JOSe DIDN'T ANSWER HIS PHONE, BUT THAT WAS NOTHING NEW. She left him a message about the EPA, then called Tim Smith, an environmental attorney from Baker Botts, one of the three big firms in Dallas.

"You better make plans to relocate your office," Smith said, "at least for the near future."

"It's bullshit," Casey said.

"Even if it's totally unfounded," Smith said, "and from what you tell me, it's not."

"A little oil in the pipes?" Casey said.

"Probably got a plume," Smith said. "Most old stations have them. Gas leaking from the tanks for fifty years. Let me guess, some magnanimous developer donated the property."

"So?"

"I saw one of these out by Tech," Smith said. "Rich alumni owns a piece of land, gives it to the school, takes a huge tax write-off, and surprise, the school goes to put up a building and finds out the site has PCBs off the charts. The alum says he didn't know. He doesn't own it anymore, and the school has to clean it up. EPA? They don't care. You own it, you clean it. Doesn't matter some farmer dumped oil down a dry well sixty years ago, you fix it. That's the game."

"I'm a nonprofit," she said.

"You could go belly-up," he said. "State comes in, cleans it, and auctions the land. Change the name of your charity and you can buy it back cheap. About a five-year process, though. My wife's a Realtor with some nice downtown office space if you want her number."

Casey's head spun.

"They said something about me sending people to work, some Resource Recovery Act. I've heard of it, but what is it?"

"Hardball," Smith said. "Trying to scare you."

"How so?"

"It's a crime to knowingly expose employees to toxic substances," Smith said.

"Is there anything to it?"

"Very tough for them," he said. "It's just a position. Sixty, seventy percent of the time you can plea down."

"Plea down?"

"It's rare you get jail time with petroleum products," he said. "It's not like it's arsenic."

"Jail?" she asked. "Not really, right?"

"Highly unlikely," he said.

"But possible?" she asked. "You're kidding."

"I wish you hadn't pulled that stunt with running away."

"I wasn't under arrest."

"You made them look bad, grabbing your stuff and slipping out the back like that," he said. "These federal agents get touchy."

"They're with the EPA," she said.

"That's what they get touchy about. They carry guns, too, you know. Pension after twenty years. All that."

"Just do your best," Casey said, "and let me know."

"No worries. I'll handle it."

Casey hung up and headed for her Realtor's office to find a place where she and her team could work.

YOU'RE AFRAID OF HIM?" JOSe ASKED.

Mandy pressed her lips together and let the spoon clatter into the bottom of the empty egg pan. She turned toward the kitchen and Jose followed.

Mandy laid the pan into the sink, untied her apron, and hung it on a nail.

"I'm all finished, Frank," she said to the wrinkled cook. "I'll see you next week."

From the front pocket of her jeans she removed a folded check that she stuffed into the pocket of Frank's apron.

The old man smiled at her, touched his cap, and said, "You're awful good to these folks, Miss Mandy."

"I'm happy to help, Frank," she said, and turned away.

With her hand on the back door, Mandy turned to Jose and said, "I'll talk to you, but not here. You go out the front. I've seen them out here before, watching. Is there a place we can meet that has two entrances?"

"There's a place up on Lamar near Grand," Jose said. "Pilar's Kitchen. I'll go in through the kitchen and meet you at a back table."

Mandy started to open the door. Jose grabbed her arm and said, "This isn't some little trick, right?"

"If I wanted you gone," she said, yanking her arm free, "all I'd have to do is say abracadabra. I have some things to pick up, but I'll meet you there in half an hour."

Jose watched her go, then turned and melted in with the steady flow of sated homeless out the front door. After a careful look around, he circled the block for his car. He took a couple of side streets, signaling one way, turning another, and checking his rearview mirror. By the time he reached Pilar's he was convinced that no one had followed him.

He took a deep breath and tried to make it past the overflowing garbage cans in the alley, nearly denying himself a mouthful of the ripe stink. The back screen door opened with a screech and several of the help glanced up from their handiwork of pans and dishes, but none spoke. The cook, dressed in a dirty white T-shirt and a paper hat, removed his cigarette, but only gave Jose a nod before turning back to his pan. Pilar nearly knocked Jose down as she banged her big hips through the double doors with a tray overloaded with more dirty dishes bleeding egg yolk and dripping with refried beans.

Pilar's scowl turned into a grin when she realized it was Jose who'd bumped her. When he told her to keep her eyes open for a blonde coming in through the front and asked Pilar to send her into the back room, the big cook waggled her eyebrows.

"Just business, Pilar," he said, pecking her cheek and slipping past. "Let me know if any gringos come in the front, too."

"Gringos like you?" she asked, catching the door with her foot.

"They'll be lighter-skinned than me," he said.

Jose sat at a corner table. Pilar reappeared in a colorful flow of silk that only heightened her immense bulk, slapped a cup of coffee on the table in front of Jose, and disappeared into the front room of the restaurant.

It wasn't more than ten minutes before Pilar returned in a flourish of silk, waving Mandy to the seat opposite him and plunking down another mug of coffee. As the big cook sashayed away, Mandy leaned around the corner to follow Pilar with her eyes.

"Flamboyant," Jose said, "but solid."

"Yes."

"Your husband have you followed regularly?"

"From time to time," Mandy said, blowing steam across the rim of her mug before sipping.

"You acted pretty indignant when I hinted about you and Ellie."

"Ellie was a good husband, Mr. O'Brien," she said. "A good man."

"What are you?" he asked.

She leaned forward, looking hard at him with those big eyes.

"People disappear," she said in a low whisper. "Mexican people."

"The Triangle?" Jose said, clenching his coffee mug and narrowing his eyes.

"You know?"

"I've heard things about folks down in that corner of the county for a couple of years now. We're a superstitious people, though, us Latinos."

"People always come and go at the ranch," she said, "fundraisers, advisers, lobbyists. There's one I see more than others, Monte Street, pinstriped suits with pink shirts and red ties, that type. My husband calls him 'Money,' Money Street. I heard them one night out in the gazebo, smoking cigars and talking about people the way you talk about livestock. Dollars per head."

She looked up to see that Jose understood.

"There's an abandoned quarry, up Blindsay Road not far from the ranch," she said. "I heard them talking about it and the next night I went out there to see. There was a tractor trailer full of people and a handful of men with guns."

"Your husband, importing illegals?" Jose said.

Mandy shook her head. "I don't know. I couldn't believe that was it, the way he goes on about immigration. I got close enough to hear, but they spoke Spanish, and I don't.

"I knew Ellie from the dove shoots. The one hunt wives do. I liked Ellie. There was something about him. He gave you a good feeling. Honest. Strong. I asked him to help and he did. We went out there a couple times and didn't see anything and I think he started to think I was crazy, so I went myself for a while. I think they only use the quarry once every few weeks. Anyway, I went and got Ellie and we got close and he heard some things that scared the hell out of him. He wouldn't talk about it, just kept shaking his head. So I wasn't paying attention when I pulled out of the side entrance to the quarry, and I almost ran Chief Gage off the road. I pulled out on the road right in front of him. He must have seen me with Ellie."