JACK

  Phineas Troutt stood in the kitchen, rinsing out a bowl. The house smelled heavenly. During his long recuperation, he’d taken up baking. In the past few months, Phin had made more than a hundred loaves of bread. I’d gained eight pounds, and we were the hit of the neighborhood because we gave away the surplus.

  “Your mom?” Phin asked, glancing at the cell phone in my hand.

  My mother was the only one who called on my cell. Because, other than McGlade, she was pretty much the only one who knew I was alive. Long story, but my younger husband and I were living in Florida under the names Gil and Jill Johnson. As far as the rest of the world knew, Jacqueline Daniels was dead.

  “Yeah,” I lied, handing him my empty coffee cup. “She said you need to get a job.”

  “That’s sexist. I’m a homemaker. I take care of the baby while my spouse brings in the dough.”

  “You seem to be making a lot of dough lately,” I said, eyeing the bread on the cooling rack.

  “Sue-Ellen up the block says I should open a table at the farmer’s market at St. Joseph’s. They have one every Sunday.”

  I couldn’t stifle my smirk. Phin narrowed his eyes.

  “I thought you liked my bread.”

  “I love your bread, babe. It’s just… when I met you, you were hooked on coke and beating people up for money. And now you’re doing a bake sale. It’s… quite the turnaround from being a bad ass.”

  Phin rinsed my cup, wiped his wet hands on the sink towel, and then came over. He had a slight limp, and he carried himself like a man overcoming injuries. Which, indeed, he was. He placed his hands on my hips and pulled me close.

  “Are you saying that bad asses don’t bake?” His face was serious.

  I offered a mock protest. “I would never say such a thing.”

  “Because, if you want, I’ll go out right now, get really high, and beat up a bunch of people.”

  “You’d do that for me?”

  He smiled. “You know I’d do anything for you.”

  And he would. Which is why I’d lied to him about talking to McGlade. I had a feeling Harry’s news would lead someplace dark.

  My husband’s dark days were over, by mutual decision. He still wasn’t back to a hundred percent health.

  He might never be back to a hundred percent.

  I stretched up, kissed him. He tasted like rye. The bread, not the whiskey.

  “You working tonight?”

  I’d gotten a job at a local shooting range as an instructor. It wasn’t as stimulating as solving cases or catching criminals, but it carried much smaller risks. There was still a chance I might get shot, but it wouldn’t be by someone intentionally shooting at me.

  “Night off. I’m heading to the store. Need anything?”

  “More ant killer.” Fire ants were one of many adjustments moving from Chicago to Tampa.

  I gave him another quick peck, then pinched off a bite of rye bread, cooling on the kitchen countertop rack.

  No bullshit. The man had mad baking skills.

  “Taking Bud?” Phin asked.

  Bud was our daughter. Her real name was Samantha Adams Daniels. But with the move, and our subsequent new identities, we jokingly referred to her as Bud. With Gil subbing for Phin and Jill subbing for Jack, Budweiser seemed like a suitable alias for Sam Adams.

  We’d been drinking at the time, and the nickname stuck.

  “Where is our love child?”

  “Out back. Pouring ant killer on hills.”

  I pulled away from him. “Phin! That shit is poison!”

  “She’s wearing a mask. I checked.”

  “She’s four!”

  “It was her idea. You try to talk her out of it.”

  I checked out the clock. Still five minutes before Harry’s announced arrival. So I went out the patio doors and onto our deck.

  Sam was standing in the backyard. She wore a one-piece swimsuit, and had such a deep tan it made her blonde hair appear almost white. Next to her, ever loyal, was our hound dog, Duffy. As her father stated, Sam had a filter mask over her nose and mouth as she poured toxic powder onto an ant hill with razor-like focus.

  Duffy saw me and woo-wooed, then came bounding over. I gave him a scratch between his floppy ears.

  “Sammy, you need to let Daddy do that, sweetheart.”

  Sam looked up at me. “I like doing it.”

  “It’s dangerous.”

  “Is it dangerous for Daddy?”

