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“Jeez, Dad,” said Sam. “You know, you’ll have to stop doing that at some point.”

“I will,” I replied. “As soon as you turn eighty, you’re on your own.”

CHAPTERXLVI

A lull followed over the next thirty-six hours.

Zetta Nadeau declined to answer my calls, and I didn’t see any point in scaling her fence just to argue with her some more, though I did leave a message on her phone. I reiterated that if she knew where Wyatt Riggins was hiding—and I believed she might—she ought to tell me, if only so I could attempt to reason with him. I thought again about the man named Seeley, who, if Louis’s guess was correct, was working for Blas Urrea. I doubted Urrea employed cheap labor. Seeley had managed to connect Riggins and his stepbrother, and better yet, to find the latter, doorstep him, and search his property. Eventually, he’d locate Riggins too, even if he had to go through Zetta to get to him.

So we treaded water while the creatures we feared circled below.

I PASSED THE TIMEby picking up some slack for Moxie before joining Sharon Macy for flatbread and wine at Novel Book Bar & Café, the new place on Congress. We spent the night together at her apartment, where I did my best to prove that age was not withering me. Over breakfast, I told her as much about the Riggins affair as I felt comfortable sharing, which meant excluding any mention of children and Mexico.

“I know you’re leaving something out,” she said.

“Only because I have no proof that it’s true.”

“Will it compromise me if you tell me? Will I be obliged to act on it?”

“It might, and you could.”

She ate some grapefruit.

“This is difficult, isn’t it? Balancing us and what we do, I mean.”

“Too difficult?”

“Not for me, not yet. You?”

“No, but then I’m not police.”

“You were, so at least you appreciate the predicament.”

I stole a segment of grapefruit. Because I was on statins, I wasn’t supposed to eat grapefruit. The joys of middle age.

“Sam wants to become a private investigator,” I said.

“Are you surprised that she’d choose to follow in your footsteps?”

“A little.”

“You’re too hard on yourself. Are you going to work together, like inDonato and Daughter?”

“God, I hope not—and how do you even know aboutDonato and Daughter?”

“I saw the movie on cable. You don’t resemble Charles Bronson, though. Then again, he did look like he’d been carved from ancient stone, so that may not be such a bad thing.”

“It was a book before it was a movie.”

“I hope the book was better.”

“The book was good.”

“How will Rachel feel about Sam wanting to be an investigator?”

“She may struggle with it.”

“Is that an understatement?”