Preview: The Lesser of Two Evils

Part One

Tuesday, August 13, 1996, 11:34 pm

Houston, Texas

Fred Tanner drummed his fingers on the steering wheel nervously, looking from the red light at the intersection to his partner, Larry Sloan, who had been silent for most of the night. Both of them had been, but the mood of the officers at the station had been tense for the last three weeks.

Fred glanced at the dispatch radio, and he forced himself to think of the tune that he was drumming his fingers to. He wasn’t quite ready to give in to paranoia at how long the radio had been silent. It was slow on Tuesday nights sometimes, but the dispatch radio was never dead silent. Yet not one call had come through in the last hour. There were occasional bursts of static, and with each crackle, Fred found himself wishing for a call, even if it meant bad news.

“The light’s green,” Larry said. His deep voice seemed a few pitches higher than normal. “Stop looking at the radio like the station’s been blown up.”

“How do we know it hasn’t been already?” Fred asked, finally giving voice to his concern.

“Because somebody else would have called in a report on a big ass fire in the middle of downtown,” Larry said before huffing an annoyed sigh. “Look man, just cool it, okay?”

“How can you be so calm?” asked Fred.

“I’m not calm,” Larry said. “I’m fatigued. I haven’t slept in...God, I can’t even remember the last time I had a nap. Five patrols hit in three weeks, and with a city full of cops, we still can’t find one clue who’s doing it.”

“Yeah, like we don’t already know,” Fred muttered.

“What? Oh hell, don’t tell me you’re still buying that urban legend bullshit?” Larry groaned at the sight of his partner’s jaw tightening. “For the last time, there is no Jobe McKenzie, all right? The man is a myth as far as I’m concerned.”

“A myth,” Fred repeated and shook his head. “Myths don’t have body counts.”

“Look, just because people get killed in explosions don’t mean they’re all related. You’re talking about six different MO’s in six states over the course of four years, and the only thing to tie them all together is a letter that one tabloid claims is from this Jobe McKenzie guy. It’s the Weekly Globe, and they’re always trying to come up with some dumb-ass conspiracy theory.

“How many times did they pin the murder of that Mitchell girl to one of her family members? Like what? Eight, nine times?” Larry glanced at Fred, who wouldn’t answer him. He asked, “How many times was it supposed to have been her kid brother?”

Fred said, “Maybe they got it right this time.”

Larry gasped in exasperation. “It’s a gossip rag! They haven’t even got another letter since the first two bombings. They just keep picking attacks and saying this guy did them. Until someone else backs up their claims, it’s all just crap from a tabloid.

“For all you know, they picked a staff writer to make up a letter that connected the two crimes, then they make the claim that every explosion after that is really vigilante acts from an urban myth.”

“Well—”

“The first victims listed were a Sunday school teacher and her husband, and the claims that they were criminals might be easier to believe if there was some kind of actual charges made, you know?” Larry shook his head. “But they came up clean, and no one’s come forward to say otherwise.”

Fred scowled at his partner. “Right, and now we just happen to have a serial bomber in our city—”

“Using a completely different MO and unrelated targets!” Larry sighed and slumped back into his seat. “Just drop it, all right? Keep your tabloid killer ideas to yourself.”

“Hey.” Fred tapped Larry’s shoulder and gestured across the street toward a grocery store.

The parking lot was empty, save for one car. Larry shrugged, almost looking away before he spotted the faint trail of light on the ground beside the car that had caught his partner’s attention. He guessed the source was a flashlight laid on the ground under the car, but he couldn’t see signs of anybody around.

Larry surveyed the other buildings of the shopping center as Fred pulled the car across the street and back toward the parking lot entrance. “Where do you think the driver is?”

“No idea,” Fred said. “But if they left their flashlight on, they were either being chased or they were snatched.”

Larry nodded, reaching for the door before the car had finished coming to a stop. Looking around again as he got out, he unsnapped his holster and settled his palm over the handle of his revolver. Nothing seemed right about the situation, and his skin prickled as he got closer to the abandoned car, an ugly, rust-red Volkswagen Rabbit with a cracked windshield.

