“That’s fine.” She leaned into him a little. “Now that you’ve got me in this thing, I want to go all the way.” She cut her green eyes up to his.

He could feel her breath across his face. His body tightened. “I’m glad you’re here. I mean on the case.” No, he meant he was glad she was here.

“I’m glad of both.” She smiled.

As he was thinking of something intelligent and profound to say, he heard a voice from the fence.

“I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”

Tasker jumped at the woman’s voice and jerked his head toward the open gate. His ex-wife, Donna, stood at the opening, looking right at him. He couldn’t get a sense of her feelings. Was she pissed? Surprised? She was smiling, but she didn’t exactly look happy.

Tasker stood up, causing Camy’s hand to flop back in her lap. “Hey, Donna.” He glanced at his watch. “Didn’t realize it was so late.”

“Apparently not,” Donna said, looking over at Camy.

Tasker cut in. “Donna, this is Camy Parks. Camy, this is my ex-wife, Donna.”

They smiled and nodded at each other.

Donna asked, “Do you work with Billy?”

“I’m an ATF agent. We’re involved”-she waited a second-“in a joint investigation right now.”

Donna looked at Tasker. “I’ll get out of your way. Are the girls ready?”

Tasker gulped a little air and nodded.

Then Camy said, “I was just leaving.” She was moving toward the gate before Tasker could say anything. After she was past Donna, she said, “Call if anything happens tomorrow.”

“Sure thing,” was all Tasker could say.

Camy said, “Nice meeting you,” to Donna and turned toward her car.

“She’s cute,” said Donna, as she watched her hips sway away.

“That she is.” Tasker felt like he was having the same conversation twice in twenty minutes. He added, “She’s an ATF agent working on a case with me.”

“So I gathered,” Donna said. “I saw what she was working on.”

“It’s not like that. She has a boyfriend.”

“She may have a boyfriend, but she was interested in you. A woman can tell these things.” She walked over and sat on a lounger. “Billy, is it smart to have the girls around women?”

“Aren’t they around men?”

“No.”

“What about Nicky? He is considered a man, isn’t he?”

She let it go and said, “I mean, women the girls don’t know.”

“How would they meet them?”

She shrugged.

“What’s the story on Nicky Goldman? Is he divorced?”

She nodded.

“How does his ex-wife feel about you seeing him?”

“They didn’t have kids, but she’s fine with it. You know her.”

“I do? Who is it?”

“Laura, the woman who builds the websites and helps at the girls’ school.”

Tasker stared at her. “Nicky was married to Laura Parker?”

“That’s her maiden name. She changed it back after the divorce. Why’s it so surprising they were married?”

“She’s a little out of his league, isn’t she?”

“Oh, and I’m not? Thanks a lot.”

This chat wasn’t going to get any better. “Sweetheart, you’re outta my league.”

She smiled and said, “Don’t you forget it.”

“You know you’re outta Nicky’s league. What do ya see in him?”

She gathered her thoughts. “He’s sweet, and very neat.”

Tasker laughed. “That’s the new criteria? Sweet and neat? According to that, Richard Simmons would be a great catch.”

“He’s very nice.”

“Is he a boyfriend or a girlfriend?”

She frowned at that, as she let out a short snicker but didn’t scold him.

“What happened to the girl who loved excitement and thrills?”

She looked into his eyes. “Excitement shut me out and thrills moved to Miami.”

That hurt enough for Tasker just to keep his mouth shut.

…

Daniel Wells pulled out his phone card and settled into the phone booth at the Denny’s in Cutler Ridge. He only had two people to call, but these might be long conversations. It seemed like he only ever called two people. He sat on the stool between the two phones and thought about who to call first and what to talk about. As he sat there, an elderly lady walked up to use the other phone. Wells immediately sprang from the stool and pushed it closer to the other phone.

“Thank you, young man,” said the woman.

“My pleasure, ma’am.” He waited until she was finished with her short call and settled onto the stool again. He dialed Alicia’s cell phone. No answer. He dialed the other number and immediately heard a male voice.

“Hello.”

“It’s me, Daniel.”

“Where the fuck you been?”

“Everywhere.”

“So I heard.”

Daniel leaned back to hear what was new in the world.

Bill Tasker pulled onto Krome Avenue and headed north. The road was most famous for the huge INS holding facility through which it seemed like half the population of Dade County had come at some point. He picked up speed in the Gold Cherokee he was still using for work. His friend at the dealership said his Monte Carlo was being rehabbed. It no longer made the technicians at the Chevy dealer cry or vomit. The residue of the CS with which Daniel Wells had booby-trapped the car was slowly being eliminated.

In the distance, Tasker could see the parking lot of the empty convenience store that served as the surveillance post. It was two blocks from the small farming road where the house they were watching sat. From the store they could see the side yard and driveway. On the bright side, no one coming or going from the house would be likely to see them. As he came closer to the vacant store, he saw Jimmy Lail’s tricked-out Honda parked next to the shabby white building. Tasker had to admit that, although the car was an embarrassment to look at, no one would ever make it as a police vehicle.

He pulled in behind the Honda, expecting Jimmy either to call him on his Nextel or come out and greet him. After a minute of no response, Tasker climbed out of the Cherokee and eased up to the Honda’s driver’s window. Through the tint, Tasker could see Jimmy’s head resting against the glass. He was asleep. Not just dozing, but all-out dead asleep.

This was not an uncommon event on long surveillances. The hard hours and boredom contributed to cops just drifting off. That was why, when there was enough manpower, you traded off the eye every hour or so. Tasker wasn’t angry, but he didn’t think he could let this slide without some sort of practical joke. He knew Jimmy Lail didn’t like him and that you shouldn’t play jokes on people you don’t like or who don’t like you, but Tasker couldn’t help himself.

He took a minute to look around the lot to see what he could do. There was no one around, so he didn’t have to worry about startling an innocent bystander. The area had a few gang members who harassed local businesses or picked on the poor migrant workers occasionally if the dope trade was slow, but generally people didn’t frequent this part of Krome Avenue.

Tasker wasn’t sure how soundly asleep Jimmy was, but he’d work in stages and find out.

Daniel Wells had the old Ford Ranger loaded with stuff he might need later. He had just picked up all the scrap metal he had stored from the company he’d done work for a few months back. When he had seen the pile of sharp-edged cuttings, he’d known he could put them to good use. They’d loved him for hauling away the dangerous jagged metal pieces, none larger than his hand; the whole box of them hadn’t weighed more than fifty pounds. They had just kept sweeping them into the corner day after day, never giving any thought as to how to get rid of them.

Wells headed south on Krome Avenue from an old farm shed on one of his former employers’ land. They didn’t mind him leaving things inside the unused shed and liked the idea of a reliable person checking on the outlying acres of the tomato farm once in a while. The old Ford pickup backfired for no reason about every ten miles. Wells knew mechanical machinery pretty well and knew the fundamentals of car repair, but it seemed like this old truck was haunted. As long as it got him where he was headed and didn’t draw any attention, he didn’t care.