  Smart kid. “Daddy is bigger.”

  “I don’t like the ants. They bite.”

  Shortly after we’d moved here, Sam had stepped on a fire ant hill and been bitten a dozen times. They were called fire ants for a reason, and she’d cried for ten minutes straight. Now Sam always wore clogs in the back yard, and had made it her mission to eradicate the species.

  “I know. Come in. Daddy made rye bread.”

  Sam seemed to weigh her anticide calling against the allure of fresh baked goods, and the baked goods won out. She left the bottle of poison on the lawn, and ran past me, her tiny, chubby legs a blur. Duffy bounded after her. As Sam and Phin discussed the pros and cons of various flavored cream cheeses in the kitchen, I walked around the property to catch McGlade before he arrived.

  We’d moved here from a suburb of Chicago, but the neighborhoods couldn’t have been more different. There we had more land, more trees, more privacy, and no one knew us. This was like Mayberry, but hotter. Our neighbors on either side were so close we could spit on their houses from our property, if so inclined, which we weren’t because they were good people. Sam already had three friends her age on our block, and two others a few blocks away, that we’d met at the local playground. Phin—er, Gil, and I had been invited to three potluck dinners by local parents, we went to the beach every Thursday, and I’d become an honorary bartender at my mother’s retirement home in the center of the city.

  After a lifetime of chasing bad guys, and losing far too many loved ones, I’d somehow lucked into leading a normal life. And, best of all, I found it suited me. No pangs for adventure. No longings for danger. No thirst for justice.

  I was retired from crime-fighting. And I was happy. Maybe for the first time ever. My life was all about teaching self-defense shooting and playing family board games and eating freshly baked bread and reading all those trashy books I missed when they came out and watching my child grow up. And I loved it. I loved it so much, I could sleep at night, for a full seven hours, without any pills.

  So whatever McGlade was pitching, I wasn’t buying. No way, no how.

  I’d barely made it to the Valencia orange tree out front when I spotted the Crimebago Deux coming up the street. McGlade’s ‘crime lab on wheels’, as he called it, was a bright red Winnebago motorhome that he’d customized after watching too many episodes of Pimp My Ride on MTV.

  I flagged him down at the end of the driveway, and he rolled down his window and leered at me.

  “Hiya, Jackie! Where should I park? I don’t think I can fit this beast in the tiny driveway of your tiny house.”

  “Keep driving. We’ll go around the corner.”

  “You’re not inviting me in? Are you embarrassed because you buy your furniture from stores where you have to assemble it with a hex wrench?”

  Because the universe is unfair, McGlade was rich. He liked to proclaim it as much as he liked to proclaim that you weren’t. But, to be honest, he’d been equally obnoxious and offensive when his income was unremarkable. Harry was a jerk before he became a rich jerk. But he was also like a brother to me. Or a cousin. That weird cousin from the estranged side of the family that you only see on holidays and that’s enough.

  “I haven’t told Phin you’re here,” I said.

  “But Phin and I are bros. We’ve been on a few adventures. Remember that abduction thing up in Minnesota?”

  “I remember. I was there.”

  “Right. Did I ever tell you about that deal with his insane brother?”

  I knew Hugo, and didn’t need any reminders. “Phin is out of this particular loop.”

  “We may need him.”

  “Not this time. Open up.”

  Harry hit the unlock button and let me in the side door.

  That’s when the bear attacked me.

  It wasn’t an actual bear. And its attack amounted to rearing up on its hind legs, throwing its enormous front paws over my shoulders, and licking my face.

  “Good to see you, too, Rosa.”

  Rosalina was a Neapolitan Mastiff. All one hundred and fifty pounds of her. She looked like an overgrown Chinese Shar-Pei, and had so many wrinkles that her surface area was equivalent to three other large dogs.

  “Down, girl,” McGlade ordered.

  Rosa dropped down.

  “Sit.”

  The dog sat. This wasn’t due to McGlade’s dog-whispering skills. Her former owner, a deceased friend of mine named Tequila, had done the training. McGlade inherited the dog after Tequila was killed in the same incident that injured my husband.

