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She returned his possessions, including his belt and shoelaces, which had been taken in case he’d gotten it in his mind to hang himself. He waited for her to say something. You’d think, in this backwater, not having ID would be a capital crime—maybe even a hanging offense. But she didn’t bring it up.

“That it?” he asked. “I’m free to go?”

She nodded.

He gave her his best Max-as-charming-con-man voice. “What did I do? Officially.”

She looked at him sideways through calm, hazel eyes. “You loitered.”

“Seriously?”

“It’s on the books. You can look it up.”

Loitering was as good a trumped-up charge as any, Max guessed. He was grateful to her for saving him from the two guys in the limo, even if it meant spending a couple of hours in the pokey.

Who knew what they were after? If it hadn’t been for the deputy’s resourcefulness, he might have been a rotting corpse in the middle of the desert by now.

Although more likely, he’d be on a jet headed back for LA.

Tess McCrae walked him down the stairs and out through the echoing, empty first floor to the double wooden doors. The door screeched as it scuffed over the sill. Sunlight spotlighted him. He blinked and realized again that although he didn’t have a hangover, it sure felt like one.

Outside, the street looked like someone had run an iron over it. His heart sped up for a moment or two, then slowed back to its normal pace when he saw there were no suits in a black stretch limo. In fact, nobody at all.

They could be around the corner, watching and waiting.

The unreality of it was dizzying. For a moment, his thoughts started to fly away again, and he pictured himself holding the M-1 rifle, the one in
Man Down
, how he’d liked the heavy feel of it cradled in his hands, liked the shooting, the casings pinging around him. He pictured holding a pistol muzzle to his head, those many times he’d wished hard for the percussive sound that would obliterate it all.

But now, he marveled, those thoughts had lost their potency. Realized he just thought them out of habit.

“I’m free,” he said.

She looked at him. “Of course you’re free. I said you were.”

He stepped outside, getting his sea legs. The sun bearing down, blinding, he could swear he smelled alcohol—he’d been pickled in it for so long—and the smell of sex with countless women he didn’t know, and the dry mouth and seizing heartbeat from the prescription drugs. Sweat beaded under his hair. “You know a good place for lunch?”

“I know a place for lunch,” she said. “But it isn’t good. Nothing’s good around here.”

“The diner?”

She nodded again. That straight spine. No leeway there for all the silly stuff most people did with their hands and expressions and body language when they realized who he was.

Then she spoiled it. “I’ll go with you.”

“Why? You said I was free to go.”

“I’m hungry. How’s that?”

T
HE DINER HAD
a western theme, like everything in the town. Old movie posters on the walls, bustling waitresses with raccoon eyes and beauty-shop hairdos, clicking down the plastic plates and banging the ceramic coffee mugs. The deputy caught the door he held out for her. He could feel her calm presence even though they weren’t touching. He wondered if he’d been mistaken—that maybe she
didn’t
know who he was. The beard helped. He’d been living in these clothes since yesterday morning, and with the hundred-degree heat and the hitchhiking and the rainstorms he knew he was pretty ripe. During his two weeks at the Desert Oasis Healing Center, he’d learned the hard way that the hippie deodorant they provided didn’t work for shit.

The waitress didn’t make eye contact with him. Amazing how that worked. Nobody saw the homeless.

She sat them by the window away from everyone else. Fine by him. He could look at the street. He caught the deputy noting that. The deputy noted everything. After the waitress left with their order, the deputy leaned forward, setting her hands palms-down on the paper place mat. She wore clear polish and her trimmed nails were little half-moons. Her gaze was so steady it made him want to look away.

“So,” she said. “Who’s after you?”

“No one’s after me.”

“Those guys in the limo—why did they want you to go with them?”

“Beats me.”

She said nothing, just continued to watch him. No recognition in her eyes, though. Her face didn’t betray her real feelings about him, if there were any.

The silence was oppressive. He felt he had to say something. “What’s it to you?”

“Frankly, I don’t see why they’d want to get their car dirty.”

He gave her his most winning smile. “I can’t explain it.”

“You can’t.”

“Nope.” He added, “Maybe they were aliens come down to abduct me.”

She stared into his eyes, searching. Her half-moon nails solidly on the place mat.

Max realized he liked her.

She tapped her fingers on the place mat. “I guess it’s your business,” she said.

The diner was beginning to fill up—starting to get noisy.

A short, stocky man came in and approached their booth. The man wore a knit polo shirt and jeans and a lanyard around his neck. “Push over, doll,” the man said to the deputy, sliding into the booth next to her. He thumped union-boss elbows on the counter and leveled his gaze at Max. “Who’re you?”

“Who are
you
?”

“I asked first.”

The deputy said, “This is Pat. He’s Bajada County’s one and only detective, so don’t make him mad.”

“No kidding.” Pat lifted the paper place mat up close to his face and studied the menu printed on it. “Tess, you know if they got peekin’ pie today?”

“Think so,” the deputy said.

“So who is this guy?” Pat asked.

“Says his name is Dave.”

“Dave?” Pat looked up, his blue eyes startled in his pink Irish face. Something changed in his expression, but he hid it well.

The waitress took their orders, standing upwind and doing her best to ignore Max.

After the waitress left, Pat leaned forward on his stout elbows. “So,
Dave
. What’s a genuine, honest-to-God, bleeding-heart, liberal
movie star
like you doing in this piss-water town?”

