Mission Road Page 0,3

she'd done her homework. Every mistake he'd made, then and now - neatly documented.

He felt claustrophobic, dizzy, like he was waking up inside a coffin.

The irony was horrible. Yet she'd done good detective work, maybe even enough to convict.

"Ralph Arguello is poison," he managed. "You don't know who your friends are anymore."

"I'm telling you first because a confession would be easier. We can get you some kind of deal. Protection. Otherwise, once word gets out, you're a dead man."

His jaw tightened. She wasn't going to change her mind. She would risk a confrontation, her career, everything, rather than see something happen to that goddamn criminal she'd married.

He put his hand at his waist, felt the butt of the .357 under his coat. "You're right."

"Give me a statement, then."

"I'm a dead man." He brought out the gun. "If word gets out."

Her face paled. "You won't shoot me. I'm going to call now. We'll get you a lawyer."

She walked to the hallway phone - tension still in her shoulders, but damn, she was keeping it together well.

The thing was: She might be right. He wasn't sure he could hurt her. Her, of all people.

She picked up the receiver.

"Put it down," he ordered.

"I'm calling dispatch."

Eighteen years of fear, shame and anger boiled to the surface - eighteen years of living with that worthless kid's blood on his conscience.

Ana would never understand what had happened that night. He had sworn to die rather than let the truth come out.

"Put the phone down," he pleaded.

"No choice." She started to dial.

The first shot surprised him almost as much as it did her. The bullet tore through her pants leg. She dropped her Sprite and stood there, stunned, as a line of blood trickled down her ankle. Sprite gurgled from the overturned can on the hardwood floor.

She stared at him, silently saying his name.

"I'm sorry," he told her. And he meant it. Goddamn it, he had never wanted this.

Ana reached for her own weapon, but of course her shoulder holster was empty.

She did not believe in guns around the baby. This house was a sanctuary.

Which may have been why his second shot, leveled at her chest, rang out so alarmingly loud.

Chapter 2

MONDAY MORNING I GOT A PAYING CLIENT.

Wednesday afternoon I killed him.

Friday evening I buried him.

The Tres Navarre Detective Agency is a full-service operation. Did I mention that?

My girlfriend, Maia Lee, drove me home from the funeral. We cruised down Commerce in her BMW, discussing the likelihood of my PI license being revoked. Maia thought the odds were high. Being a lawyer, she probably knew what she was talking about.

"The criminal charges don't worry me," she said. "The DA didn't sound serious about filing."

"That's because he wanted your phone number."

"But the licensing board . . . I mean, killing clients - "

"Generally frowned upon."

"Tres Navarre: impeccable judge of character."

"Oh, shut up."

The guy I'd killed, Dr. Allen Vale, had asked me to find his estranged wife. He said he needed to work out an inheritance problem with her. He hadn't seen her in five years. They'd never gotten an official divorce. No hard feelings. The relationship was old history. He just needed to sort out a few legalities.

He wore a tailored suit. He laughed at my jokes. He paid cash in advance.

I took the job.

Two days later I located his wife, living in San Antonio under an assumed name. I met Dr. Vale at my office and gave him her new identity and address. He thanked me, calmly walked out to his car, loaded a shotgun and drove away. That's when I realized I'd made a mistake.

I called the police, sure. But I also grabbed my father's old .38 and followed Vale straight to his estranged wife's house.

She was standing in her front yard watering her Mexican marigolds. She dropped the hose when she saw Vale trudging toward her with the shotgun.

No police in sight.

I had the choice of either stopping Vale or watching him murder his wife. I yelled at him to drop the gun. He turned on me and fired.

Three minutes later the police surrounded the house.

They found me standing next to Allen Vale's Infiniti, a dinner-plate-size shotgun hole in the driver's side door, two feet to my left. The good doctor was sprawled on the lawn with an entrance wound through the middle of his silk tie, his estranged wife on her knees, her face chalky with terror, her forgotten garden hose spraying blood and marigold petals down the sidewalk.

Maia had asked me why