I smiled, watching them. I drove from the party all the way to the old couple's house, five miles away, then back again. here was only one route, and I knew the point where they would turn off, come around the hill, speed up in anticipation of home. It was a road nobody much used.

I parked my car on the shoulder, hugging the side of the hill.

I got out and waited, knowing I would see their headlights on the tree branches before I saw the car round the bend. It was perfect.

I wasn't wearing gloves. Or a hat. The wind ripped through my coat, stung my eyes and skin like jalapeno juice. I looked up at the snow, swirling like gnats out of complete darkness, and I thought about being underwater—cold and black, visibility nil, the sparkle of small bubble trails, everything colourless. I thought about how I had started to master that fear. How good it felt. How much I wanted to be underwater right then, scared as hell but loving the taste. The thought warmed me.

When the trees illuminated, I slid the rough paper cylinder out of my coat pocket. The thrill was not knowing whether the plan would work, whether I would have to use the little gun I had in my other pocket.

Headlights appeared and I knew it was the right car. It could be no other—not at this time of night, on this little country road.

The rest happened fast.

I snapped the end of the flare and stepped into the glare of their headlights, waving the orange fire frantically, making a huge arc to my left—toward the dropoff.

And they were going too fast. In driving class, they always tell you—don't look at the lights in the opposite lane, because you will drift toward them. You instinctively want to look at the light, and you will drift toward what you see. That's what happened with the wave of the flare, in those three seconds.

That old fart could have run me down. He could have swerved the other way, into my car, into the side of the hill, and caused me to use a much more difficult plan, but instead he turned the car toward the wave of the flare and swerved into nothing—a short BUMPBUMP of wheels leaving the road, the cracking of brittle tree branches and crunch of metal, rolling, insanely large sounds of a dumpyard compactor, and then quiet.

No fire. No headlights. Just darkness. Two large wet marks at my feet where the old green Mercedes had taken flight.

I knew the cliff. I'd seen it in daylight, many times. I estimated a fiftyfoot drop, fortyfive degrees, until they hit the creek bed.

I smiled, thinking about that—the place where water touches your life. You have to confront it, sooner or later.

I knew there was an outside chance they hadn't died. But I also knew they would get no help. At least not soon. No one would think to look for them until morning, maybe longer.

Part of Providence is trust, isn't it? Magic thinking. Words said over and over again, "I wish they were dead." And now I trusted.

The snow helped cover my traces—what few there were.

I watched for media coverage. The police were anxious to dispel rumours of foul play.

Too much work for a sleepy county sheriff's department to construct a murder scenario when it was so obvious what had happened—an elderly couple drinking, unused to the icy roads, bad eyes and reflexes. Perhaps a deer had run in front of them. Or a dog. It had happened before.

Call it Providence.

Sometimes all you have to do is wave that arc of orange fire in the wrong direction, and the ones you love will follow it.

CHAPTER 7

The police tape made a satisfying sound as I ripped it off the railing on Jimmy's front steps.

I found his spare key behind the ceramic angel on the wall, unlocked the door.

The dome was dark. In the stale air of the closedup house, one smell hit me as completely wrong—a woman's perfume. Halston, maybe. A faint trace.

"Gas company," I called. "Ma'am?"

No answer.

There'd been no other cars on the property. Maybe the scent had been trapped here since Travis County did the crime scene, two days ago. A reporter or detective could've brushed against the door frame. Still—the place had a presence, like it was holding its breath.

I put Robert Johnson's cage down and let him out. He padded his way up to the canvas sofas, sniffed the fringed edge of the Oriental rug, looked at me.

"Just for a few weeks," I said. "We can do anything for a few weeks, right?"

He did not give me a rousing huzzah.

Morning sun filtered down from the skylights, making stripes across the railing of the sleeping loft above. The stovehood fluorescent flickered. I went around the ground floor and turned on every light I could find.

On the fireplace mantel, some of Jimmy's photos were missing. His roll top desk was open. Bills and receipts were scattered across the coffee table—the work of deputies not worried about leaving a mess.

I put my suitcase on the kitchen counter and brought out the hightech artillery—cell phone, caller ID unit, Macintosh laptop, VOXactivated audio recorder, shotgun mic, digital camera. None of it was mine, of course. It was agency equipment. But when one's boss is in Greece for a month, one gets lax about signout procedures.

Last I pulled out Erainya's Taurus PT99

It was a Brazilian 9 mm. parabellum, about eight inches long, thirtyfive ounces, Erainya's least favourite backup piece. The size made it too unwieldy for her, but it fit well in my hand. All blued steel—match grade barrel, checkered grip. A nice reliable gun, as guns go.

Erainya had offered it to me a dozen times. Each time I'd refused. I don't believe in guns for PI work. You carry a gun, you will eventually convince yourself you have to use it.

Which did not explain why I'd brought it.

Probably the same muse that told me staying in a dead man's house would be an insightful experience.

I put the Taurus on the kitchen counter, next to Jimmy's blender. I told myself the gun would stay there—unloaded, unused.

