“I thought you weren’t going to drink while I was gone.”

“Jesus,” he said. “Come on.”

“Well?”

He coughed out a breath. “I got lonesome.”

She screwed up her mouth in the moonlight and gave a sharp tug with her fists. It hurt about as much as she’d wanted it to. Then she slid down slowly, rocking her hips, squeezing gently as she lowered herself.

That was all it took.

It always had been. Twelve years ago, Rita had waited for Vince under a blooming crabapple tree in the parking lot of the state penitentiary. She’d smiled when they let him go at the gate, snuggled in close as they’d walked back to the car. Just before they got in, she’d kissed him on the cheek and whispered, This is the last time.

That was the day he’d stopped all the bullshit and embraced the lucky truth: Rita could do him in whenever she decided it was time.

They lay around together in the bed for a while. Eventually, she propped up on an elbow. “Mom says hi.”

He chuckled. “Someone says hello to you, too.”

“Uh-huh.” She reached under the covers, gave him a squeeze.

“Guess again.”

“I’m too sleepy.” She yawned and stretched. “Who’d you see?”

“Matty.”

She leaned back. “Your brother?”

“Day before yesterday,” he said.

“You went back?”

“Didn’t go anywhere. He came out here.”

“I’ll be darned.” She seemed pleased by the news. “It’s about time you two started keeping in touch. How is he?”

“Same as us,” Vince said.

“Happy?” She grinned. “Broke?”

“Older.”

“Speak for yourself.”

Vince put a hand behind his head. He probably should have taken a shower before she’d gotten home. “Sondra’s pregnant.”

“Really.”

“Isn’t his.”

Rita slapped his chest. “That’s not funny.”

“Didn’t say it was.”

“Poor Matthew.” Rita stayed quiet a moment, then said, “You know, at your mother’s funeral, he was the only one in your family who came over and talked with us.”

Vince knew. It wasn’t the first time she’d brought it up. Next she’d remind him that Matty also had been the only other person standing with her under the crabapple tree that day at the pen.

The stupid shit.

Rita seemed to get an idea. Her voice grew concerned. “Is it your dad?”

“What about him?”

“Oh. Good.” She planted her elbow in the pillow and rested her head on her hand. “I was just thinking, for Matthew to come all the way out here…”

“Nah,” Vince said. “Old bastard’s still alive far as I know.”

“So what was the occasion?”

Vince shrugged. “Brought me a stolen car with a dead guy in the trunk. We took the body down to the burn shed. Spent today getting rid of the car. I was gonna chop it yesterday, but then we found a whole shitload of cash hidden inside.”

He waited through another yawn.

“My,” Rita said. She reached across him, grabbed her little granny-style bifocals from the nightstand, and perched them on her nose. “Sounds like you two had a nice time. I’m going to make tea.”

Vince watched her pad across the cold floor, barefoot and naked, scrubbing her hair with her fingers as she moved. Soon he heard clattering in the kitchen. Cupboard doors, the pot rack. The sound of the faucet at the sink.

Of course she hadn’t believed him. Who the hell would?

He lay there and looked at the shadows on ceiling, wondering how he was going to bring himself to do it. How he would go to the closet, pull out the old ratty duffel bag he hadn’t used in years, and show her the money he’d stowed there.

Two hundred and sixty-four thousand dollars. They’d counted it out together, him and Matt, sorting the soft wrinkled bills into loose stacks. It was street money, on its way to be laundered somewhere. Drugs, guns, skin, bets, fake IDs for all they knew.

As soon as they’d finished, Matty had told him to burn it. Same as everything else. The guy had disappeared; his money had to disappear with him. No leftovers.

Standing there, half tanked, looking at all that grubby dough in one big pile, Vince had agreed. They’d scooped the bills into a Hefty bag and drove it all down to the burn shed together.

He’d sobered up on the way.

Because disappearing some dead asshole was one thing. Butchering the car was another. Both had made Vince sick to his stomach, but for some goddamned reason, for Matthew, he’d been able to do it.

Ash-canning two hundred and sixty-four thousand dollars in green money? That was something else.

They lived in the goddamned hills, him and Rita. Between the yard business and what Reet brought in every so often on a public art comission, or selling her crazy scrap-metal lawn ornaments, they could pay everything they owed and live on the leftovers when they got old.

He’d gotten behind on the trash while she’d been gone. Thing was, down in the shed, there was a whole pile of Hefty sacks waiting to be burned. Every one of them looked more or less the same.

Matty’s head had been back in Omaha, working through all the things the money might mean to the situation he’d created for himself. He hadn’t seen Vince make the switch.

Vince listened to Rita in the kitchen. Pretty soon the teapot began to whistle, slowly building until it rattled and shrieked on the stove.

Worth added it up.

Even with the lowball offer they’d already accepted, he and Sondra would turn a decent profit on the house. If he took his share of the gain, cashed in his savings and investments, withdrew the limit on his Visa card, and sold the Ranger off, he could probably scrape together a little less than half the amount he and Vince had found in the GTO.

If he raided the escrow account that paid for Dad’s care, he could probably almost get there. Close.

He’d rattled off something he’d seen in some movie. Told Briggs and Salcedo he’d stashed the money in a storage unit. Six hours away.

Then go get it, Tony Briggs had said. We’ll give you a day.

In the meantime, Briggs and Salcedo would check in at random using a cell phone Briggs had shaken off a dope slinger in North O. If Gwen missed a call at the safe unit, they’d arrest the slinger, log his phone as evidence, and call a lab unit to the apartment Russell and Gwen had shared.

Worth could see where they were going. The slinger’s phone records would show a clog of calls to the safe house, where Gwen was supposed to be hiding. That would give Briggs and Salcedo enough probable cause to search the apartment where Russell James had been killed. Worth had done the best he could to neutralize the crime scene, but appearances were one thing. Apart from any evidence Briggs and Salcedo decided to plant there themselves, a lab workup would produce red flags.

It wouldn’t take much before somebody began adding up all the connections just beneath the surface.

In the meantime, Briggs and Salcedo held all the cards. They were in position to shape the facts however they wanted.

You’ll hear where to make the drop.

Worth walked over to the television, retrieving his service weapon from where Salcedo had placed it on the way out. He took it back and holstered it.

Gwen stood a few steps away, eyes gone distant, her arms drawn in around her waist. She still hadn’t looked at him.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

She flinched at his voice.

Worth couldn’t remember feeling lower than this. Not when Sondra had told him she was leaving. Not when the guy she’d left him for had punched his lights out in front of half of CIB. Maybe not even bearing Kelly’s casket toward a hole in the ground.

This was different. Dirty.

He looked at his watch; he’d been away from his post for thirty-five minutes.

Gwen said, “How much money is it?”