The hallway dead-ended in another corridor. Madison skidded to a stop. No sign of an exit in either direction. She chewed her lip, wondering if she should have checked the doors.

Suddenly, Lurch appeared at the far end of the hall. Even from here she could see his features twisted with anger. She whirled and sped in the opposite direction, praying to herself, “Please God, don’t let him catch me, please…”

The door facing her was latched with a heavy metal bar. She almost slammed into it, caught herself, and strained to lift it. She could hear Lurch pounding toward her. The latch fought her efforts, and she cried out in frustration. It suddenly gave with a shriek and she yanked the door open, almost crying with relief at the sight of a ladder.

Madison scrambled up, panting. She was in a narrow tube that seemed to go on forever, at the very top she could make out a hatch. She felt the ladder shift and glanced over her shoulder. Lurch was at the bottom. For a large man he moved surprisingly quickly. He was only two stories behind her and gaining fast.

Madison tried to quicken her pace but her arms and legs shook from the effort. Looking up, she had another forty feet to go. She prayed the hatch wouldn’t be locked.

“ Madison!”

She jerked at the sound of her name and nearly fell. A small voice in her head perversely noted this was the first time Lurch had spoken to her since the airport. She focused all her energy upward: thirty feet left. Her heart was battering her rib cage. Sweat poured down her face but she didn’t dare wipe it away, her hands were already slick with it. Twenty feet. She yelped as one hand slipped off a rung and she dangled, almost tumbling backward. Lurch was closer now, less than fifteen feet away. She gritted her teeth and swung the hand back up, gripping with all her might. Gathering herself, she resumed her climb.

She reached the hatch. Madison pressed against it, arms shaking. It didn’t budge. Once again she strained. With a slight groan, the hatch swung up and out.

Madison felt a hand swipe at her ankle and kicked it away. Gasping, she hauled herself out, slipping off the ridge at the top and landing in a pile on the deck. Lurch’s head poked out behind her. She scrambled to her feet and spun, running again, not caring where she went as long as it was away from him.

Acclimated to the shadowy bowels of the ship, Madison was blinded by the dazzling sunlight. Squinting, she stumbled repeatedly on detritus strewn about the deck. She could still hear Lurch pursuing her, but it sounded as though he’d slowed, and a ray of hope shot through her chest. The air was fresh, salty. She was outside. She might even get away.

Her eyes finally adjusted, and she realized she was careening toward the edge of the deck. The railing was ten feet in front of her. Madison whirled, scanning in the opposite direction. Her heart sank. The boat was moored in the middle of a string of others. Off in the distance past the farthest turret, the shimmering brown of land. But no way to get there, at least not that she could see. And it looked too far to reach by swimming. She stood for a moment, gasping.

“Stop.”

Madison spun around. Lurch was stumbling toward her, clutching his belly, nearly bent double. Her lip curled-at least the bastard was suffering as much as she was.

“No way off,” Lurch said, shaking his head. He advanced toward her, one arm outstretched. “C’mon, now…”

She shook her head, backing away until her heels hit cold steel: the side of the boat.

He beckoned with his fingers. “It’s okay, I promise.”

“Go to hell,” Madison said. She glanced back, then climbed up on the lip of the gunwale. She swayed slightly, arms flung out for balance.

Lurch’s eyes widened with surprise as he shouted, “Don’t!”

Madison ignored him. Tears streamed down her face as she turned and dove forward.

“Knock, knock.” Kelly rapped tentatively on the door.

Rodriguez held up a finger and she frowned. He was on his cell, sitting up in bed with a notepad on his lap.

Kelly waited irritably for him to finish. Most of the night she’d tossed and turned, debating what the captain had said. She’d never been one of those agents who took the easy way out, dismissing inconsistent information just to get a case over and done with. She liked to think the victims deserved more. In spite of everything she clung to the belief that her job was to seek out the truth, even when it was inconvenient.

But as dawn broke, she decided to blame Morris’s murder on the MS-13 stash house crew. The Phoenix P.D. would be happy, her boss would be happy, things in the media would settle down. Despite the decision, she still couldn’t sleep. Kelly lay there watching early morning sneak through the worn drapes in her hotel room, wondering what she was turning into. She didn’t know herself anymore.

She shifted her attention back to Rodriguez. He looked like hell. His face was swollen almost twice its normal size and crisscrossed with ragged black stitches. His nose pointed left, and a gauze bandage stuck out from the shock of hair on his right side. She felt a surge of sympathy. Jerk though he was, she wouldn’t have wished that much abuse on anyone.

He clicked the phone shut with a snap and said, “Who do you love?”

It looked like he was trying to grin through the pulp that was now his face. Kelly arched an eyebrow. “I’ve got to be honest, you still don’t top my list.”

“Well, that’s about to change.”

“You’ve been working?” Kelly asked, dubious. “On pain meds?”

“Told them not to give me any,” Rodriguez said. He shifted slightly, then winced. “See?”

“That seems a little extreme. You were badly injured.”

“Let’s just say I’m not someone who can take pain meds.” He avoided her eyes.

“Oh,” Kelly replied, surprised she hadn’t known Rodriguez was a recovering addict. That information should have been in his file.

“Anyway-” he cleared his throat “-I heard the assholes from the bar weren’t talking. So I spent the morning tracking down the owner.”

“That was smart,” Kelly admitted grudgingly. “Who is it?”

Rodriguez held up a finger. “That’s where things get interesting. That dive bar has a paper trail a mile long. Dead-ends at a shell company.”

“Really?”

“I got a friend at the IRS to do some legwork for me. If you sort through all the subsidiaries and parent companies, there’s one corporation at the top. Hard to find since it was registered offshore, but what can I say, my friend owed me a favor. And we got lucky.”

“So who owns it?”

He plowed on. “The Acme Lounge was initially bought by a group called Lion’s Share. Shell company, there’s nothing else there.” Clearly Rodriguez had done a lot of work on this, and wanted to present every detail so that fact was not lost on her. Kelly repressed the urge to sigh. “Lion’s Share is owned by Diamond Tooth, which is a division of Fiddle and Flute…”

“Fiddle and Flute?”

Rodriguez held up a hand. “Wait, it gets better. Anyway, five or six other dummy corps, then I got to the pièce de résistance.” He held up the notepad.

Kelly leaned in to read it, then shook her head. “Omega? Never heard of it.”

“Really?” He looked startled. “Not a fan of the business section, huh?”

“Why would I read the business section?” Kelly furrowed her brow.

“Because you can’t retire on what the Bureau pays you, that’s for sure. Gotta invest on your own.” Rodriguez shook his head, then winced again. “Damn, I can’t blink without hurting. Omega is one of the largest corporations in Arizona. They own a big chunk of the Southwest, everything from communications to mining. And guess who the CEO is?”

“I haven’t a clue.”

“Jackson Burke. One of Duke Morris’s closest friends and a major contributor to every campaign run by an immigration reform candidate. He personally footed the bill for that proposition in Texas that would have mandated immediate deportation for anyone without a green card.”