“Do we know anyone in the parade?”

“Oh yeah,” Faroe said. “Hector Rivas and his merry band of federales, state cops, and rurales. The man must be worried about something. His honor guard looks to be at least company strength.”

“That would explain why the phone number you fed to research earlier today traces back to a member of the Ensenada municipal police force. So do the license plates you noted, though the information comes with the usual caveat that second-world record-keeping isn’t always accurate.”

“Close enough for horseshoes and claymores,” Faroe said. “I wouldn’t want to be an Ensenada cop when Hector hears the news.”

“You’re going to the meeting?”

“Hell yes. So call the judge and set her devious mind at rest. I’m on my way to Hector right now.”

“You call her, or at least coordinate your moves with her.”

“You do it, and there aren’t any moves to coordinate. She’s at the hotel. I’m at the track.”

“Then you should see her rather quickly. She headed for the track as soon as she hung up on me.”

“Right now I don’t want to be in the same room with her, much less in the same charade.”

“Did anyone ask what you wanted? She’s going to the meeting. Might already be there, in fact.”

“Shit.”

The phone in Steele’s hand went dead. He passed the unit off to Dwayne. “Brown Field, two miles north of Tijuana.”

“I’ll tell the pilot. Your car is waiting. The San Diego team is assembling.”

Steele smiled like the shark he was. “Excellent.”

TIJUANA

SUNDAY, 9:14 P.M.

FAROE WATCHED GRACE WALK down the steps beside the lobby entrance to the hotel and strike out for the traffic light that would allow her to cross the chaotic surge of vehicles. She was dressed in a tight sheath skirt, a slinky blouse, and four-inch stiletto heels.

All red.

Where did she get that outfit-Hookers “R” Us?

Faroe waited just down from the point where she would cross the street. When she walked by him, he counted to ten and stepped out to follow.

Jesus. Do her hips always move like that?

She must have heard him moving up behind her. Warily she glanced over her shoulder. When she recognized him in the half darkness, she turned away and kept striding along the uneven sidewalk.

“Slow down,” he said, putting a hand on her arm. “You’ll break an ankle.”

“I’m late.”

“Blame the shoes.”

Grace shook off his hand, hiked up her skirt, and tried to balance on one foot while she removed a shoe.

“You don’t want to walk around in Tijuana barefoot,” Faroe said. “Your antibodies aren’t up to it. Just what in hell do you think you’re doing?”

Grace shook out a small pebble she’d picked up, slipped the shoe back on, and started walking. “I’m going to meet Hector.”

“Alone?” Faroe asked, striding alongside. “Dressed like that?”

“You weren’t answering your phone. My clothes are left over from Plan A, when you were supposed to be the new cock on my walk and I was a judicial tart gone slumming. Your tart, to be precise. That was your plan, right?”

“It’d be tough for you to make that plan fly without a man to snuggle up to.”

“There will be a roomful of men with Hector. I’ll ask for volunteers.”

“Are you crazy?”

“No. I’m determined. Get with the program or get out of my face.”

Faroe looked her over the way every man in that room would. “Tijuana lap-dancer makeup, red leather skirt, red-on-red flowered silk blouse, red shoes-all screaming sex. How’d you find that getup in a strange department store in under fifteen minutes?”

“A salesgirl and a fifty-dollar tip. I told her I wanted to look like a narcotraficante’s girlfriend.”

“Better undo the top buttons on the blouse. Hector’s muy macho, the kind that likes a lot of cheap cleavage.”

She gave him the response he deserved. “Screw you.”

“You already did a world-class job of that, in every meaning of the word.”

“As you so kindly pointed out in a similar case, I wasn’t alone in that bed.”

They walked a few more steps.

“Do you know where you’re going?” Faroe asked.

“Unlike a man, I’m capable of asking directions.”

“But you sure don’t take them worth a damn.”

“Since when does it require a penis to be pigheaded?”

Faroe fought against a smile and gestured toward a parking lot. “This way, my little piglet.”

She made a sound that could have been choked laughter or a curse. He was too smart to ask which.

Silently he led the way along the fenced parking lot that spread out from the lighted entrance gate of the track. Several hundred cars were parked in ranks behind the fence. In the distance came the rumble of the crowd cheering and cursing the dogs.

“I just got off the phone with Steele,” Faroe said. “He’s flying out. I think he wants to make sure we don’t kill each other before we get Lane back.”

“That would be lovely.”

“Get real, Grace,” he shot back. “Did you think I was going to be happy?”

“I didn’t think you were going to be so full of righteous rage. For a moment there, I thought you were going to hit me.”

“Oh, Christ.”

“You should have seen your face,” Grace said.

“What is it that everyone suddenly wants me to look in the mirror?”

Silence.

“Relax,” he said after a minute. “For now we’re on the same side. After Lane’s free, all bets are off.”

She stopped sharply and spun toward him. In the half-light from the dingy parking lot, her face was shadowed and unreadable.

“That sounds like a threat,” she said quietly.

“It’s a fact. You had Lane for fifteen years. It’s my turn. I have at least as much claim on him as you do, particularly if you end up in a federal prison for whatever part you’ve had in your crooked husband’s schemes.”

“Listen to me, Joe, and listen well.”

“I’m listening.”

And he was. There was a deadly edge to Grace’s voice that he’d never heard before.

“I have no more secrets, nothing more to hide,” she said. “I don’t know anything about my husband’s business. I never did. Don’t ever threaten to take my son away from me again.”

Faroe looked at her eyes, as cold and clear as her voice. He rolled his shoulders, trying to loosen the tension that had grown in him every second since she’d told him Lane was his son.

“This whole situation sucks donkeys,” he said. “I wish to hell you’d kept it shut for a few more days.”

“Who backed me up against the wall and kept pushing? You just had to know, didn’t you? The great Joe Faroe just couldn’t wait another bloody second to-”

“We have to stop fighting.” Despite the hard beat of his pulse in his neck, his voice was calm. “For Lane.”

Grace drew a deep breath and blew it out. “Then stop taking cheap shots at me.”

“I still find it hard to accept that you and Ted were on different planets. You’re too smart. You couldn’t live with a guy and not know what he’s up to.”

“We haven’t lived together in the way that you mean since he gave me gonorrhea nine years ago. I told him he could have the sluts or he could have me. He chose the sluts.”

“Why didn’t you divorce him?” Faroe asked.

“Lane called him Daddy. I could put up with being cheated on if it meant that Lane had two parents.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t cut off Ted’s balls.”

“Why? They weren’t any use to me.”

Faroe whistled softly. “Did you ever love him?”

“He was safe. At the time, that was enough.”

“And now?”

“What are you asking?”

“I don’t know,” Faroe admitted. “Question withdrawn.”

They walked along the parking lot fence in silence.

“Did Ted have any enemies?” Faroe asked finally.

“Like grains of sand on the beach. He screwed over a lot of people in business and in politics.”