“Who’s looking under the car?” asked Larry.

Fred’s anxious gaze flicked away from the car as he frowned at his partner. “Are you thinking what I am?”

Larry took a step back and said, “Yeah, I’m thinking bomb.”

“Let’s call for backup,” Fred suggested. “If it turns out to be a false alarm, only our pride will be wounded.” He uttered a short, forced chuckle and walked back to the patrol car. Dropping into the driver’s seat, he grabbed the radio receiver handset and called, “Dispatch.”

Larry sat down in the passenger seat, immediately noting the silence of the radio with a sense of anxiety that grew as he waited for a reply. Tearing his troubled gaze away from the radio, he saw that Fred was again drumming his fingers while he watched the abandoned car. “Did you make the call yet?”

“I tried, but there’s no answer.” Fred checked the frequency and tried again. “Dispatch, are you there?” He glanced at Larry with an uneasy expression, drumming his fingers faster against the steering wheel. “Who’s on shift tonight?”

“Matt,” Larry said, his brow furrowing at the continued silence from the radio.

“Matt?” Fred looked up at the rearview mirror. He dropped the handset, his spine tensing when he saw someone duck behind the back of the patrol car. “Shit!”

“What?” Larry asked. His door was slammed with his leg still stuck outside. Larry’s mouth fell open, and the color of his face darkened to a deep purple.

Fred jerked away from the sounds of the slamming door and Larry’s agonized bellowing. His hands felt slick as he fumbled to pull his gun out of his holster and open the door at the same time. Stepping out on shaky legs, he pivoted on his heels to look over the side of the car, and then toward the back.

He heard a metallic rattle on the ground and glanced down just as a small silver ball tumbled out from under the car. As it rolled far enough to catch light from the dome lamp, he took a step back to run around the car. His gaze remained on the ball, and he had barely registered that the bumpy surface was made up of BBs before the bomb exploded.

Throwing his arm up in front of his face, he stumbled backward and collapsed on the ground. His vision was gone in one eye, and when he tried to wipe his face, his hand came away covered in a slick coat of blood.

Somewhere faintly, he heard the sound of someone screaming. Though his face and neck burned when he tried to move, he raised his arm to stare at the remains of the hand which had shielded his face.

Something struck his chest and knocked the wind from him. He closed his hand over it, and then jerked his arm up, trying to throw another of the improvised grenades away. It burst over his head, killing him instantly.

Larry continued to scream even though a part of his mind pleaded with him to move. The passenger door opened, and before he could think to act, a hand clad in a black leather glove reached in and tugged his pistol up and away from his holster. Seconds later, the hand returned to grip him by the arm and throw him out of the car in one pull. Larry hit the ground and tumbled over twice with the force of the throw before coming to rest on his back.

Larry rolled his head to the side to stare at the man, who leaned against the patrol car and began to search his pockets. “Wh—who—?”

“You know what’s fucked up?” the man asked. He tugged a pack of cigarettes from one pocket of his long black trench coat and a Zippo lighter from the other.

Larry watched the man flick the flint wheel several times before the wick ignited. The light of the tiny flame pushed back the shadows to reveal a slender, sickly pale face with sunken cheeks and eyes.

The man’s gaze never left his. In that cold stare, Larry knew he would not live to see his girlfriend again. He allowed himself a final thought of her lying beside him in bed before he faked a bitter laugh. “What’s fucked up is I’m gonna die at the hands of an urban legend, and the only people who’ll believe it read the Weekly Globe.”

“That’s close, yeah. But no, what’s really fucked up is out of six patrols, you had to be the cops who decided not to go for the flashlight. I had an almost perfect streak going there, but you...” The man paused, smiling as he took a drag from his cigarette. “You win the distinction of actually being smart cops. So I’m giving you the honor of my congratulations.”

