“That’ll buy a nice boat.”

“That’ll buy nice pussy.”

“Your mind’s in the gutter, Mickey.”

He chuckled again. “Where it feels right at home.”

Noticing motion from the corner of his eye, Shaw took another look through the rear window. “Here she comes.”

“By herself?”

Shaw waited to answer until the door had closed behind Jordie Bennett and no one followed her out. “Yep.”

Since the building didn’t have any exterior lighting, the parking lot was almost in complete darkness. A pale, slender moon was obscured by the moss-bearded branches of an oak that extended across three-quarters of the lot. There were no approaching headlights from either direction of the narrow state road.

Seizing the opportunity, Mickey opened his car door and got out, moving with more alacrity than Shaw would have thought him capable of. The fat man was jazzed. Mickey Bolden relished his line of work.

But so did Shaw. The tequila shots hadn’t given him near the rush that straight-up adrenaline did now.

Being as light-footed as possible, they followed Jordie Bennett as she wended her way through the parking lot. It was jammed with dented pickup trucks and salt-water-corroded heaps. Her recent model sedan was a shiny, sleek standout. She used a key fob to unlock the driver’s door.

Shaw captured another drift of that seductive fragrance as she suddenly did an about-face.

Apparently his and Mickey’s footfalls on the crushed shells hadn’t been as light as they’d thought. Or maybe animal instinct had alerted her to mortal danger. In any case, when she saw them rushing toward her, her lips parted on a quick inhale, her eyes went wide with alarm.

As Mickey swiftly closed the distance between them, his right hand snapped up from his side with precision and deadly purpose.

The sound suppressor on the pistol muffled the shot, but in the surrounding stillness, the spitting noise seemed as loud to Shaw’s ears as a fire alarm.

Mickey dropped like a sack of cement, his ravaged head hemorrhaging a red tide over the crushed shells.

Jordie Bennett watched in horror as a stream of blood funneled toward her sandals. Then she looked up at Shaw, who still held his pistol shoulder high and extended toward her. He said, “My half just doubled.”

Chapter 2

FBI Special Agent Joe Wiley was just about to sit down to a meal of pork pot roast when his cell phone rang.

His wife, Marsha, frowned. She’d had to warm up the dish for him, because he’d come home too late to eat with her and the kids. But she knew better than to object when he said, “Sorry, hon, I need to take it,” and clicked on his phone. “Is this important, Hick? I’m sitting down to eat.”

“Hate to interrupt,” Agent Greg Hickam said, sounding earnest. “But, yes, it’s important. Knew you’d want to hear it ASAP.”

Giving Marsha an apologetic look, Joe stepped into the utility room. “Okay, I’m listening.”

“A few hours ago, Mickey Bolden was found dead in Terrebonne Parish, outside a backwater beer joint about a fifteen-minute drive from Tobias.”

And just like that, a hot meal was no longer in Joe’s immediate future.

He dragged his hand down his face, over his mouth, past his chin. “I don’t suppose there could be more than one Mickey Bolden.”

“Probably, but this is the one we know and love. Loved.”

“Clarify ‘found dead.’ I’m guessing he didn’t pass peacefully in his sleep.”

“Hollow tip fired into the back of his head. Blew most of his face off.”

“Then how do they know it’s him?”

“Driver’s license in his wallet was phony, but the ME fingerprinted the corpse. The local authorities got all excited when they saw he was linked to the Billy Panella case and, as requested, contacted the nearest FBI office.”

“Lucky us.” Joe glanced around the door frame into the kitchen, where Marsha was seated across the dining table from his empty place setting, looking perturbed as she sipped from a glass of iced tea. Into the phone, he said, “Bolden buys it near Tobias on Friday night, only three days after—”

“Tuesday. There’s got to be a correlation.”

“Are you certain or are you guessing?” Joe asked.

“Damn near certain. Jordie Bennett was on the premises when Bolden was killed.”

“Say again?”

“Jordie Bennett—”

“Never mind. I heard you the first time. Holy shit. Wait, you said, was?”

“She and Mickey Bolden were in the bar at the same time.”

“Together?”

“No. But they left within minutes of each other, she a few after him. But, here’s the clincher—her Lexus is still in the parking lot. Mickey was about three feet away from it when he was popped.”

“By her?”

“Unlikely.”

“Why?”

“If she killed him, why would her car still be there?”

Joe didn’t have a clue. “I’m missing pieces. Fill me in.”

“A guy in the bar was schmoozing Ms. Bennett. She asked him nicely to get lost and, when he didn’t, she told him to go to hell, grabbed her purse, stalked out, and hasn’t been seen or heard from since.”

“Jesus. Please tell me that I’m not hearing this.”

“Sorry, but you are,” Hick said. “She’s unaccounted for.”

“I thought we had local guys surveilling her since Tuesday.”

“Guy. One. Well, two sheriff’s deputies who’ve been rotating shifts. The night shift officer logged her leaving her house at nine thirty-two. In no apparent hurry, she led him through town. But once out in the boonies, she hit the gas pedal and managed to shake him.”

“And goes to a beer joint?”

“Where she was last seen. Nobody at her house or place of business. Both locked up tight. Nothing disturbed in either. Security alarms still set. Sheriff’s office fears foul play—”

“No shit.”

“—and already have a BOLO out for her and the guy.”

“The schmoozer followed her from the bar?”

“Not that guy, the other guy.”

“What other guy?”

“Mickey’s friend.”