She entered the alley, carrying the envelope in her left hand, leaving her right arm unencumbered. As she walked, she let her right hand brush against the jacket, feeling the weight of the gun. It printed against the fabric, but she didn’t care.
A few minutes after three, the back door of the bar opened, and the bartender appeared about five yards from her. Instead of coming forward, he just stood there in an angle of shadow thrown by the wall. It seemed odd that he would stay in the shadows. Maybe he was just afraid of being seen-but there was no one to see him.
And he was wearing a nylon jacket, unzipped. The day was warm. He didn’t need a jacket any more than she did. She wore hers to conceal a weapon. He might be doing the same.
“Biscuit,” she said.
“Hey.” He sounded more affable than before, and that was another thing that bothered her.
Her senses were heightened. She was aware of details that would normally escape her notice. A scrap of plastic scudding along the alley floor. The chatter of a bird. The heat of the sun on her face as she walked toward him, and then the coolness of the shade.
Above all, his hands. The hands were what could get you killed.
His hands were empty and open, at his sides. He made no move to strike when she came within range.
“I have some photos for you to look at,” she said.
It would have been natural if he’d moved out of the shade for more light, but he stayed put, as if he wanted the additional cover the building’s shadow afforded. “Okay, no problem.”
“Why’d you change your mind about helping me?”
“I thought about what you said. How we’re on the same side. If some bitch offed Dylan, I want to help nail her for it.”
This was plausible enough, but the way he said it wasn’t convincing. It seemed rehearsed, mechanical.
And he was calm. Too calm. Like a man who had switched into the mode of an automaton, shutting down his feelings. A man who might be readying himself to kill.
“Well,” she said, her voice level, “take a look.”
She handed him the envelope. This was a moment of risk. He could grab her by the arm, grapple with her, try to get her in a choke hold.
But he merely took the item from her. He undid the flap, then shifted the envelope to his left hand and reached into his jacket.
She tensed. He saw her reaction and hesitated, smiling. “Need to get my glasses,” he said. “Okay?”
His reading glasses. She’d forgotten.
“Okay,” she said.
His hand went inside his jacket. Went low.
Last time he’d taken out the glasses, they had been in the vest pocket of his shirt.
He wasn’t getting them out now.
She closed the distance between them and brought the flat of her palm down hard on his wrist, and something clattered on the ground. A gun. With a swipe of her foot she sent it spinning into the sunny part of the alley. She grabbed his hand and yanked his index finger back, cracking bone. His face twisted. He doubled over. Her knee caught him in the gut before she kicked his feet out from under him. He fell on the asphalt, and then she was kneeling on his back with her chrome-plated Sig Sauer in her hand, having drawn it without conscious intention, and she was saying very quietly, “Don’t move.”
She held the gun to his head while she patted him down. He was clean. The gun, now yards away, was the only weapon he’d been carrying.
“You’re on my fucking kidney,” Biscuit complained.
She dug her knee harder into his back. “Why’d you try to draw on me?”
“I wasn’t, I swear.”
“Answer the question.”
He groaned. “I don’t like feds.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all.”
“Not much of a reason to kill somebody.”
“Who says I was trying to kill you? I never drew down on you. You can’t prove a fucking thing.”
“I can prove you were in possession of a firearm. I make you as an ex-con, Biscuit. Owning a gun is a felony for you.”
“It’s not my gun.”
“Doesn’t matter whose it is. Doesn’t matter if you just borrowed it. You’re not allowed to even handle a firearm.”
“Maybe I didn’t. Maybe you planted it on me.”
“Very original. I’m sure that’ll hold up in court.”
“You got any witnesses to say different? You got a partner to back you up? My word against yours.”
The hell of it was, he wasn’t wrong. As a veteran criminal he would know how to game the system. He would know more tricks than the public defender they assigned to him.
And if she took him in, he might not give her anything.
“I came here for information,” she said. “Was there really a woman in the bar, or were you just feeding me a line?”
“There was a woman.”
“You willing to ID her if her photo is in that envelope?”
“In exchange for what?”
“Getting back on my good side.”
“You saying you’ll let this go if I help you out?”
“I’m not saying anything, except that the only way you can help yourself in this situation is if you help me.”
He thought about it. She gave him time. She even eased up on his back a little.
“Okay,” he said finally.
Tess reached over and retrieved the envelope, then spilled its contents on the ground in front of his face. “Is she one of these?”
He blinked at the pictures.
“Gotta have my glasses,” he said a little sheepishly.
She pressed the gun to his head. “I’ll get them. Don’t try anything.”
“I already tried everything I’m gonna try.”
She reached under him and pulled the glasses from his vest pocket, then flipped them open and perched them on his nose. One lens was cracked.
“Shit,” he whined, “you busted ’em.”
“I’m crying for you. Look at the pictures.”
He squinted through the good lens, surveying the printouts. She waited, breath held.
“The third one,” he said.
Tess pointed at the photo. “Her?”
“Yeah.”
“You sure?”
“No doubt about it.”
It was Abby.
Tess felt a sudden sinking sadness, as if something inside her had died. Only then did she realize how much she had wanted to be proved wrong.
“Are you sure you could see her well enough?” she pressed.
“I only got trouble with close-up stuff. I can see anything at arm’s length or further just fine. It was her.”
“All right.”
She got off him and gathered up the photos. He remained prone on the ground.
“So what happens now?” he asked.
“I’ll let you off with a warning,” Tess said.
“Appreciate that. For a fed, you’re all right.”
“Is that why you tried to kill me?”
“That wasn’t personal.”
She shook her head. “You’re a disappointment, Biscuit. I thought you were a better man.”
He crooked his neck to look up at her. His eyes were cold. “Ain’t no such thing.”
She didn’t react fully to the encounter until she was back in the car. Then she began to shake all over as a wave of nausea rolled through her. She knew what it was-the combined effect of her adrenaline rush and the revelation about Abby. Of the two, she wasn’t sure which hit her harder.
All along she’d been hoping her suspicions were groundless. Now she knew she had been right from the start. Abby had lied about hooking up with Dylan Garrick, which meant she had lied about everything else. She had left the bar with him. She had gone to his apartment. She had pistol-whipped him with his own gun, and then she had shot him in the face-shot him twice, first taking time to wrap the gun in a pillow to muffle the reports.
She had gone rogue. And she had to be stopped. Had to be taken off the street. Now. Today.
There was only one way to do it. Bring in the Bureau. The secrets Tess had been keeping for more than a year would have to come out. She didn’t know what it would do to her career or her life, but she couldn’t think about that now. Sometimes it was necessary to do the right thing. She had put off doing it for too long.