  I closed the door, turned to McGlade and—

  “Holy shit, Harry. What the hell happened?”

  He rolled his eyes and put the RV into gear. “Go ahead. Get it all out.”

  I looked him up and down. He sported the same scraggly face, but it had ballooned in size. His suit, by some trendy designer, wasn’t as wrinkled as usual because the fabric was stretched to bursting.

  “You’re… huge.”

  Harry had never been svelte, but he’d put on a whole lot of weight since I’d last seen him.

  He shrugged. “Stress eating. After Baja, I gained a few pounds.”

  “A few? You look like someone stuck a tube up your ass and inflated you.”

  “That’s my joke.”

  “It fits. How much do you weigh?”

  “I haven’t checked lately.”

  “You know you can stand on two scales and add the numbers.”

  “Funny. This is a temporary thing. I just need to hit the gym.”

  “It looks like you ate the gym.” I didn’t mind ball-busting Harry because A: He deserved it, and B: He used to pick on an obese friend of mine in this very same manner.

  “Does this motorhome have a weight limit?” I asked.

  “Nice. You’re on a roll.”

  “I was on a roll, until you ate it. You ate the whole basket.”

  “I’ll speak to my agent, see if Kimmel has a late-night slot for you.”

  “Tell me, what’s your belt size? Equator?”

  “Keep ’em coming. I can take it.”

  “I’m afraid if I get too close I’ll catch diabetes.”

  He waggled a finger. “Ahh. You can’t actually catch diabetes. I looked it up.”

  “Yes, you can. I think you’re sweating maple syrup.”

  “I spilled that during breakfast. And it was low fat maple syrup.”

  “I don’t think low-fat matters when you’re eating seventy-five pancakes.”

  “You’re not being very supportive, Jack.”

  “The only support you need is a sports bra for those man boobs.”

  “Man Boobs was my nickname in High School.” He frowned. “I always thought it was because I was a man who liked boobs. Now you’ve got me feeling slightly insecure about my silver dollar-sized nipples.”

  “Is this why you didn’t fly here? You don’t fit on a jumbo jet?”

  He gave me a look. “I drove here because I didn’t want to leave Miss Rosalina in a kennel. And because we’re going to need the Crimebago Deux where we’re going.”

  I stopped my ribbing and got back on task. “Okay. Get to it. You mentioned white slavery and someone dead who wasn’t dead.”

  McGlade pulled over to the side of the road and turned to me, the rolls in his neck creasing.

  “So, you know about The Mansplainer.”

  I nodded. That was the name of Harry’s blog. I’d never read it, because I always had better things to do, like anything other than reading his blog.

  “There are Internet stories about a guy known as the Cowboy. Part Slenderman urban legend meme, part Green River Killer of the Great Plains. I think he’s real.”

  “He’s a serial killer?”

  “Sort of. He—”

  “I’m out.”

  I reached for the door handle. Harry kept his finger on the automatic lock so I couldn’t open it.

  “Jack, just listen…”

  “I’m done with psychos, Harry. That’s why I’m living in Florida under the name Jill.”

  “I know that. You think I drove this land barge all the way from Chicago unless this was important? Let me finish, for crissakes.”

  “There is nothing you can say to convince me to help you with this.”

  Harry’s face became serious. “Have you gotten over Herb’s death?”

  The words knocked the fight out of me. Herb. Herb Benedict. My longtime partner when I worked Homicide for the Chicago Police Department.

  My best friend.

  I’d lost him the same place I’d lost Tequila.

  “I’ll never get over Herb’s death,” I said softly.

  “His body was never recovered. Neither was Tequila’s.”

  “I know.” That must have been maddening for Herb’s wife. To never have closure. To never be one hundred percent positive that he was dead.

  But I was one hundred percent positive. I was there when he was killed.

  “Just give me thirty seconds, Jack. Please.”

  I let out a slow breath. “Okay. Clock starts now.”

  “So, I wrote this blog about adding an Amendment to the Constitution that forbids men from making laws concerning women’s reproductive rights.”

