The same shit that had happened his whole career. Without letting himself think too hard about what he was doing, he said, “No. No, nothing like that.”

The lieutenant squinted. “You sure?”

“Yeah.” Halden coughed. “I just, you know, wanted to check in. See if there’d been any progress. Since I handled Tuttle.”

Johnson stared for a moment, then shook his head. “If it comes to anything, I’ll let you know.” He leaned back. “Head out to Sheridan.”

“Sure thing,” Halden said. But he hadn’t. Hell, he hadn’t even called to ask Victor to cover for him. Instead he’d picked up the phone and dialed his old partner, Lawrence Tully, and invited him out for dinner.

The bartendress set up his whiskey and Halden knocked it down, then nodded for another.

Tully was twenty minutes late, but entered big, cracking jokes with the hostess, clapping Halden on the shoulder. Tully was a bear of a man, red-faced and balding; his chins had chins. “Chris Halden, you skinny prick. What does Marie see in you?”

“Jesus, Larry. Running your own company agrees with you, huh?”

“You betcha.” The man turned sideways and slapped his belly. “I almost pity you for picking up the check.”

The hostess led them to a table, dropped leather-bound menus. A guy in a vest plinked at a piano in the back corner. The air was buttery and dim. Halden ordered another round, Bud and Beam times two, and they each got a steak – Tully’s a porterhouse with melted Gorgonzola, for Christ’s sake – a baked potato, and a Caesar. Over the meal they caught up, bullshitting about their days riding a beat. It wasn’t until Tully took the last bite, set his napkin on his plate, and leaned back with a satisfied sigh that Halden got down to it, asked what he’d found out about the Reeds.

“They got a rich uncle recently died?”

“What do you mean?”

Tully sipped his beer, said, “You were right, they came into money.”

Halden felt his pulse quicken, fought to keep a straight face. “Tell me.”

“I called a friend of mine at Citibank. They just paid down a Visa to the tune of something like fifteen grand.”

Fifteen grand. He remembered the innocent faces they’d both pulled when he’d come back to their house the second time, how they acted offended at the mere suggestion that they might steal something. People. Shit. “And there’s no question about it? I mean, your source is solid?”

“Fuck you, Chris.”

“Tully-”

The big man leaned forward. “I’m in the information business. That’s what I do. I work for Michigan Avenue law firms. I work for the State’s Attorney. Hell, Homeland Security too, not that that makes me unique, money they throw around these days. You call up a favor, now you ask if I know my business?”

Halden put his hands up in surrender. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m on bended knee, okay?”

“All right.” He leaned back, still sounding miffed. “You want the paperwork?”

“Anything you got.”

The big man reached into his bag, took out a manila folder, passed it across. “Not much else to see. They’ve got a mortgage runs a little higher than it should, some debt. A couple of parking tickets. They both work downtown.” He shrugged. “Pretty normal, other than the Visa.”

Halden thanked his old partner and made nice by ordering dessert and a round of single malt. But the whole time, his mind was racing and his fingers were tingling. When a theory came together, look out, man. Best feeling in the world.

I’ve got you, he thought. I’ve got you now.

Sure, he’d lied to the lieutenant. He’d need to get around that. Need to explain why he had worked alone, why he’d kept everything to himself. It wouldn’t make him friends. But then, who gave a damn? Results spoke for themselves. Hell, once the papers started treating him as a hero, there wouldn’t be much the department could do but follow suit.

He could see himself sitting on the porch of that cabin west of Minocqua, a cup of coffee in one hand, a dog beside him, Marie humming as she made breakfast. And all he had to do to get there was bring in a drug dealer from the Shooting Star, four hundred grand in stolen cash, and two civilians dumb enough to try to keep it.

It was almost too easy.

ANNA WATCHED TOM close the phone and set it on the lip of the window. He faced away from her, staring out at the city night. She put a hand on his shoulder, and he reached up to cover her fingers with his own.

“What did he say?”

“He wants his money. He says that if we give it to him, he’ll leave us alone.”

“He’ll kill us anyway.”

“Once he has the money, there’s not much reason to.”

“Yeah, but…” She paused, searching for words to capture the feeling she’d had as Jack fled their kitchen. The squirming certainty that he had planned to shoot them, maybe even wanted to. “I think this is personal for him. Like it would be revenge or something. Maybe revenge on Will.” A thought struck her. “You know what else? He’s probably expecting the whole thing. All the money.”

“Shit. He talked about four hundred grand, before you came in.” He rubbed at his forehead. “This is fucked.”

She looked over at the gym bag, the sides sagging from the weight. She had an urge to upend it over the bed, let the money rain out. Stack and stacks of bundled bills. “Zucchini.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Remember that? When a party got boring, or one of us was trapped in conversation, we’d say ‘zucchini,’ figure out a way to work it in, and the other would know to rescue them. To find a way to get them out of there.” She smiled at the memory. “You were always good at that.”

He looked at his glass, at his taped hand. “I think we’re a little past zucchini.”

There was something in his voice so close to defeat that it broke her heart. “We’re smart people,” she said. “We can figure this out.”

“You think?” He said it like he was trying for a joke, but it didn’t play funny.

She started pacing. Short, tight little laps, the edge of the bed to the door, pivot, back again. “Okay. So what are our options? We can meet Jack tomorrow and give him the money, hope that he’s okay with it being short.”

“And that he’s telling the truth about not killing us.”

“Right. If he doesn’t kill us, we’re clear. We don’t have to deal with cops and lawyers and all of that. And we’re out of debt.”

“Not my big concern right now.”

“It’s not greed, baby. I’m not picturing a mink coat. I just want-”

“I know,” he said, sounding tired. “I know.”

“We could go to the cops.” She stopped, cocked her head. “What if we went to them right now? They could stake out the mall and arrest him there.”

Tom shook his head. “We don’t know for sure he’ll be there personally. He’s not alone. Someone sent him a text warning him you were coming into the apartment. Besides, even if he is there, he could probably spot cops.”

“So what? Even if they don’t catch him, if he sees the cops, he’ll know that we don’t have the money anymore.”

“Yeah. Except that he just told me that if we give it to the police, he’ll kill us.”

She blew a breath, closed her eyes. Paced some more.

After a long moment, Tom said, “Still, I suppose that’s the right thing to do. Go to the police, tell them everything. Stop pretending to be criminals, and just take our medicine.”

The way he said it, it sounded like it was a matter of dinging someone’s car in a parking lot. But it couldn’t be that simple, could it? “The right thing to do is the one that leaves us safe.”

“The cops would protect us.”

“What if they don’t catch Jack? What if he lays low for a year or two? Not like we’ll be in Witness Protection.”

He moved to the chair and sat, his legs crossed at the knee. “We’re screwed if we go to the cops, and screwed if we don’t. So what if we blow out of here? Go to Detroit, like you said?”