“I’m thrilled.” Larry dropped his head back onto the pavement, panting as he tried to will away the spots floating in his vision. Whether the man in front of him was Jobe McKenzie or not, he wasn’t stupid despite seeming cocky. Even with a broken leg, Larry had a chance to take him if the man would only move a little bit closer. But he wisely kept his distance.

“You don’t want me to tell you what all of this is about?” the man asked.

“Sure,” Larry said. He flopped his hand, waving an invitation. “Come over here, and whisper it to me.”

The man snorted, blasting plumes of smoke from his nostrils. “Nice. I still have your gun, you know.”

Larry shook his head. “Nah, that’s not your style.”

“True, but I’m not opposed to switching tactics now that you’ve blown my streak.” The man knelt down and leaned against the door of the patrol car. “Larry, you’ve been a bad man, haven’t you?”

“What?” Larry scowled. “You know what? Fuck you. Just kill me now.”

“Fine,” the man said and rose to pull Larry’s gun from the waistband of his jeans. He shot Larry twice in the chest, and then he nodded while his mouth split in a smug grin. “See? It is too my style.”

He walked around to the back of the patrol car, reaching under the bumper to pry loose the device he’d tagged the car with to block their radio.

Jobe glanced at his reflection in the back window of the car, shaking his head when he noticed its fuming expression. “Save it for later.”

***

Wednesday, August 14, 4:53 am

Jobe settled into his seat, looking at his reflection in the window of the bus. He’d spent most of the night walking around to clear his head, and though he hadn’t slept in over forty-eight hours, he still didn’t feel tired. He knew no one was looking for him, but the bus wouldn’t leave for another few minutes, and he wouldn’t be able to relax until he was moving again.

His reflection shifted and drew him out of his thoughts. Jobe glanced around the bus to make sure there were plenty of seats between himself and the other passengers. He turned back to his reflection and offered a nod. “All right, the coast is clear.”

“Sloppy, man. Very sloppy,” his reflection said.

“Nobody lived,” Jobe insisted. But he nodded again. “Okay, guns really aren’t my style, but I used both plan B’s on Tanner, and I wasn’t about to go fetch the flashlight...” Jobe cringed once he remembered that he’d left the flashlight bomb under the car. “Oh, yeah.”

“And that’s what was sloppy, dumb ass,” the reflection snapped before he crossed his arms and sat back in the reflection of Jobe’s seat. “In your haste to get away, you didn’t think to clean up after yourself. So now a bomb squad will get a good look at one of your live bombs, and they don’t know those guys were dirty. We can only hope they don’t look at it too closely before blowing it, but that makes two jobs you’ve botched, meaning the FBI will be able to link you to all those other seemingly random jobs.”

“That wasn’t a botched job,” Jobe hissed. He looked around to make sure no one had heard him. “You didn’t tell me the bomb was defective.”

“It wasn’t defective before you dropped it, buddy, and you didn’t check back with me until after finding out you had a dud,” the reflection said. “What you need is a vacation.”

“All right, that sounds fine with me. You told me to pick this bus, so where are we going?”

His reflection smiled broadly. “To find redemption, we shall seek a divine place.”

“A riddle? Okay,” Jobe said and sat back.

“Look at your ticket,” the reflection said.

Jobe did, scanning the list of names. He stopped reading and asked, “Where the hell is Devine?”

***

Wednesday, 11:45 am

Devine, Texas

Wendy Stoffel chewed the gum center of her Blow Pop, not quite ready to pry it off the paper stick. She knew herself well enough to know that she’d swallow the gum a few seconds later, so she left the wad of gum on the stick and flipped through the latest issue of Spiderman. She wasn’t really reading it, and her attention was focused on the sounds coming from behind her.

She glanced up casually at the window, pretending to check the traffic on Hondo Avenue. It was one of the two main highways running through the town. The Pico station was on the corner where the highways intersected, and even at the busiest part of town, there weren’t more than two or three cars passing through.

She wasn’t watching traffic either. Instead, she was checking the reflection to see if Mabel Lang, the clerk running the convenience store, was still working on the fryers on the other side of the counters. The old woman’s back was turned, and the store was empty.

