“We can’t be too obvious,” Jolie said, in reply to my unspoken question.

“Keep up, Jolie.”

Once in a while, the traffic gods smile. Just as we made the right-hand turn, I saw a squad car whip out of a side-road up ahead, lights whirling.

The Mercedes pulled over.

The squad car drew up behind it.

“Whoop-de-do!” I yelled.

“You really need to get a life,” Jolie said, but she slowed so we could rubberneck.

The cop waved us on.

“Pull over,” I told Jolie.

“Yeah, right.”

“I mean it. Pretend you have car trouble. I want to see who’s driving that Mercedes.”

“I just accepted a job with Phoenix P.D.,” Jolie argued. “I’m not getting fired for interfering with the duties of an officer of the law.”

“Then just go around the block.”

“What block? This is a private road.”

“Turn around, then. If we get stopped, we’ll say we forgot something at Greer’s.”

“Damn,” Jolie said, but she turned around at the base of somebody’s gated driveway and cruised slowly back past the Mercedes.

The cop ignored us. He was busy giving Alex Pennington a sobriety test on the side of the road.

“Hot damn,” I said.

Alex glared at us as we passed. He might not have recognized Jolie’s ride, but he’d known we were at Greer’s. And he hadn’t liked the idea.

If I’d been driving, I would have given a few cheery toots on the horn, but I wasn’t.

“I thought he was away at some conference,” Jolie said.

“So did Greer.” I felt smug. I was getting the hang of this detective thing.

“Why would he want to scare us, Moje? For all he knows, we were just hanging out with Greer. Come to think of it, he could have joined the party back at the house.”

“He doesn’t want Greer to know he’s in town,” I said. “And Gina Marchand probably told him I was in her shop today, asking embarrassing questions. I said I was Greer, but if the squeeze described me to him, he’d know it was me.”

“So why try to run us off the road? Now he’s blown his cover.” We’d reached Greer’s driveway again. Jolie pulled off on the opposite side. “Is there another way into town?”

I gave her directions, but I was almost backward in my seat, watching as the squad car pulled back onto the road, headed the other way. Alex’s Mercedes followed, at a much slower pace.

“We could go back the way we came,” I suggested.

“Not a chance,” Jolie said. “Alex looked really pissed. I wouldn’t put it past him to wait for us up there somewhere and cut us off. Then what would we do?”

“Ask him why he was following us, for one thing.”