Robert Johnson was amusing himself under the sofa. Garrett had never come to claim his sleeping bag, and Robert Johnson was on his back, pawing the down and nylon folds that were slipping off the edge. He clawed and chewed at the enemy until the bag came down on top of him and he had to do a 180degree flipandrun manoeuvre to get away. He leapt up onto the opposite couch, gave me a nonchalant stare. I meant to do that.

"You're the king," I told him. "Hold down the fort for a minute, will you?"

I went outside to get a second load from the truck—my other suitcase, some groceries, the cat dish.

When I came back inside with a dozen plastic H.E.B. bags hanging off my arms, I found that Robert Johnson had failed in his duties. He was now on the kitchen counter, ecstatically purring and mewing for the woman who was pointing Erainya's gun at me.

She was a tall redhead—elegantly cut white cotton pantsuit, hair swept back so it made a St. Louis Arch around her face. One of her eyebrows curved slightly higher than the other, giving her a quizzical look.

The smell of Halston was much stronger now.

She raised the muzzle of my Taurus. "This was extremely obliging of you."

"I have some apples in the bag. I can put one on my head, if you want."

She glanced up toward the sleeping loft. "Oh, Clyde?"

At the railing, a Viking appeared. He was about three hundred pounds' worth of Aryan—long hair and beard the colour of lemon sours, black leather pants, beefy arms and belly stuffed into a Tshirt emblazoned with the words JAP BIKES SUCK. He was holding a Bizon2, quaint little pistolmachine gun, just right for hunting rhinos.

"Great," I said, upbeat, friendly. "We can set up a crossfire. Mind if I put down my groceries?"

The redhead's eyes were set at a diagonal, mirroring the V of her nose and chin. The faint dusting of redbrown freckles matched her hair.

"I do mind," she decided. "I like your arms full, until you explain what you're doing in my husband's house."

"You're Ruby."

"And you're Garrett's little brother, obviously. You still owe me an answer."

"Obviously?"

To my knowledge, no one had ever pegged Garrett and me as brothers simply by looking at us. It was a point of pride.

The corner of Ruby's mouth crept up. "You've got the same eyes. Don't you think so, Clyde? Same eyes?"

The ladder creaked under Clyde's weight. He got halfway down, jumped the last five rungs. He pointed his gun lazily in my direction.

"Pictured him younger," he mused. "More like a snotnosed kid."

"You've been spending time with Garrett," I guessed. "Bandidos MC?"

"Fuck no, man. Diablos."

"Your last name's Simms. Went on that Florida trip with Garrett last year."

Clyde grunted.

"Well," Ruby said. "Now that we've all made cordial, how about you tell us why you're here, Tres?"

"I'm moving in for a few weeks."

She arched the eyebrow a centimetre higher. "On whose invitation?"

I set my groceries on the floor.

"I told you—" she started.

I stepped in, grabbed her wrist, spun her so she was facing Clyde. Clyde raised his Bizon2 just in time to point it at Ruby's throat.

I applied a little pressure to her wrist. She dropped the Taurus.

"Bastard," she murmured.

Clyde shifted his weight.

"We're all friends," I suggested. "Lose the bazooka."

He hesitated.

"Come on. You want to explain to Garrett why you had to shoot his little brother?"

The line was a gamble. Clyde might've thought he could earn brownie points by shooting me. But he tossed the machine pistol onto the sofa.

I let Ruby go.

She smoothed her white pantsuit, glared at me. "You think I wouldn't have shot you? "

I picked up the Taurus, ejected the empty clip.

I'd known it wasn't loaded, but I checked the chamber anyway. There was a bullet in it.

I looked at Ruby.

She smiled.

The master detective accepts the Golden Oops Award.

I emptied the chamber, put the bullet and the gun next to Robert Johnson. "Where's your car?"

"We're on a lake," Clyde said. "There's a boat dock. Figure it out."

"You've been searching the house. What for?"

"How about we call 911?" Ruby suggested. "I can explain it to the police."

"Mr. Simms have that weapon registered?" I asked. "Be a toss up which of us the cops kick out."

Her face acquired a new hardness, a onemillimetrethick mask. "Clyde, why don't you wait outside?"

"Should've killed the bastard months ago," Clyde complained. "You and Garrett listened to me—"

Ruby put a finger lightly to his lips. "That's enough, Clyde. Thanks."

He flexed his paws impotently, snatched his Bizon2 from the sofa, and lumbered toward the front door—the frustrated berserker, going home to Mama.

On the counter, Robert Johnson nudged the Taurus lovingly. "Mrr?"

Ruby reached over, stroked his fur. Typical. I get guns pointed at me. The cat gets petted.

A gold and diamond wedding set sparkled on Ruby's ring finger. I tried to imagine Jimmy Doebler picking it out—standing in some chic jewellery salon in his blue jeans and tattered polo shirt, his face speckled with dried red clay. I tried to imagine him married to this woman, her designer ensembles hung up in the same closet with Jimmy's work clothes.