with his second-in-command. The third guy gets off because he didn’t do anything except shoot at paper targets.”
“He’s a nasty little tick,” Rafe said, “but yeah. He gets off.”
“So what’s the SWAT practice for? They already gave it their best shot at the dedication of the bauta in The Bottoms. It didn’t come off, or at least not the way they’d hoped.” Way fewer casualties than they’d hoped for, I was sure. “Isn’t it over?”
“Mostly we think it is. Clay’s still working at the body shop in case someone shows up looking for Lance or Rodney, but so far it’s been quiet.”
“I didn’t realize Clayton was still here,” I said. Clayton Norris was a young associate of Rafe’s from the TBI, who had been brought to Columbia to infiltrate the neo-Nazi gang and report back. “I haven’t seen him.”
Nor, as far as I knew, had Rafe.
My husband smiled. “You’re not supposed to see him, darlin’. That’s what undercover work’s all about. You can’t be seen in public with the people you’re reporting to, or your cover’s blown.”
Well, yes. I guess that made sense.
“So you haven’t seen him, either.”
He shook his head. “He’s a neo-Nazi skin-head. He has a reputation to uphold. Can’t be seen with the likes of me.”
No, I guess he couldn’t. “So who is he reporting to?”
He eyed me.
“You can tell me,” I said. “Who am I going to tell?”
“You know a lotta people. But I don’t imagine any of‘em would be putting Clay in danger.”
Not likely. “So…?”
“Yvonne,” Rafe said.
My eyes widened. “You conscripted Yvonne?”
He chuckled. “Not really. He goes in there and has breakfast every couple of days.”
I grinned. “Let me guess. He has an expense account?”
Rafe grinned back, but didn’t confirm or deny the existence of any such thing. “She asks him how he is. He says he’s fine. If he ever says anything else, she’s supposed to contact me.”
“And you run to the rescue?”
“Not hardly,” Rafe said, leaning his posterior against the island and folding his arms across his chest. The viper tattooed around his bicep flexed. “Yvonne calls me, I call someone else, and somebody shows up at the body shop with a rattle in the engine of their car. While Clay takes a look, he passes on the message. Then that message comes back to me the same way, and I determine what needs to be done.”
Fascinating. “But that hasn’t happened yet.”
He shook his head. “So far, everything’s been fine. No need for interference.”
Hopefully that would continue to be the case. I fished a strand of angel hair out of the pot, bit into it, and caught the dangling ends. “This is done.”
“I’ll get the plates,” Rafe said and headed for the cabinet while I took the pot to the stove and drained the pasta into the colander that was waiting there.
“So what’s going on with the serial killer case?” I asked three minutes later, when we’d gotten the food onto plates and were sitting side by side at the kitchen island digging in. “Any news?”
“Not on the serial killer.” He put a forkful of pasta in his mouth and tucked the dangling ends tidily in at the end. When he’d finished chewing, he added, “The ME said the COD was manual strangulation.”
“He wrapped his hands around her throat and squeezed,” I translated.
Rafe nodded. “Face to face and with his bare hands.”
So a fairly intimate way to commit murder. Except— “There’s no reason to think he knew these women, right?”
Rafe shook his head. “He mighta known one or two. Most likely the first. They often start with someone they know.”
‘They’ being serial killers, I assumed. “Have you looked into the first victim this guy killed?”
“Today I’ve been looking into the last,” Rafe said and tucked another forkful of angel hair into his mouth.
“Did you find out anything you didn’t know this morning?”
“Spicer and Truman tracked her down to the truck stop down the street from your old apartment, down there by the bridge. A waitress in the restaurant said she was there in the early part of the day, but she don’t know what happened to her after that.”
“Cameras?” I twirled my fork around in the angel hair and conveyed it to my mouth.
He shook his head. “Nothing on’em that we can use. Spicer and Truman checked. If this is a route he’s been driving for two decades, he knows how to avoid the cameras.”
Clearly. “I don’t suppose they keep track of the trucks that come through?”
“No,” Rafe said. “It’s just like any