"Someone else picking them up?" Stevens asked.

"Not necessary," Yates said.

"What's going on?"

"Olivia Hunter used to work the clubs for Comb-Over. We flipped her yesterday."

"She knows a lot?"

"She knows enough," Yates said.

"So what's she doing with the black chick?"

"Well, she promised us that she would try to convince a woman named Kimmy Dale, a black dancer who works at the Eager Beaver, to flip too. Hunter told us that Dale knows a ton. So we gave her rope, see if she was keeping her word."

"Which it looks like she is."

"Yeah."

"So we're in good shape."

Yates looked over at Dollinger. "As long as Comb-Over doesn't find out, yeah, I think we're in real good shape. I'll meet you at the office in ten minutes, Ted. We'll talk more."

Yates pressed the end button. They were in the concourse now, heading for the exit. He and Dollinger walked shoulder to shoulder, as they'd done since elementary school. They lived on the same block in Henderson, outside of Las Vegas. Their wives had been college roommates and were still inseparable. Dollinger's oldest son was best friends with Yates's daughter Anne. He drove her to school every morning.

"There has to be another way," Yates said.

"There isn't."

"We're crossing a line here, Cal."

"We've crossed lines before."

"Not like this."

"No, not like this," Cal agreed. "We have families."

"I know."

"You have to do the math. On one side, you have one person. Candace Potter, an ex-stripper, probably an old coked-out whore, who was involved with lowlifes like Clyde Rangor and Emma Lemay. That's on one side of the equation, right?"

Yates nodded, knowing how this would go.

"On the other side are two families. Two husbands, two wives, three kids of yours, two of mine. You and me, we may not be that innocent. But the rest of them are. So we end one ex-hooker's life, maybe two if I can't get her away from this Kimmy Dale- or we let seven other lives, worthy lives, get destroyed."

Yates kept his head down.

"Us or them," Dollinger said. "In this case, it's not even a close call."

"I should go with you."

"No. We need you to be at the office with Ted. You're creating our murder scenario. When Hunter's body is found, it will naturally look like a mob hit to keep an informant quiet."

They headed outside. Night had begun to settle in now.

"I'm sorry," Yates said.

"You've pulled my butt out of plenty of fires, Adam."

"There has to be another way," Yates said again. "Tell me there's another way."

"Go to the office," Dollinger said. "I'll call you when it's done."

Chapter 55

THE SMELL OF POTPOURRI filled Kimmy's trailer.

Whenever Olivia had smelled potpourri over the past decade it brought her back to that trailer outside Vegas. Kimmy's new place still had that same smell. Olivia could feel herself start slipping back in time.

If there were train tracks nearby, this neighborhood was on the wrong side of them. The trailer had siding that seemed to be in mid-shed. Missing windows were covered with plywood. Her rusted car cowered like an abandoned dog. The driveway was oil-stained sand. But the interior, besides the aforementioned odor, was clean and what magazines would dub tastefully furnished. Nothing expensive, of course. But there were little touches. Nice throw pillows. Small figurines.

It was, in short, a home.

Kimmy grabbed two glasses and a bottle of wine. They sat on a futon couch, and Kimmy poured. The air conditioner whirred. Kimmy put her glass to the side. She reached out with both hands and gently placed them on Olivia's cheeks.

"I can't believe you're here," Kimmy said softly.

Then Olivia told her the whole story.

It took a while. She started with being sick at the club, going back to the trailer early, Cassandra's dead body, Clyde attacking her. Kimmy listened, totally rapt. She did not say a word. She cried sometimes. She shook. But she did not interrupt.

When Olivia mentioned the online post about her daughter, she saw Kimmy go rigid.

"What?"

"I met her," Kimmy said.

Olivia felt her stomach drop. "My daughter?"

"She came here," Kimmy said. "To my house."

"When?"

"Two months ago."

"I don't understand. She came here? Why?"

"She said she started looking for her birth mother. You know, out of curiosity. The way kids do. I told her as nicely as I could that you were dead, but she already knew that. Said she wanted to find Clyde and avenge you, something like that."

"How would she have known about Clyde?"

"She said- let me think a second- she said that first she went to the cop who handled your homicide."

"Max Darrow?"

"Right, I think that's the name. She went to him. He told her that he thought Clyde killed you but that nobody knew where Clyde was." Kimmy shook her head. "All these years. That son of a bitch has been dead all these years?"

"Yes," Olivia said.

"It's like hearing Satan died, you know."

She did. "What was my daughter's name?"

"She didn't tell me."

"Did she look sick?"

"Sick? Oh, wait, I see. Because of that online post. No, she looked pretty healthy." Kimmy smiled then. "She was pretty. Not flashy. She had spunk though. Just like you. I gave her that picture. You know, the one of us from the Sayers-Pic routine. You remember that?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I do."

Kimmy just shook her head. "I just can't believe you're here. It's like a dream or something. I'm scared you're going to start to fade away and I'm going to wake up in this cockroach hell without you."

"I'm here," Olivia said.

"And you're married. And pregnant." She shook her head some more and let loose a dazzling smile. "I just can't believe it."

"Kimmy, do you know a Charles Talley?"

"You mean Chally? Crazy whack-job. He works at the club now."

"When did you last see him?"

"Oh, I don't know. Week at least." She frowned. "Why? What does that bastard have to do with this?"

Olivia was silent.

"What is it, Candi?"

"They're dead."

"Who?"

"Charles Talley and Max Darrow. They were in on it somehow. I don't know. Something with my daughter coming back tipped them off. They probably wrote that post to find me." Olivia frowned. Something felt off about that part, but for now she pushed through. "Darrow wanted money. I gave him fifty thousand. Charles Talley was involved too."

"You're not making sense."

"I was supposed to meet with someone tonight," Olivia said. "They were supposed to show me my daughter. Only now Darrow and Chally are both dead. And someone is still looking for some tape."

Again Kimmy's face fell. "Tape?"

"When Clyde was beating me up, he kept asking, 'Where's the tape?' And then today-"

"Wait a second." Kimmy held up a hand. "Clyde asked you that?"

"Yes."

"And that's why he killed Cassandra? To find a videotape?"

"I think so, yeah. He was going nuts searching for it."

Kimmy started biting her nails.

"Kimmy?"

But her old friend just stood and walked toward the cabinet in the corner.

"What's going on?" Olivia asked.

"I know why Clyde wanted the tape," Kimmy said, her voice suddenly calm. She pulled open the cabinet door. "And I know where it is."