Wendy closed the comic book and slipped it under the waistband of her cut-off denim shorts before she pulled her shirt up and over the top. She picked up the same issue from the rack and opened it before her eyes flicked back to the reflection.

She had plenty of time before Mabel turned around to give her a scornful look. “You know, you been here something close to two hours, and the only thing you bought was that lollipop.”

“Yeah, and I’m flat broke just like everybody else in this town. Where else am I gonna go? There’s the grocery store or the library.” Wendy set the comic down, turning to Mabel as she faked a look of excitement. “Wow, there’s so many choices!”

“You could go home,” Mabel said.

Wendy’s expression darkened. “Yeah, what a great idea.” She turned and started for the door, holding her face in a scowl even as Mabel started to pout.

“Hey, I’m sorry. I know things are rough with your brother and all, but this isn’t a lending library, you know? We’re just about as broke as you too.” As Mabel rambled, her expression became more guilty looking while Wendy continued to stare at her coolly.

“We’re home alone these days,” Wendy said. “My folks finally found a job, and it’s a day labor construction deal over in Odessa. So they’re gone until Friday, and I’m all alone except for Sam. Maybe it might seem crazy to you, but after four years of watching him die slowly, sometimes I need to get out of the damned house.”

The old woman’s mouth flapped open, but Wendy stormed out quickly. She knew that if she stayed any longer, she’d overplay her grief card, and she liked rationing it out to last throughout the whole week.

She went around the side of the station before she jogged out to the street, picking up her pace and not slowing down until she had run a full two blocks to a set of railroad tracks. She smiled at them, stepping over the rails as she always did with a sarcastic thought about being “the girl from the wrong side of the tracks.”

“Did you pull a guilt trip on Mabel again?”

Wendy spun, giving a nod to her brother Jamie as she broke into a smile. “Of course I did. Otherwise she’d do the smart thing and count the comics right after I left. This way, I have a few days to build back up the guilt supply before the cops come to visit me for a lecture.”

“You’re evil sometimes,” Jamie said.

“No, I’m just bored sometimes. Being poor is one thing, but being poor and stuck in a podunk town is driving me crazy.”

“We could go beat somebody up.”

“Now who’s being evil?” Wendy looked around before she tugged the comic out from under her shirt. She waved for her brother to follow her. “Come on, Sam is waiting for me.”

“I still don’t get any thanks?” asked Jamie.

Wendy sighed. “All right, fine. Thank you, Jamie. You told me the new Spiderman was in for Sam. I still had to go get it myself.”

“Boo-hoo. Cry me a river. When are you going to cut your hair?”

“Get bent,” Wendy said and quickened her pace.

“So you’ll ignore me now?”

“Yep, even if you refuse to shut up.”

The air went still with an alarming suddenness, the warm wind fading as quickly as the sounds of the wasps and locusts. Wendy stopped walking as she felt the short hairs on her neck rise. She turned, intending to ask her brother if he’d noticed the change in the air. Instead she froze, and her eyes moved up the street toward a flicker of movement.

Jamie’s back was turned to her, and his attention was focused on the intersection by the station that she had just left. She didn’t need to ask what he was looking at, because she saw the car too. The black Lincoln had windows tinted so darkly that all she could make out from the interior was the silhouette of the driver.

What made the car more ominous was that it didn’t seem to reflect any light. The black paint was dull and flat, while the windows didn’t reflect the sunlight or the car’s surroundings. Wendy squinted as she realized that she could see a reflection. But the outlines flickering across the window appeared to be a row of houses, not the businesses around the intersection. The longer she stared at the car, the less it seemed real.

No one else but the driver was in the car, and she thought, No one else is in the car yet. Make sure it’s not you.

Wendy tried to reason with herself that if the car wasn’t real, neither was the threat. But she still followed her instincts and took a few steps back before catching herself.

The car drove out of view, and Jamie shivered. He looked over his shoulder to frown at his sister. “Did you feel that?”

