So I say, “I’m really sorry, Seb. It’s a shit situation, and you didn’t deserve that happening to you.”

Seb is quiet for a minute. Then he says, “Thanks, brother.”

“If you want to do this job with me . . . I’d be glad to have you.”

“Yeah?”

“Definitely,” I say.

But first, our little late-night visit . . .

We pull into Braidwood about ten o’clock at night. It’s a tiny town, maybe six thousand people. Most of them work at the nuclear plant. So does the man we’ve come to see. Eric Edwards is a security guard, preventing acts of industrial espionage for the princely sum of $12 an hour.

It’s a step down from the days when he was patrolling the city streets for the Chicago PD. He was discharged with no pension after he broke some kid’s arm during a routine shoplifting arrest. Turns out that kid was the fourteen-year-old son of the Fire Commissioner, so that little act of aggression didn’t get swept under the rug like the twenty-two complaints Edwards had received before.

But I’m not here about any kid.

I’m here because Edwards was one of the two officers who found Matthew Schultz outside Rosenblum Park on April 18th, 2005.

Now he lives in a tiny salt-box house on the outskirts of town, between the Dollar General and Hicks Gas and Propane.

I’ve seen photos from his policing days, when he had a thick black mustache and relatively trim physique. I hardly recognize the fat fuck sitting by his fire pit, dressed in a pair of striped pajama pants and a Ghostbusters t-shirt that doesn’t even come close to cover his hairy belly. He’s roasting a hot dog on a stick, the first of many if the amount of buns he’s got laid out on his plate is any indication.

He looks up as our car pulls into his drive. He doesn’t move from the beat-up lawn chair that barely looks capable of supporting his bulk.

Seb and I get out of the car. We approach him from two sides, as Papa always taught us. Flanking like wolves.

“Whadda ya want?” Edwards demands, squinting up at us.

“Just a moment of your time,” I say, quietly. “I’ve got three questions for you. If you answer honestly, we can be on our way.”

Edwards’ piggy little eyes narrow even further as he looks between Seb and me.

“Who are you?” he says. “You work for Flores?”

I don’t know who Flores is, and I don’t care.

“That’s not how the game works,” I remind him. “I ask the questions. You answer.”

“I don’t have to play your fucking game, kid,”

Edwards nods toward his old service pistol, slung over the arm of his chair in its holster. I raise an eyebrow, pretending to be impressed.

“You see that Seb? He’s got a gun.”

Sebastian and I lock eyes. Then, at the same instant, Seb uses his good leg to kick out the straining struts of the lawn chair, while I knock the gun and holster out of Edwards’ reach.

The chair collapses beneath him and he tumbles backward. He flails his arm, trying to grab his gun. I bring my boot down on his hand, pinning it in place.

Sebastian does the same with Edwards’ other arm. Now he’s laying on the grass, looking up at us, howling with fury.

“Quiet,” I snap, “Or I’ll stuff one of those filthy socks in your mouth.

Edwards is wearing a pair of rancid wool socks under his sandals. He immediately quiets, knowing better than I do how disgusting that would taste.

“What do you want?” Edwards snarls.

“I told you,” I say. “Three questions. First, who shot Matthew Schultz?”

“How the fuck should I know?” Edwards says.

“Wrong answer.” I nod to Sebastian. He puts his other shoe on Edwards’ throat and starts to bear down.

Edwards chokes and gurgles, his face turning a congested red. Seb lets up just a little and Edwards cries, “I don’t know! Nobody knows!”

Seb starts to push down on his throat again and Edwards sputters something I can’t make out.

“Ease off,” I say to Seb. Then to Edwards, “Last chance. What were you saying?”

Edwards gasps and chokes, giving a phlegmy cough.

“He had a lot of enemies,” he says.

“Who?”

“Everybody. People said he was working with internal affairs, turning in other cops.”

“So who wanted him dead?”

“I don’t KNOW!” Edwards howls. Seb raises his foot again and Edwards cries, “All I know is that we were supposed to be by the park that night. To answer the call.”

“What call?”

“About the shooting. Only I didn’t know it was gonna be a shooting ‘till we got there.”

“Who told you to be there?”

Edwards squirms, trying to wrench his wrists out from under our feet. He clamps his mouth shut and shakes his head side to side, like a toddler trying to refuse food.

“Who?” I demand, pressing down on his wrist until I hear the tendons pop.

“Owww!” Edwards howls. Then as Seb starts to press down on his neck for the last time, he gasps, “Brodie! It was Brodie!”

I nod at Seb to let him be.

Then I take my weight off Edwards’ arm so he can sit up and rub his wrists with a sulky expression.

“Brodie told you to be there that night?” I say.

“Yes.”

“Did you get the security footage that showed the shooting?”

“Yeah. But I never watched it. I gave it to my partner. Coop was supposed to log it. Instead it disappeared.”

“Convenient,” I say.

“What do you care?” Edwards mutters, glaring at Seb and me. “You’re not cops. Who the fuck are you, anyway?”

“I’m the guy who’s not gonna kill you tonight,” I tell him. “You’re welcome.”

Kicking his gun further out of reach, I nod to Seb and we head back to the SUV.

As we climb inside, Seb says, “Did you know who he was talking about? This Brodie guy?”

“Yeah,” I nod. “I know who that is.”

I saw a picture of him pinning a medal on Logan Schultz.

23

Camille

I’m robbing a bank today.

It seems completely unreal. Standing in my tiny, dingy kitchen, everything looks so prosaic and familiar that I can’t imagine myself doing anything but the normal activities of cooking, cleaning, or working in the auto bay.

Yet tonight, I move from (mostly) law-abiding citizen to full-out criminal.

Nero and I have our plan in place. I know what I’m supposed to do.

Yet I can’t help focusing on the thousand ways it could all go wrong. If I forget a single part of it. If I make just one mistake . . .

No. That can’t happen.

I try to picture my Dad, the very first time he showed me how to take apart an engine and put it back together again.

These are complicated machines. You’ve got to be like a machine yourself. There’s no room for mistakes.

The plan is one big engine. I’ve got to be methodical and accurate like never before.

I’m painfully tense, during the first part of the day. I remind Vic that he has a shift at the Stop n’ Shop after school. I make sure he remembers to grab his lunch bag out of the fridge. I bring my Dad breakfast in bed. I swap out a pair of brake pads down in the shop. Then I make lunch for my Dad. This time, he’s able to come sit at the table to eat with me.