Danny stepped out of the car, grabbed his bag, and started for the back door. Overhead, the sky glowed an imperial violet, the city light stretching to bounce off the clouds. Dry leaves crunched under his shoes, and the air smelled clean, crisp with autumn and its promise of winter. Five minutes here, and he’d be on his way home, toward whatever followed the truth.

“Danny?”

The voice from behind him was female and scared, and the moment he heard it he knew something was terribly wrong.

32

He’d been thinking of Karen, and so some part of him was surprised, when he spun around, to see Debbie. She looked lousy, her back slumped, eyes raw, cheeks a slapped red. There was little trace of the rock diva pose she usually affected. His first instinct was primal, a male urge to comfort a female, to put his coat around her cold shoulders and make everything okay.

His second was to wonder what she was doing in the parking lot of the man whose kidnapped child she was supposed to be babysitting.

“Debbie.” He glanced in both directions. No one in sight, but there were still a dozen cars in the lot. Including, he noticed, her beat-to-crap Tempo. Why hadn’t he spotted that coming in? “What are you doing here?”

“We need to talk.” Her voice came out with a hint of sniffle.

Was she losing her nerve? Just what he needed, something else to shake the fragile structure he was holding together with will and prayer. “You shouldn’t be here.” His voice came out harsh, and she shrank back a half step.

“I know. I’m sorry. I just, I need to talk to you.”

He shook his head. “I’ll come by the site in the morning, we can talk then.” He took her arm and steered her toward the Tempo. He had to get her out of here before somebody came out the back door and saw them together. Even her car was a problem – it was a small company, people noticed things, and half the car’s back window was covered with punk band stickers, not exactly par for the construction business. She let him hustle her along, but kept talking.

“No, look, it’s important. Danny, I’m serious. It’s important!” She yanked her arm out of his. “It’s Evan.”

His stomach dropped, and he felt the bands on his chest cinching back up. He looked at her, and saw how wide her eyes were. This wasn’t her touchy-feely side freaking out. Something was actually wrong.

“Okay.” He looked around again. “Only not here. Okay?”

She nodded, and he gestured to her car as he started for his own. “Follow me.”

They got out of the parking lot without anyone spotting them, and part of him relaxed, until he looked in his rearview mirror and saw the intent expression on Debbie’s face, her lips pressed thin and pale.

It’s Evan, she’d said. What could that mean? Nothing good had ever followed those words, and there wasn’t much reason to hope this time would be different.

He drove half a mile to the Sunshine Plaza, a strip mall boasting a Jewel-Osco, a tanning salon, one nail place with signs in English and another with signs in Spanish. The parking lot was only half full, but he steered past empty aisles, turned left at the side of the building, and pulled around back. The mall’s Caribbean-fantasy facade was replaced by gritty reality: generators and air conditioners, graffitied brick walls, rows of delivery bays. He backed in beside a Dumpster as she pulled up. Sour milk and old exhaust filled his nostrils when he stepped out of the truck.

“Okay. What is it?”

She looked at him, looked away. “You have a cigarette?”

“I don’t smoke.”

She nodded. “I quit a couple of years now.”

He waited.

“I’m sorry for jumping you like that. I was trying to find you, and I remembered that we’d followed you there, and the only other place I could think of was your house. But I thought that would be a bad idea. I figured you wouldn’t want your girlfriend to see you talking to me.” Her voice sounded sad, like it was a line she had too much experience delivering.

He nodded, trying to keep his voice reassuring. “Just don’t do it again, okay? I know it seems like a little thing, but-”

“-It’s the little things that get you caught.” She smiled. “Evan told me you used to say that all the time.” Her face suddenly darkened at the name.

“What is it?”

She looked away from him, staring out toward the road, watching traffic pass. “I didn’t know he was going to do it. I should have known, I guess, but I didn’t. Really.”

“Do what?” Silence. “Debbie, do what?”

She looked back at him, her eyes shot through with red, tears rolling down her cheeks. “I didn’t know Evan was going to kill him.”

He felt the ground roll, and reached out a hand to lean against the SUV. Kill him? What did that mean? Kill who?

“We were out to lunch, I didn’t want to go, but he convinced me that Tommy would be okay. When we finished eating, he said he had a call to make. He got out a matchbook with a number on it, and I tried to stop him from calling, but it was too late, he was already talking to Richard.” Her words came fast, piling on one another, her eyes wide like a child’s. “He said if he didn’t get the money he was going to shoot Tommy in the head, and just then some guy walked out of the bathroom, and I don’t know if he heard or not, but Evan followed him to the parking lot, and, and…” Her voice choked in a sob, and she turned away, then bent over, her hands knit across her stomach.

A bead of sweat ran down his side. Overhead, he could hear the faint buzzing of a plane. Evan had killed someone.

Oh, sweet Jesus.

“Debbie.” He waited for her to straighten up, to take a breath. “Where is Evan now?”

“He put the guy in the trunk of his car and made me follow him to O’Hare long-term parking. He said he’d deal with the body later.” She shivered. “Then we went back to the trailer, and I told him I needed to get out for a couple of hours. That I had to shower.”

“Good. You go home now.” He pitched his voice level and even, as if talking to a teenager. “Forget any of this ever happened.”

“What do you mean?” She looked at him, confused.

“Walk away. Be done with it.”

She shook her head. “I can’t.”

“What do you mean?” She couldn’t still have a fire burning for Evan, not after this. Danny had pegged her as a groupie, a smart woman who liked bad men, but it couldn’t run this deep. “You’ve got to get clear.”

She looked away. “I’d cut off a finger for a cigarette right now.”

He stepped forward, grabbed her by the shoulders. She tried to squirm away, but he held fast. “I can’t,” she whispered.

He stared at her, mute.

“Think about it,” she said. “If I bail, what’s Evan going to do? I saw him kill someone.”

Her eyes were red and tired of the whole world. The punk-rock princess was gone, and what was left was a scared little girl. But she was right. Evan might go after her. Or he might panic and kill Tommy.

He nodded, let go of her shoulders. “Okay.” He stepped back, reached in his pocket for his keys. She winced when she saw them, but he didn’t have time to ask why. He turned and walked toward the truck. “Go home,” he said over his shoulder.

“What are you going to do?”

He stopped, the car door open, and turned to look at her. “I’m going to end this.” Then he climbed in, started the engine, and gunned it. The tires squealed as they bit, rocketing the car forward. The speed felt right, clean and pure as anger. He looked in the rearview when he reached the street, and saw that she was still standing there, staring after him, though at this distance he couldn’t tell if her expression was hopeful or despairing. Then he turned onto the street and she was gone.

Evan had killed someone.