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But they weren’t going to pay her at all if she didn’t get moving.

She put on a navy skirt and a white blouse, which made her look like a stewardess, but she didn’t have a lot of options. She’d ask her mother to send some of the work clothes she’d left behind, or maybe she’d use this money to buy new outfits. She slipped on her black heels, the only pair of work shoes she had here. She clipped her hair back with a barrette and put on some lipstick.

Maybe she ought to be nervous about going to meet a stranger to do God knows what, but she’d done it so many times now in so many places that it seemed silly to be nervous. She opened the map on the hood of her car and tried to write out some directions, but she ended up getting all turned around anyway. She stopped at a gas station to ask for help. The attendant, an old Black man, was watching a portable television. She pushed thepaper with the address across the counter in his direction. She was already late.

“That’s the church,” he said, looking at the address. “Saint Agatha.”

“Am I close?” she asked.

“Two blocks that way, honey.” He pointed out at the street. “Jesus’ll show you the way.”

“Thanks,” she muttered as she walked out, the sun momentarily blinding her.

It turned out she had driven right past the right place before she got to the gas station but had been expecting to find an office building or a park. Certainly not a church. She pulled into the parking lot.

The church’s wooden doors were open. Her eyes took a moment to adjust to the dim lighting. There were only two people inside: an Asian woman kneeling with her head bowed, a rosary clasped in her hands, and a white man in a black suit sitting in a pew, staring up at the crucifix.

Annie wasn’t much of a gambler, but she’d bet that was her guy.

She slid in next to him. He glanced at her and then looked away again. He looked younger up close and was not a bad-looking guy, though he carried thirty extra pounds around his middle. Also, he smelled like he was sweating out a bar. Lovely.

“I’m just, uh, waiting for a friend,” he said after a few moments of silence. She rolled her eyes.

“You’re waiting for me, champ.” She could understand people’s surprise when she didn’t turn out to be what they expected, but she was not okay with flat-out disbelief. “What are you? DEA?”

“FBI,” he said. “You’re the special agent on loan?”

“That’s me. You want to wrap up your business with the Lord so we can get going? I have a life, you know.” That life included at least three hours of newly assigned reading for class that shewas running out of time to get done. Maybe she could read while she waited for the FBI to pull their heads out of their asses. They always seemed to be standing around.

“Oh,” he said. “Yeah, I’m supposed to brief you before I take you to the location.”

“You have a car?”

“Yes.”

“Can we do it there?” The church wasn’t empty, and it wasn’t secure.

“I guess, yeah,” he said.

She went to pick up her bag.

He stopped her and stuck his hand out. “I’m Agent Sean Katz, by the way.”

“Annie Weaver.” She pumped his hand once and then letting it go. She slung her bag across her body. “Charmed. Let’s go.”

* * *

It was hard to say which was worse: the two-and-a-half-hour drive to Lompoc with Agent Katz—who apparently found silence uncomfortable because he chatted the whole way there—or the file she was reading that contained two years’ worth of investigative material. Reading in the car made her sick to her stomach.

After they arrived at Lompoc, it took a long time to have the prisoner brought out so she could interrogate him. Talking to convicted felons wasn’t her specialty. She was great at getting information, even confessions, but the FBI wanted a Hail Mary miracle from a prisoner with no incentive to tell her anything at all.

She stayed with him for three hours. He offered nothing but sexual harassment.

“I don’t know what you all expected me to do,” Annie said after they took him away.

“You’re supposed to be the best,” Agent Katz said. “It was worth a try.”

“I had nothing to work with! You guys always think I’m going to be some sort of miracle worker, but crappy cases are crappy cases, and I can’t squeeze blood out of a stone.”