“Hey, I know you’ve had a tough day playing the grasping ex-girlfriend, but surely it wasn’t so exhausting that you can’t take part in a conversation for five minutes.” Mika Tupolev’s voice was chiding, but her expression, Liz knew from experience, wouldn’t match. Mika didn’t frown or scowl or sneer or smirk, or smile much, for that matter. Like the icy Russian mountains her family had once called home, she was all cool all the time. The boss should have sent her to Copper Lake instead of Liz. Joe wouldn’t have been able to melt the first layer of permafrost that encased her if he tried.

Hell, Liz was hot-flashing just from seeing him. Just from thinking of him. And he wasn’t trying to get a reaction from her.

“I’m listening, Mika.”

“You’re not supposed to be listening. You’re supposed to be answering my question. Do you believe Joe Saldana when he says he doesn’t know where his brother is?”

She wanted to think that he was well and truly done with Josh for at least the next fifteen years to life. After all, Josh was as big on screwing up as Joe was on responsibility.

On the other hand, they were identical twins. They’d shared their mother’s womb, had the same face, the same eyes, the same DNA. Was breaking that bond permanently even possible?

“I don’t know,” she said. “He sounds sincere.”

Mika voiced what Liz was thinking. “Don’t all good liars?”

They did. As far as anyone knew, Joe was an honest law-abiding man, but most honest law-abiding people would lie for the right reason. Look at her. Lying was a big part of her job, and she sounded damn sincere when she did it. And Joe had spent half a lifetime with a brother who lied as easily as he breathed.

“My instincts say he or his parents are our best shot,” she said. “It’s always been Josh’s pattern. When he screws up badly enough, he turns to his family for help.”

“We’re keeping tabs on the elder Saldanas as well. If Josh contacts them or shows up there, we’ll know.”

There was a murmur in the background on Mika’s end. While she spoke to whoever had interrupted, Liz continued to gaze out the window. She wouldn’t have heard the whirring of tires on sidewalk if they’d been talking, but she still would have known Joe had arrived home. Her stomach muscles tightening and the hair on the back of her neck standing on end were her usual reactions to danger, always sensed before seen.

He came into view through the window, coasting, one long muscular leg extended as he made the sharp turn to his house. He swung off the bike, then hefted it into the air and carried it up the steps to the porch. As he unlocked the door, he glanced toward Natalia’s cottage, then right toward Pete’s, but he didn’t look over his shoulder at Liz’s. Instead, he went inside, wheeling the bike with him, and closed the door.

Across the small lawn, the door shut with a sense of finality. Liz imagined she could even hear the lock clicking, securely shutting out the world for the night.

“Sorry about that,” Mika said, returning her attention to Liz. “The wiretaps haven’t provided anything of interest. Joe Saldana has renewed his membership in a group supporting green business practices. He’s agreed to help coach a baseball team made up of six-year-olds and he’s going to spend a small fortune taking two strays to the vet, where, at the appropriate time, of course, he’ll spend another one getting them fixed. Oh, yes, and he’s trying a new blend of coffee handpicked by gnomes on the northwest side of a volcanic Peruvian mountain only under a full moon and, therefore, commanding the price of a gazillion dollars per pound.”

Liz grinned. Mika’s sense of humor appeared so seldom that she regularly forgot the woman had one. “Trust me, if it’s half as good as the stuff I’ve already had in his shop, it’s worth every dime. Besides, gnomes don’t work cheap, you know.”

“Fortunately for America, we do.” Mika’s customary sobriety returned. “Other than calls to his parents, he has little contact with anyone outside the coffee shop. Since we got the wiretap order, he hasn’t made or received a single call on his home phone. Ninety-five percent of his cell phone use is business-related, and ninety-five percent of the calls made to or from the shop are boyfriend-related.”

“Esther has a boyfriend?” Liz imagined the waitress first with a boy barely old enough to be legal, then with a man more her age with the same wrinkles, the same orange hair. Neither was an appealing image.

“Not Esther. Raven.” If Mika had been given to grimacing, Liz was sure she would have been doing so at the moment. “God save us from young love.”

“Better that you guys hear it than me.” What was Joe doing over there? Getting something to eat? Popping the top on a beer? Stripping off his clothes to take a shower?

Better not go there.

But it was too late to block the image of a long, lean body, of bare, tanned skin, wet hair slicked back as pounding water turned it dark gold.

It had been too late for them from the first time she’d seen him. Even if she weren’t working, even if he weren’t a subject in an investigation, Josh and her lies would always be between them.

“The trial is approaching quickly,” Mika said. “If we don’t have Josh Saldana in custody in time, the last two years will have been for nothing.”

“Hey, that’s two years of my life you’re talking about.” But Liz knew she was right. The U.S. Attorney might get a conviction anyway, at least on some of the charges, or the Mulroneys could walk.

There was a moment’s silence before Mika spoke again. “Do you think they paid him off?”

It wasn’t the first time they’d discussed the question. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that Josh could be bought, and probably pretty cheaply. If he’d had a chance to escape protective custody, avoid the trial and make some money doing it, he would have taken it. To hell with justice. To hell with the fact that the Mulroneys had tried to kill him, and had almost killed his brother. All Josh cared about was Josh.

“No,” Liz said flatly. If he’d been bought off, then it meant someone in the marshals service or the U.S. Attorney’s office had been involved. His location had been a well-kept secret. He’d gotten no phone calls or mail; he’d had zero contact with anyone outside their two offices. Only an insider could have acted as a go-between for the Mulroneys, and there was no evidence to suggest that.

Still, when your life was in other people’s hands, as hers and Mika’s had too often been, you couldn’t help but wonder…

“Then he’s probably run through whatever resources he might have had. Mom and Dad and little brother Joe are his last hope.”

“If he can find them.”

“They’re keeping a low profile, but they’re not exactly under the radar. The extended family knows where they are, and while they’ve denied any contact with Josh, we can’t know whether they’re telling the truth.”

Again, Liz knew Mika was right. The Saldanas had relocated, not gone into hiding. They were using their own names, and Joe was in business for himself. It might take a bit of effort, but people like Josh were willing to expend a great deal of effort to avoid being responsible for themselves.

“I’ll be in touch.”

Before Liz could respond, Mika ended the call. No prolonged goodbyes for her. Heaven forbid Liz get the idea that she actually cared.

Then a flickering light came on in the lavender house-a television throwing shadows in Joe’s otherwise-dark living room. Not caring, in that moment, seemed a damn good idea.

Forties’ standards played on the café’s stereo Thursday morning, Esther’s music of choice. Even though she’d left half an hour earlier, Joe was letting the CD play out. The old tunes were comfortable, reminding him of his grandmother, who’d thought music began with Louis Armstrong and ended with Ella Fitzgerald. As kids, he and Josh had spent a lot of weekends at her house, taking turns dancing her around the table after Saturday night dinner while she’d told them stories of the grandfather they’d never known.