Wendy nodded, uttering a gasp as the warm wind began to blow over her skin again. It was impossible not to notice the change, nor was the returning sounds of the insects. She glanced at her brother before turning around to walk home. “I’ve gotta check on Sam.”

“Good idea. Then what?”

“Then I’m digging out one of dad’s good knives.”

***

Wednesday, 1:39 pm

“Wendy,” Jamie said in a tense voice.

Wendy nodded. Her skin had started to tingle when the sounds around her again faded to a sudden silence. The wind died and left the air feeling oppressively hot. “I know. The car has to be around here somewhere.”

“Over there.” Jamie pointed up the street as the phantom car slipped through the intersection behind them. He took off at a run to chase after the car.

Wendy was much slower than him, barely able to run around the corner before she saw the car fade out of sight a few blocks away from her. The moment it faded, the droning of the insects returned. She felt the wind blowing, confirming again that somehow, it had died only during the time that she saw the car.

She walked to her brother, who stood on the side of the street where the car had faded. She noticed his pensive expression. “What is it?”

“This is the third time we’ve spotted this car around town, but I can’t see who’s driving it,” Jamie said. “Even the driver inside is just a dark outline.”

“Jamie, did it feel to you like...like everything stopped while we saw the car?”

“Yeah, I noticed it right away, like time just froze.” He gave his sister a strained smile. “You and I should be used to things like this by now.”

Wendy shook her head. “No, this is something new. I don’t remember ever feeling like this before.”

“No, I mean we ought to be used to having crazy things happen to us,” Jamie said. He looked back toward the street as his expression clouded with anxiety. “Why does it keep fading right when I catch up to it?”

“Why is it happening at all? Do you think the car is a threat of some kind?”

“Not the car directly, but the driver is, I think.” Jamie turned his head back and forth as he began to frown. “Where would it go from here?”

“We’ve found it just by wandering around,” Wendy said. “Maybe we should keep moving to see where else it shows up.”

“We could split up to cover more ground,” Jamie said.

“No, if you found the car, there’d be no time for you to lead me to it before it faded again.”

Jamie stuck out his chest and faked a brave smile. “Are you sure you don’t just want me sticking around to protect you?”

Wendy didn’t return the smile as she nodded. “Yeah, that’s exactly why I don’t want us splitting up.”

***

Wednesday, 2:15 pm

Davis Briggs pulled his patrol car off of Hondo and onto a dirt road that would lead him to the little league baseball field. It wasn’t on his patrol, but he’d heard from Mabel that a game was scheduled that afternoon, and he hoped to watch a few minutes. It wasn’t likely that he’d get a call anyway, and he was almost able to relieve himself from the guilt of wandering off of his patrol route.

But his plans were disrupted when Wendy Stoffel walked out from between a set of trailers just ahead of his car. She turned her head to look at him, and then she smiled. Her posture relaxed as she crossed the yard, and she waved to him, making a bee-line for his car.

Though he’d only lived in Devine for a year, and had spent less then six months working for the police department, the one person he knew the most about in town was Wendy. He didn’t consider the added knowledge a good thing.

Even before taking a job with the police, he’d heard all kinds of gossip about Wendy and her family. Both parents were construction workers, as the story went, and Wendy was something of a classic victim of neglect. He’d heard more than one person in town say that describing Wendy as moody was putting it nicely. Nobody ever used the word bitch to describe her, but it was clear they were thinking it.

Among most of the people in town, there was also a sense that something about Wendy was vaguely creepy. She didn’t play with other children, and any time that she was not in school or at home, she could be found walking alone around the town. He could confirm that just a few days after getting settled in, and it had seemed to him like Wendy was often talking to herself.

Once he’d started working as a cop again, he had been called to take her to the station regularly for lifting comic books from the gas stations. In spite of her repeatedly hitting the same stores, none of the owners would ever press charges.

He was sure they let her get away with returning to their stores because her story was not only always the same, but it was also sadly true. She was stealing the comics to give to her older brother Sam, who was dying from a tainted vaccination he’d received four years before while living in Arizona.