  Harry fancied himself a feminist. And, in a way, he was. He treated everyone equally bad, regardless of gender.

  “Twenty seconds.”

  “It went viral. I did a lot of talk shows. Did you see me on Colbert?”

  “No. Fifteen seconds.”

  “So I’m getting all this press, and during one of the interviews I mention that I recently lost a friend. Herb Benedict.”

  It was a stretch to call Herb and Harry friends. But I only had to put up with this for a few more seconds, so I didn’t bother to argue. I wanted out of this bubble of violent possibilities and back into my normal, average, boring home with my normal, average, boring family. I wanted fresh baked bread, not chasing psychos.

  “A week ago, on my blog, someone calling himself the Cowboy leaves me this comment.”

  McGlade handed me his cell phone, already queued up to his URL. Going against the little voice inside that warned me not to, I read the entry anyway.

  They call me the Cowboy. Search for me and my content on darknet. I collect teeth. I also collect people. Here’s someone I recently picked up. I’m in Nebraska. Catch me if you can.

  Then there was a link to Instagram. I followed the link and…

  My breath caught.

  The picture was a little out of focus, but it was of a man in a bed, his body swaddled in bandages.

  The man’s eyes were closed. The bandages were bloody.

  But it looked like Herb.

  It looked a lot like Herb.

  “Is this real?” I asked, my voice low.

  “A friend who works CGI for Hollywood took a look. She said it didn’t appear altered in any way. No Photoshop.”

  I squinted at the face. “Maybe it’s just someone who looks like him.”

  “That was my first thought. Or maybe it is Herb, but he’s dead. Doesn’t make sense to put bandages on a dead guy, though. And keep looking. There’s something else.”

  I continued to study the pic. This wasn’t a hospital. The bed looked like a dirty cot. The man who might be Herb had beads of sweat on his forehead.

  “Dead men don’t perspire,” I said.

  “They don’t need handcuffs, either.”

  I checked his hands, and there was indeed a cuff on his right wrist, linking him to someone else.

  Someone not pictured, except for half of his hand.

  A hand with a butterfly tattoo.

  “Your buddy, Tequila,” Harry said. “He has a butterfly tattoo.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Does that tattoo match?”

  I nodded, my stomach clenching into a big, twisted fist.

  “I’ve done some research. I can fill you in on the way to Nebraska. Drop the kid off with Mom, grab Phin, and we—”

  “Phin isn’t coming with,” I interrupted. “He’s still recuperating.”

  “Jack, I think this is more than just this Cowboy asshole. I’ve put some hours in on this. I think there are human traffickers, operating out of the Plains states. We’re going to need help.”

  “We’re in America, McGlade. When we find Herb and Tequila, we’ll bring in the authorities.”

  “We? So you’re in?”

  I’d thought there was nothing that could force me back into the game. But this was the only thing that could.

  Herb. Jesus. Baja was over half a year ago.

  We’d left him there. We’d left him for dead, and all this time…

  “Of course I’m in.” I checked the time on Harry’s phone. “I need about an hour to pack and make up some lie to tell my husband.”

  “Say you’re leaving him for another woman. That would be hot.”

  McGlade, unhelpful as usual.

  “He’ll be suspicious if I bring my gun,” I said, thinking out loud.

  “I got plenty of guns. And if you don’t like any of them, we can buy you a gun on the road.” He grinned, his smile as wide as a zebra’s ass. “As you said; we’re in America.”

  SOMEWHERE, SOMETIME AGO

  HERB

  It was impossible for Herb Benedict to know how much time had passed since he awoke in captivity. His beard was as long as his index finger, and he was notoriously slow at growing facial hair. What did that mean? Three months? More?

  The bullet wounds in his chest, still swollen and tender to the touch, had scarred over. Healing was a slow, painful process. His only medicine had been antibiotics, and he’d run a high fever for weeks. Infections, for sure. Also a gamut of other diseases, which spread easily and quickly in the underground jail that had served as his rehab facility.