“No cops,” I repeated. And Bullock broke off the call. I looked at Trimble. “I guess this is it. You know how to find this?” I showed him the address I’d written down, and he nodded.

Trimble said he would lead the way in his own car, but pull over a couple of blocks short of my destination, then hop into the Virtue with me. He moved pretty quickly in his souped-up unmarked car, and I struggled to keep up with him. He’d glance in his mirror, see that maybe he was losing me, and slow down a bit.

We entered a heavily treed residential area where the homes cost a hell of a lot more than they did on Crandall. Trimble found a spot to pull over, and I slowed and pulled up alongside so he could get in.

“We’ll get a bit closer, then I’ll get out before you pull in.”

I saw him check his gun in the holster that was belted to his waist, and I considered telling him that I had a weapon taped to my ankle, and then thought better of it. I knew what Trimble would say, that carrying a gun was best left to the professionals, and then he’d relieve me of it.

I didn’t want that, although the tape I’d used to hold the gun in place pulled at the hairs on my calf, and smarted nearly every time I moved my leg.

We were on Wyndham now, and Trimble was reading house numbers. “Okay, slow down, we should be almost there. Okay, stop.” He had his hand on the door handle and said, “Try to stay cool. You may not think I’m around, but I’ll be watching. Just do what they say, don’t piss them off. We’re going to get your daughter out of this.” He was looking me right in the eye. “You believe me, right?”

“Yeah,” I said quietly. “I believe you.”

“And I’d like to get the motherfuckers who put Lawrence in the hospital,” he said. “Maybe we can all get what we want.”

And then he opened the door and ran up through the trees that shrouded the front lawn of a beautiful old Victorian house. In a moment, he was gone. I let my foot off the brake, slowly moved down the street, still looking for numbers, and then came upon 32. The number was visible below the light over the front door. Slowly, I turned into the drive, a cobblestone affair that rose from the street and wound down along the side of the two-story home, opening up around the back in front of a three-car garage that was separate from the house. There were two lights, one over the center garage door, and a second around the side over a regular door.