“You’re mistaking me for someone else.”

“Uh-huh. Tess, you ever see this guy’s movies?”

“Some of them.”

“What was the first one you saw?”

“
The Slab
.”

Pat leaned forward. “When was that?”

Tess sighed. “June twenty-second, two thousand nine.”

“And that was…”

“A Monday.”

“You sure, now? How do you know it was a Monday?”

“It just was.”

Pat settled in deeper in the booth and stared at her avidly. “Anything special about that day?”

Tess looked at Max. “Two Metro trains in Washington, DC, collided.”

“Oh?” Pat leaned forward, cupped his chin in his hands, sang, “Tell me more, tell me more, tell me more.”

Tess held Max’s gaze. Those calm hazel eyes. “Nine people died.”

“Anything else?”

“Eighty people were injured.”

“Do tell. Where was this?”

“Tahoma Station.”

The waitress came over with their food. “You playin’ that game again, Pat? I’m sure this girl is tired of bein’ your one-trick pony.”

Max said to Tess, “Someone you knew died in the wreck?”

“Permit me,” Pat said to the deputy, then turned to Max. “She didn’t know any of them. As a matter of fact, I doubt she even knew there
was
a Tahoma station.”

A loud beep emanated from Pat’s belt. He shifted away from them and called in, his voice low. Closed his battered flip phone and looked at the deputy. “We gotta go. Somebody fighting over a goat—I kid you not. Knowing those two mean-ass lesbians, it could turn into a homo-cide for sure.”

Deputy McCrae was already on her feet.

Pat stood up, guzzled the rest of his coffee, and tossed a few bills on the table. “See you around,
Max
.”

Chapter Three

W
HEN THE WOMAN
spotted the turnoff for Joshua Tree National Park, she exited the freeway and took the road under the overpass.

“Why are we stopping here?” asked the boy.

“I think you should see this.”

“See what? It’s just a bunch of rocks and cactus.”

The woman said nothing, just followed the road to the Cottonwood Visitor Center, and parked out front.

“We haven’t made it very far,” the boy said as they got out of the car.

“We’re in no hurry.”

“Jesus, it’s hot out here!”

“Mouth,” she reminded him.

“Yeah, yeah. OK.” He started up the walkway to the visitor center, turned back. “You coming?”

She motioned to her mobile phone, which was vibrating. “In a minute.”

The number on the readout belonged to Gordon White Eagle. When she answered he said, “Dammit! I’ve been trying to reach you since yesterday afternoon!”

“What time in the afternoon?”

“How should I know?” He paused. “Around five o’clock, six at the latest.”

“I don’t answer after five. You didn’t leave a message, did you, Gordon?”

Gordon ignored this. “Where are you now?”

“Joshua Tree National Park. I think we’re going to camp here.”

“No you’re not. There’s been a change of plans.” Gordon paused. The woman had never known Gordon to pause.

There was no ambiguity to Gordon. He was certain of things. In fact, he was a know-it-all. She’d seen him intimidate people—he was big, with a shiny bald head like Mr. Clean. She knew it was all calculated to get the upper hand, but no one got the upper hand with her. Right now, surprisingly, she heard indecision in his voice like play in a steering wheel. “Our, er…
resident
went out on his own yesterday and hasn’t come back. I’ve had a couple of my men looking for him since early yesterday evening. I need you here.”

The woman looked at the new black pavement and the desert beyond. “What do you want
me
to do?”

“Get here ASAP! This isn’t a scenic trip. How long will it take you to get here?”

Shaun estimated: Yucca Valley to Blythe, Blythe to Quartzite, Quartzite to Phoenix. Phoenix up I-17 to Cottonwood, then to Desert Oasis. “Late.”

“Late? What does
that
mean?”

“Night.”

“I’ll send a jet. Where’s the nearest airport? Indio, right?”

After the arrangements were made, Shaun closed the phone and walked to the visitor center. The road trip, the national parks and scenic vistas and campgrounds, would have to wait. It was something kids should have in their childhood. Her best friend from elementary school, Lisa Ann Davenport, had traveled all over the country with her parents every summer, and it had set her up for life. Lisa Ann was married to a handsome, successful businessman. She ran her own business, and they had two children, a boy and a girl. No doubt, she and her husband took them to national parks, where they made s’mores and told ghost stories around the campfire. Shaun wanted those kinds of experiences for Jimmy.

He was far too obsessed with killing.

She found him pawing through the Joshua Tree hats. There were plenty of souvenirs at the Cottonwood Visitor Center, and she let him pick out half a dozen. Paid for them in cash without complaint.

They took a short loop drive, photographed a couple of Joshua trees, then drove back to Indio to wait for Gordon’s jet.

A
FTER THE DEPUTY
and the detective left him alone at the table, the waitress kept looking at him. He knew she was wondering where she’d seen him before.

Time to get out of here. He shifted in his seat to reach for his wallet.

It wasn’t there.

From her place by the lunch counter, the waitress watched him like a hawk watches a weasel.

Where was his wallet?

She started in his direction.

He looked at the money Pat had thrown on the table. Not enough to cover the bill. Cheap son of a bitch.

The waitress was standing over him.

He tried the other back pocket of his jeans. Her voice assaulted his ears, shutting out all thought. Her lips were moving but he couldn’t hear anything but the band-saw shriek.