I felt my chest tighten. “Back up. What the hell was she doing inside?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“The fuck you can’t,” I said, louder than I’d intended.

Her eyes widened, and she lifted her head off of her chin. “Beg your pardon?”

“You drop that cannonball on me and then tell me you can’t explain?” I said. “Like I’m just supposed to accept it, not be surprised by it? You give me more, or any promise I made to you is off the table.”

Liz shrugged. “Then I’ll arrest you both.” She looked at Carter. “Are you really dumb enough to think that someone wouldn’t notice that shitpiece you drive?” She turned back to me. “You don’t believe me? Try me.”

I wanted to reach across the desk and grab her by the throat. Maybe throw something at the wall behind her, something to let her know how badly she was pissing me off.

But none of that would get me closer to the reason for Kate’s death.

“So, you’ll tell me that she got killed because someone screwed up somewhere, but you won’t tell me anything about what she was doing?” I asked quietly. “Not even off the record?”

She shook her head slowly. “I can’t, Noah.”

“Then you know I won’t leave it alone.”

She thought about that, then nodded.

“And if you catch me near Costilla, you’ll toss on the cuffs,” I said.

She nodded again.

I stood up, and Carter did the same.

“Then catch me if you can,” I said and we left.

25

“Married to an asshole, a drug user, and working for the G-men. Not exactly the old Kate,” Carter said.

“No, not exactly,” I mumbled back to him.

We were headed north on the 5, Sea World and Mission Bay on the west side, beckoning the tourists that flocked to America’s Finest City. Traffic was moving smoothly for once but it didn’t improve my mood. Nothing was making sense, and I was getting angrier with each new revelation. I felt like the more I discovered about Kate, the further I got from the truth.

“Would they really use someone like Kate inside a world like Costilla’s?” I asked, unable to shake the question from my brain.

Carter shifted in his seat and tugged at the seat belt. “They’d use whoever they could to get what they need. Male, female, young, old. Doesn’t matter to them.”

I nodded absently.

“The ME said Kate was using drugs, right? DEA was using her for something in connection with Costilla. That says to me she got caught in something,” Carter said. “An immunity deal maybe?”

I thought about that for a moment. “Maybe. Just seems odd. What did they catch her with that would justify putting her under the gun like that?”

“It had to have been some heavy shit,” Carter said. “But I can’t imagine why the law enforcement geniuses would think she’d make a great undercover candidate. All of a sudden, some upper-crust white woman shows up and tries to secretly fit in? Fucking brilliant.”

The wind from the open windows whipped through my hair as I turned everything over in my mind. If Kate was involved in drugs and got caught, it would make sense that there might be some sort of a deal made. But I thought a court testimonial would make a lot more sense than sending her into the lion’s den.

“Yeah. Why would you put someone like her in a position like that?” I said. “How the hell would she know what she was doing?”

“If a deal was set up,” Carter said, “someone would’ve needed to do some string pulling.”

I was getting around to that thought. “Like Daddy Crier.”

We drove in silence for a moment, cutting under the twisting curl of concrete that jutted off the freeway and up to the bluffs of La Jolla.

“You think Costilla found out what Kate was doing?” I asked.

“Maybe,” Carter said.

“But…”

“But don’t you think he would’ve left a message?”

“Like?”

Carter waved a hand in the air. “A message that said ‘I know who she was and what she was doing.’ She was in a trunk, strangled. That’s not exactly a Colombian necktie.”

I considered that. No murder was mundane or ordinary, but Carter had a point. Now that we knew that the twists in Kate’s life were more severe, the way she had died, the way I’d found her, didn’t seem that dramatic.

“Not to change the subject or anything,” Carter said, interrupting my thoughts. “But that Cadillac has been with us for a while, dude.” He reached under his seat and retrieved my gun, a 9mm Glock 17, setting it in his lap.

I glanced in the rearview mirror. A white Cadillac was two cars back, in our lane. “How long?”

“Long enough to be a problem.” He opened the glove box and pulled his gun out. He held the .45 HK Mark 23 low against the door.

I moved over into the fast lane. The Cadillac sped up and moved into our blind spot, trying to hide.

I was trying to figure out what to do when the blue van in front of us hit its brakes.

Jamming my foot on the brakes, I turned the wheel to the left, sliding onto the shoulder and next to the median. The van moved left in the same direction, anticipating where I’d go, blocking us in the front. The rear doors opened slightly and two gun barrels emerged in the tight space.

The Cadillac cut over and screeched to a halt diagonally behind us.

Trapped.

Carter tossed my gun at me. I rolled out of the door, staying close to the car and the ground. The windshield of my Jeep shattered in seconds, the bullets flying like irritated hornets from both directions, the shards of glass spilling into the front seat.

Carter followed me out the driver’s-side door, a small streak of blood making its way down his neck. We had about three feet to maneuver in between my car and the concrete median.

I rose up quickly into the open window of the door and fired into the van. Carter swiveled and fired into the Cadillac behind us. I ducked down, and we both stayed close to the car, bullets flying over us.

“We gotta move,” I said. “We’re fish in a bowl right here.”

More bullets crackled against the pavement behind my car, and we both flinched. Carter looked at the median.

“I’ll cover,” he said. “You get over this and move backward toward the Cadillac. Come at them from behind.”

I nodded. He rose up and started firing, first at the van, then the Cadillac. I took one short step and flung myself over the median, praying that I wouldn’t spill out into the southbound fast lane.

Cars were stopping on both sides of the freeway, watching our little ambush. I heard metal on metal from a distance and knew someone had been following too closely. Voices were yelling but they sounded far away and unintelligible.

I crab-crawled about fifty feet on the pavement, my eyes on the top of the median. I spun when I knew I was well past the Cadillac and rose up over the edge.

Two teenagers, clad in white T-shirts, baggy chinos, and blue bandanas around their heads, were behind the open doors of the Cadillac, automatic weapons pointed in Carter’s direction. I took a deep breath and squeezed the trigger. The one on the driver’s side dropped to the ground, clutching his leg. His partner looked in my direction from the other side of the car.