“How we doing back there, Sara?”

“Okay, Charlie. Sorry about this.”

“Let me know when you’re done.” Resignation in his voice.

She found it on the sixth page. March 1988. A Taurus.38, seized in a motor vehicle stop. The serial number was written down. At the end of the column, the case number.

She opened desk drawers. There was a Penthouse in the top one, an inhaler. She opened the second, found a blank sheet of SO stationery. She wrote down the two numbers.

“Charlie?” she called out.

“You want to tell me what this is all about, Sara?”

They’d found the box. It was on the fourth rack up, three aisles back, and Sara had pulled the sliding ladder over, climbed up herself. Charlie seemed grateful. He stood beside her, looking up, breathing heavy.

She pulled the box off the shelf, backed down the ladder carefully, Charlie steadying it for her.

“Thanks,” she said and carried the box to the desk. Before taking the lid off, she checked the case numbers written on the front-01404 to 01411. She was looking for 01408.

There were six evidence bags in the box, each with a case number written on the plastic. She went through them carefully. Clothes, a Buck knife, a.25 automatic. No Taurus, and no bag that matched the case number.

“What’s wrong?” Charlie said.

“Anybody check anything out of here recently, Charlie?”

“Not when I was around. That far back, why would anyone want to? Those cases are long closed, and if they weren’t, they won’t ever be.”

She fit the lid back on.

It doesn’t mean anything. Things get misfiled all the time. Probably half the things down here are misfiled.

“Okay,” she said. “All set.”

“Good.”

She went up the ladder again, slid the box back into the cleared space in the dust. She climbed down, brushed the front of her uniform.

“You all right?” Charlie said. “You look like you’re not so happy all of the sudden.”

“It’s okay,” she lied. “Turned out to be nothing after all.”

He looked at her for a moment, then went around the room switching off lights. The overhead fluorescents hummed, blinked, and went dark.

She followed him into the corridor. He locked the door behind them.

“One other thing, Charlie?”

“What?”

“Don’t tell anyone about this, okay? It’s just something I had to see for myself.”

“If you say so,” he said and held the stairwell door for her.

Back upstairs, she changed in the ladies’ room, bundled her uniform and vest into her tac bag. When she got out to the parking lot, Billy was leaning against the hood of the Blazer. His truck was parked behind it.

She stopped.

“Hey, Sara.”

He wore jeans, a flannel shirt, looked like he hadn’t slept.

She didn’t move.

“I didn’t want to come out to the house again,” he said. “I didn’t know if I’d be welcome.”

“What do you want?”

“To talk.”

“About what?”

“Not out here, Sara. Not like this.”

She looked back at the front door. Hoped someone would come out, see them together.

“I was thinking about the other night,” he said. “I didn’t like the way we left things.”

“Not the time, Billy. I need to go, Danny’s waiting.”

“Maybe you could call JoBeth, ask her to stay a little later. Then we could get a drink, talk.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Has your opinion of me changed that much? We can’t even have a friendly drink anymore?”

“You look like hell, Billy. And you shouldn’t be here anyway.”

“Did Danny like the dinosaur model?”

“He did.”

“Just one drink, Sara. I just want to talk. Can’t you give me that?”

She looked at her watch, then back at him.

“Twenty minutes. That’s all.”

“Good enough.” He gestured to his truck.

“I’ll follow you,” she said.

“Don’t want to drive with me?”

“You want to talk or not?”

“Sorry. Whatever you want,” he said.

“If I lose you, I’ll see you there.”

“Not Tiger’s. Not tonight.”

“Where?”

“Somewhere else. I’ll find a place.”

“Not far.”

He nodded, moved toward his truck.

She got behind the wheel, set the tac bag on the passenger seat. She watched him pull out of the lot, the truck bouncing as a tire went over the curb.

She followed him, opened the bag, took out the leather Cordura waistpack she sometimes wore. She pulled the Velcro breakaway tab that opened the front pocket. Steering with one hand, she took the Glock from the tac bag, tugged it free of its holster. She slid it into the waistpack, closed the Velcro.

As they got farther from town, heading west, she noticed the gray Toyota about three car lengths back, moving at a steady speed, not closing the distance. Something about it jogged her memory, but she couldn’t place where she’d seen it before.

Or maybe you’re just getting paranoid.

In the half-light of dusk, with the Toyota’s headlights on, the figure behind the wheel was only a shadow. Four miles later, the car was still there. She slowed, but it didn’t try to pass.

Ahead, Billy had moved into the far right lane, was signaling to turn. She put her blinker on, followed. The Toyota pulled into the left lane, sped up. As it passed, she caught a glimpse of a black man at the wheel. Then just the glow of the Toyota’s taillights, down the road and gone.

SEVENTEEN

They ended up in a bar on the far edge of the county, one she’d never been to before. Mostly Indians in here, up from the Seminole Reservation in Immokalee, all men. Sara felt self-conscious as their eyes lingered on her. The jukebox was playing Tammy Wynette, and the ceiling fans were doing nothing to reduce the hanging haze of cigarette smoke.

When she came in, Billy was already at a booth in the back, a cypress table marked with cigarette burns. He looked at her, at the waistpack she wore.

“I won’t ask what’s in there,” he said.

She slipped into the booth. “I don’t have a lot of time.”

He got up. “No waitresses here.”

He went to the bar. Sara looked around. A middle-aged Indian in a western shirt, hair slicked back, turned on his stool to look at her, smiling drunkenly. Christ, she thought. What am I doing here?

Billy came back to the table with a pitcher and two mugs.

“PBR,” he said. “All they had on tap.”

He sat down, poured.

“I would have asked for Guinness,” he said, “but I don’t think they have much call for it out here.”

“I’m not here to drink.”

“I know.” He slid a filled mug in front of her, looked at his own. “Like I said, I feel bad about the way we left things.”

She looked away, her patience fading. The Indian was still watching her. She stared at him, didn’t look away, and he shrugged finally, turned back to the bar.

“You feel differently about me now,” Billy said. “I know that. It can’t ever be what it used to be.”

“We don’t need to go into all this, Billy. There’s no reason.”

“When you’re a kid, sometimes you let things get away from you, you know? You’re twenty-five, thirty, it’s easy to say, ‘Yeah, it didn’t work out.’ Like there’s always another opportunity, someone else coming down the line. Get to be my age and you realize you’re running out of options. And sometimes the things you let get away from you are the things you should have held on to with both hands.”

She met his eyes.

“My age, you let something go and you end up wondering if that was the one,” he said. “That you let it go and you’re never going to get it back.”

“I wasn’t the one, Billy. Get that out of your head. If I was, we wouldn’t be in this situation. You made your own decisions. You can’t blame them on anyone else.”

“I know that. It’s just that with you…” He looked away. “I just got scared, I guess. You, Danny. The way he is. I tried to be there, you know? Be strong. But sometimes I just couldn’t handle it.”