we ever going to need to know what substances react with calcium chloride?”
She should have redirected him back to the task. But Eva knew she needed to be someone unexpected if she hoped to hold his attention. “Do you like candy?” she’d asked him. And then she’d shown them all how to make strawberry-flavored crystals, a simple procedure that anyone could find on the internet if they wanted to.
That was how it started. A pin in the map that marked the beginning of a journey she never wanted to take. Wade had begun pressuring her to try making drugs shortly after they started dating. At first, she didn’t want to. But what he was asking was so simple, she figured she’d do it once and get him off her back. Science had always been where she felt the safest—among the laws of physics and chemistry. Unlike life, which could dump you at a group home at the age of two with no warning or second chances, chemistry was predictable, its actions absolute. Wade was the person everyone wanted to be close to, and he wanted to be close to her. And so, when he asked her to do it again, she did. And then again after that.
The stadium was filling up. Eva checked her watch and reached into her purse to activate the voice recorder. Across the field, the marching band drums pounded a rhythm, the same one from that day so many years ago. The people around her pressed closer, making her feel smothered, and she tried to shrink down inside herself, to just hang on. Wait. To do her job and be ready.
“Been here long?” Dex asked, sliding into the seat next to her.
“Maybe five minutes.” Her eyes traveled up the hill where the cannon that fired after every touchdown poked through the trees on its platform, a white California banner fluttering in the wind. Tightwad Hill, open to anyone willing to hike up there and sit in the dirt. Fucking Berkeley. “God, I hate this place,” she said.
“Then give me what you’ve got and let’s get out of here.” He twisted around, looking into the crowd behind them, and then faced forward again, his knee bouncing a jittery rhythm.
Eva shook her head. “Not a chance. We do this my way.” She knew that just because Dex said Castro was gone, it didn’t mean he wasn’t still out there, watching her. Waiting for her to make a mistake.
“You really don’t need to worry.”
“Your lack of detail does not inspire confidence,” Eva said. She pulled her purse from underneath her seat and inspected the bottom of it, wiping dead leaves and an old gum wrapper off of it before placing it next to her armrest. “You need to give me specifics. Who was following me. Why. And how it is they’re gone now.”
Dex slouched down in his seat, his gaze leaping from one thing to another, never landing, never still. “Fine,” he said. “It was a joint task force, DEA and locals, looking to grab Fish. Which they’ve been trying to do for years. The whole thing got disbanded two weeks ago.”
“How is it possible Fish can call off a joint task force?” she asked.
Dex squinted across the field where the band launched into a version of “Funky Cold Medina.” Finally, he said, “It costs a lot of money to run surveillance, and you weren’t giving them anything. They can’t keep watching you forever. Higher-ups pulled the money, and with no evidence pointing anywhere, Fish’s friends inside the department began rumbling about better uses of resources and bitching about the budget. They had no choice but to fold.”
“Listen to yourself,” she said. “Federal agents. Joint task forces. And you’re telling me not to worry?”
“I’m telling you this topic is closed. You need to drop it.”
She studied his profile, softer around the contours of his jaw, laugh lines framing his eyes and mouth. She’d known Dex for twelve years. And something was off about him today.
Just then, the cannon fired as the Cal team burst out of the north tunnel, and next to her, Dex nearly leaped out of his seat. He covered it by rising along with the rest of the crowd as the band launched into the fight song, but Eva wasn’t fooled. “Are you okay?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said, shoving his hands in his pockets as they sat again and the first quarter started. “Just a little rattled.”
“You just finished telling me all was well. What the