“And I won.”

“You’re a cop, Matt. You understand this better than I do, than anyone I know does.”

Matt Payne didn’t say anything.

Chad went on: “Two ambulances, sirens blaring, came out from the back of the motel right before I called you. For Christ’s sake, Matt, did you not see her vehicle?”

Matt suddenly had a mental image of what horror could have happened to the gorgeous Becca, and it was clear from the looks of the right side of the SUV that the rescue crew had had to use a powerful hydraulic Jaws of Life metal cutter to remove the B-pillar and the front and rear doors in order to rescue-or, if dead, to recover-whoever was inside the SUV.

Then Matt’s mind suddenly flashed a Technicolor image of another beautiful young woman who’d suddenly been horribly mutilated-Susan Reynolds, her head grotesquely opened by a.30-caliber carbine round in that diner parking lot, blood and brains blown everywhere.

Matt immediately felt himself get clammy and tasted bile in his throat.

Dammit, not that now!

Don’t lose it.

He took a deep breath, swallowed hard, and drained his coffee cup.

Then he looked out at the motel and all the police activity.

Behind the yellow Police Line tape, he saw a familiar cop, one in plain clothes and his usual well-worn blue blazer. Detective Anthony C. Harris was slight and wiry, not at all imposing, but was, Matt knew, one of the best homicide detectives, right up there with Jason Washington, who was the best of the East Coast’s best, from Maine to Miami.

Jesus, that’s not a good sign.

If Tony is working the job, something big is up.

He looked back at Chad and bluntly said, “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“I’ll do it. Do whatever. But not for Skipper. For you. For Becca.”

“Matt, you can hate him-”

“Dammit, Chad, I don’t hate him,” Matt interrupted with more anger than he expected. He lowered his voice: “However, if he hurt Becca, that is subject to absolute immediate fucking change.” He sighed. “I’ll find out what I can.”

“That’s all I’m asking. Thank you, pal.”

Chad reached out for the check and slid it back to himself.

“I’ll get the tab. The LLC owns this diner, too.”

Matt just shook his head at that as he pulled out his cellular phone, scrolled down its list of phone numbers, and then hit the CALL button.

He looked back out the window as he put the phone to his ear and listened to the sound of ringing. He saw Homicide Detective Anthony C. Harris begin shuffling the pen and notepaper pad he held so that he could reach with his left hand and retrieve his cellular phone from its belt clip.

“Hey, Tony,” Matt said after a moment. “Matt Payne.”

Then: “Yeah, sorry to bother you. I know you’re more than ‘a little busy’ with a job. I’m at the diner next door.”

He saw Harris, still holding the phone to his ear, turn and scan the diner.

Matt went on: “Inside the diner. I can see you. Look, I might be able to give you some information on the scene.”

He listened, then said: “Sure. Of course. But can you answer me one quick question?”

Then: “I know. Did you get a positive ID on who was in the Mercedes?”

Matt saw that Chad was watching him closely for any sign.

Matt met his eyes but remained stone-faced as he said, “Thanks. I’ll be over. Tell ’em to pass me through, will you?”

Then: “Yeah, ‘should’ isn’t the same as ‘would,’ and for all I know rumor in the Roundhouse and around the FOP lodge is that I wimped out and quit a long time ago. See you in a moment.”

Then he hung up and waved for the waitress.

“Well?” Chad said.

Matt watched out the window as Tony Harris signaled for one of the officers standing at the crime-scene tape to come over to him. The cop did, at a half-trot.

The waitress appeared, and Matt told her, “I need a couple large black coffees to go, please.”

After she walked away, Matt looked at Chad and said, “You were right: It was her Mercedes, or at least one leased to Benjamin Securities. And-” He forced back the lump that appeared in his throat, and his tone turned colder. “And it was her driver’s license in the purse. So there’s no reason not to believe it was her in the vehicle. They’ll confirm it at the hospital. But he said it’s hard to tell right now-she got hit pretty badly.”

Matt saw that Chad was on the edge of tears.

[FOUR] 1344 W. Susquehanna Avenue, Philadelphia Wednesday, September 9, 5:46 A.M.

Walking around the laundromat and surveying his workers, Paco Esteban considered himself a very lucky man indeed. Assembling his crews had not only gotten easier, the quality of his workers, being family, of course, had gotten better.

Yet he well knew that so many other immigrants were not so lucky. There were those who were devoutly grateful for a chance to better themselves, yet they just did not enjoy what El Nariz considered the opportunities that he and his extended family had.

And then there were the truly unlucky ones who were preyed on by other immigrants, some legal and some not, unbelievably mean bastards with evil intentions who shamelessly-without any conscious whatever-took obscene advantage of their own.

Treating them like animals, profiting from them, worse than the gringos, who could be bad enough.

Esteban had seen examples with his own eyes-occasionally he suffered the nightmares, the vivid flashbacks of the bloated sunbaked bodies in the desert-and had heard of so many other examples. The worst were the coyotes who simply stole the smuggling fees they were paid-leaving the males to wander and die in the desert, and raping the females, sometimes selling them into prostitution-never intending to fulfill that for which they’d agreed.

He found those particular bastards despicable beyond description and made a quiet oath that if he could-within reason, of course, as he could not jeopardize his family and all that he’d worked for-that he would save the needy from the evil ones.

And El Nariz had done just that. As he glanced around the room, his eyes fell on his most recent rescue, a teenage girl who now was working at the folding station.

It all had happened the previous Thursday afternoon, when El Nariz had been driving the minivan with a load of dirty laundry he’d just collected from the Liberty Motel in Northeast Philadelphia.

On Castor Avenue, the engine of the minivan had started to sputter. Despite the needle of the fuel gauge resting past the F, he knew that the tank was not full-it never was filled more than halfway, for fear the fuel would be stolen-but instead was bone damn dry.

He had seen Gas amp; Go signage on the corner up ahead, and was able to roll to its island of fuel pumps.

El Nariz had no credit cards, which required him to prepay with two ten-dollar bills. When he went inside the store, he was not surprised to find, in addition to the arrogant young Asian man behind the register and the pungent smell of kimchee and garlic that hung heavily in the air, that there was a pair of more or less attractive and young Latinas. They were filing their nails at a folding table, clearly bored. In a nearby corner, under a sign with an arrow to the XXX video room, stood a midtwenties Hispanic male with arms crossed and keeping a somewhat intense watch on the door.

El Nariz was not surprised, because he had seen the same situation at the Gas amp; Go next door to the Susquehanna Avenue laundromat: a shopkeeper, hookers, and their guard. Considering himself a principled man, he’d stopped going into that Gas amp; Go when he’d learned what they did-Paco Esteban took pride in helping people, not enslaving them-and had it not been for the minivan running out of gas right then and there, he would have chosen to buy his fuel at some place-any place-other than a damned Gas amp; Go.

Paco Esteban had made no eye contact with the guard. He did catch himself glancing at the girls, but only out of sadness for them. One, who had a cold hard expression, paid him no attention. But the other one caught his eye, and he saw in hers both fear and hope-the hope likely coming from not having long been forced to do what she was doing.