pavement.

From there the trail had gone cold because Mrs. Speakman’s car had been left at the mansion, they didn’t know what Burkett was driving now, and the moviegoers they’d questioned didn’t know diddly. Rodarte had left Carter there to try to pick up the trail. Actually, Rodarte was glad he could assign his partner another task. From here on, he preferred working alone.

Rodarte became furious thinking about Griff Burkett and his adulterous lover-had she plotted her husband’s murder with him?-laughing up their sleeves at him. The idiots he’d posted to guard her were going to be looking for jobs tomorrow. Then he was going to hurt them. And their wives. And their kids. They would come to regret the day they were born.

And that didn’t begin to cover what he had planned for Griff Burkett and the poor, innocent, grieving widow. He wished he’d fucked her when he had a chance. Who would she have told? The cops? he thought, scoffing. No way. Not when he could turn it around and tell them about her illicit affair with her husband’s killer. Yeah, he should have responded to the impulse he’d had there in her hotel room, bent her over and fucked her. His problem was he was just too nice a guy.

The desk cop was rattling off directions. “From where you’re at, go south on 35 E till you get to I-20 and head west. Then out of Fort Worth, take 35 dubya south. Watch for the exit.”

“So where’s this Lavaca Road or whatever?”

“Runs out the east side of town and turns into farm-to-market 2010. We reckon that’s where the numbers came from. It’s not exactly a street address, but it makes sense.”

“I guess,” Rodarte said, unconvinced. “But stand by in case I need to call you again.”

“I already called the local po-lice down there. Chief’s name is Marion.”

“First?”

“Last. Plus I alerted the Hill County SO. Marion’s sending a squad car to scout out the area, see if his boys can pick up anything. When you get there, you’ll have plenty of backup.”

“Is there still an APB out for Manuelo Ruiz down there?”

“I asked Marion to jog everybody’s memory.”

“And one for Griff Burkett?”

“Considered armed and dangerous. Just like you said, Detective.”

“He’s got a cop’s service weapon.”

“Told Marion that, too. Pissed him off.” After a pause, he added, “And to think we used to cheer the son of a bitch.”

“Yeah, to think.”

The best that could happen would be for Burkett to be spotted and plugged by an underpaid, overanxious Hicksville cop, a Cowboys fan who bore a grudge based on principle.

Someone else killing Burkett would remove any suspicion from him. But there was a distinct downside: it would deprive him of taking down that bastard himself, and that was something he very much looked forward to.

“What’s the number of the police station down there?” Rodarte asked the desk cop. Once he had it, he clicked off and called that number. He identified himself and was soon patched in to Chief Marion. “Rodarte, Dallas PD.”

“Yes, sir,” he said crisply.

“Just calling to follow up. What’s happening down there?”

“There’s nothing on FM 2010 except an old farmhouse. Vacant. Looks like it was abandoned a long time ago. My men said a strong wind would knock it down.”

“No shit?”

“The place was deserted. We’ll keep looking, but among my officers and the sheriff’s deputies, they don’t know of anything else out that way. Not for miles.”