The owners wanted the police to lecture her and get her to stop stealing the books, but suggesting that they press charges or at the very least ban her from their stores caused them to back down every time. So she had kept up a pattern of drifting from store to store, always stealing the same two comic book titles.

During several of her arrests, Davis had asked the owners why they didn’t just cancel the two titles for a few months to discourage her, and even that suggestion was met with a number of mumbled excuses about not wanting to punish the other kids. Only once had he made the mistake of voicing his opinion that “other kids” meant Sam, and the dirty look he’d gotten made it clear his opinion was not wanted.

Davis had no problems lecturing Wendy at their request, nor did he feel obligated to fall for her guilt trips over her sick brother. But he still found her to be likable, if a bit complex for a girl of thirteen.

No one else had mentioned it to him, but it often occurred to Davis that she would say things he’d just been thinking. He occasionally mentioned it to her, but she would only smile and change the subject quickly.

He and most everyone else in town would have described her as a tomboy, except she didn’t look like one at all. She acted the part by getting into fights with some of the local boys, often winning, much to the chagrin of her victims. Davis had been called to break up a good number of those fights even in his short time on patrol, and the few times she was losing had been when someone else had jumped in to make it more of a fair fight.

She was in the habit of wearing skimpy denim shorts and t-shirts during the summer, exposing as much pale skin as she could. That she could spend as much time in the sun as she did and only end up with a soft beige color to her skin was the subject of many offhand jokes told around town. One joke went that Wendy bathed in guilt nightly to preserve her clear complexion.

She had a slender face that suffered a little from eating poorly, but it was hard to notice the tiny flaws of her lean cheeks once anyone looked at her eyes. Davis had noticed that she used her crystal blue eyes to her advantage, and while he couldn’t fall for a guilt trip from Wendy, he had allowed himself to be charmed by her eyes a few times.

She normally kept her black, curly hair held out of her face with a rolled black bandana or a hair band unless she was looking for a fight. Then she would tie her hair back into a ponytail and change into a pair of jeans to keep from skinning her knees.

Davis slowed the car to a stop and rolled down his window. “Hey, Wendy. You stolen any comics lately?”

Watching her walk toward the patrol car, it occurred to him that she was dressed in jeans, and her hair was bound back about as tightly as he’d ever seen it. He left it alone, deciding he’d save the lecture for after the fight, wherever it would end up happening. But the closer she got to the car, the more he realized how fake her smile was.

“Hi, Davis. How’s life as the supercop going?”

“Well, I don’t know. Right now my gut is telling me that you’ve got a real problem on your mind.” Davis shut off the engine. “You wanna tell me about it?”

Wendy’s smile melted as she looked around and walked closer to the patrol car. “You haven’t seen a big black Lincoln driving around today, have you? I mean a flat black color, not shiny or reflective like that.” She pointed to the side of his car for emphasis.

“No, I’m pretty sure I’d remember seeing something like that,” Davis said. “When did you see this car?”

“Twice now,” Wendy lied. “I was walking back...well, back from the Super S, and—”

“You mean you were at Pico stealing a comic, right?” Davis sighed and waved his hand. “All right, never mind. Just tell me about the car.”

“It was over on Hondo, just passing the intersection at Teel. When I saw it...” Wendy frowned. No, forget it, she thought. He’ll never believe you if you tell him how everything stopped moving.

“It just felt creepy to me,” Wendy said. “The windows were tinted really darkly, so you couldn’t see the driver beyond an outline.”

“Nobody I know owns a car like that out here,” Davis said. “How long was it until you saw the car again?”

“I’m not sure.” Wendy pointed to her bare right wrist. “You know I don’t wear watches or anything. I don’t know if you’ll believe me, but something about that car just set me on edge.”

“So that’s why you’re dressed in fighting gear?” Davis sighed when she nodded. “Look, you shouldn’t be out trying to play the big hero. If whoever’s in that car really is a threat, you could end up getting your skinny butt kidnapped.” He knew she wasn’t listening to him and gave up. “Where else did you see the car?”

“Over by the middle school.” Wendy turned to point behind her. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say they were patrolling the area too. They keep taking random turns, like they’re trying to get lost intentionally.”

“You’ve been following them?” Davis groaned. “Wendy—”

“Do you want to hear this or not?” she asked, cutting him off.

“Sure, go ahead.”

“There isn’t much left to tell anyway. The car pulled onto Washington and...” Wendy paused, stuck for an explanation. The car pulled onto the street and vanished, but she had to make up something convincing. She said, “It was headed towards me, so I had to hide between some bushes.”

Davis nodded his approval. “Good idea, but if you were so creeped out by this car, why are you trying to follow it?”

Wendy looked away from him and toward the little league field when the crowd cheered. “I just don’t like the way it looks. It doesn’t belong here.”

“Wendy, you probably won’t listen, but I think you should head home. I’m gonna look into this car for you, and I’d feel a lot better knowing you weren’t trying to chase it down in the meantime, okay?”

Wendy nodded. “I have to check on Sam anyway.”

“Your folks are still out of town?”

“Yep, till Friday. I’d throw a party, but nobody likes coming to our house.” Wendy offered him a weak smile. “I’ll head home, so you can get to the game.”

“I wasn’t—” Davis smirked at her. “One of these days, you gotta tell me how you do that.”

“Maybe someday, when you’re older.” Wendy laughed and offered Davis another wave before she walked away.

***

Wendy stopped walking and turned her head back over her shoulder to watch Davis’ car until it was a few blocks away. As soon as he was out of sight, she wandered back between the set of trailers she had been looking around when Davis showed up.

Cutting through several open yards, she checked up and down the dirt road. But Jamie’s theory that the real car had to be parked nearby wasn’t panning out.

Wendy gave up and left the trailer park. She returned to Moore Avenue, checking to make sure Davis hadn’t followed her before she crossed the front lawn of a house and made her way into the back yard.

The yard next door was fenced in, and under the shade of a tree, she saw a short, brown, scruffy-haired dog that was lounging on its back. The dog looked at her and offered a greeting that was somewhere between a whine and a bark. She put her finger to her lips and shushed the dog. It rolled onto its legs and gave a yip before laying its head on the ground.

Jamie stood in the same spot where she had left him, his arms crossed over his chest as he studied the back windows of the house. “The real car isn’t parked nearby,” she said. “Are you sure about this?”

“The car passed this place twice,” Jamie said.

“So? It’s driven by a couple of places repeatedly.”

“Where else has it slowed down?” Jamie asked. He nodded at her silence. “This has got to be the target, but for what? I can’t find anything high-value inside.”

“I don’t think they’re planning a robbery, Jamie.”

“No, I don’t either, but I can’t see what they want.” Jamie turned to frown at her while he gestured toward the street. “You told Davis a whole bunch of lies just to give him a description of the car, and it isn’t really here yet. Why did you bother telling him? You’re going to have him running all over town for nothing.”

“No, it wasn’t for nothing,” Wendy insisted. “It might not pan out for him today, but he’s always on patrol during the week. Now he knows what to look for.”

Jamie’s gaze returned to the house, his pale face filled with a brooding look of frustration. “Even though I don’t.”

“Don’t work yourself up over it. So you know some things in advance sometimes. You don’t know everything, right?”

“Yeah.” There was no conviction in Jamie’s voice, and his blue eyes were filled with doubt.

“I wasn’t lying to Davis about everything,” Wendy said. “I really do need to go home and check on Sam. He’ll probably want dinner soon anyway.”

“Yeah, I’ll see you later then.” Jamie’s attention never drifted from the back of the house.

“You’re not just going to stand here all day, are you?” Wendy asked.

“Nah, but I figure if this is the place, the car’s shadow will be back around in a little while, and maybe I can try to track it from here before it fades out again.”

“Maybe we’re wrong.”

Jamie nodded. “God, I hope so.”