The sun was starting to make me sweat along the hairline.

“It’s also my job to convince them that I’m not going to bust them. That I’m going to leave them just invisible enough to get away with whatever drugs and stolen shit they’ve got going on over there.”

“So it’s better for me to stay in the car,” I said. “I get it.”

“Exactly. That was why I didn’t think you should come in the first place. This isn’t a spectator sport, as much as TV would like us to think it is.”

“Fine, whatever, I’ll wait.” I snapped down the visor. “But you know how fast I get restless—” I stopped. When I’d pulled down the visor, something had fallen into my lap with a clink. I picked it up.

A key.

A single key on a ring, a number etched onto a tab that also hung from the ring.

Brown, silver, bronze.

“One forty-nine,” I said. I held the key up questioningly, expecting Chris to yank it away from me, too, and chastise me for not minding my own business.

But his face was frozen. He looked almost pasty. His eyes bored into the metal of the ring; his mouth hung open just slightly.

“What?” I asked. I glanced at the key and back at him again. “What’s one forty-nine? An address?”

“A locker,” he said. His voice was rough, as if it came from somewhere far away. “I’m almost positive I remember a locker.”

I squinted at him, confused. “Like, a gym locker?”

He finally moved, his hand closing around the key and tugging it from me. “A storage locker,” he said. “Holy shit, Nikki, I know where Heriberto’s drugs are.”

26

THE STORE4CHEAP LOCKERS were just off the highway, surrounded by a tall chain-link fence and a gate that locked by code. We pulled up, and Chris punched in a few different number sequences. None of them worked. He cussed after each try. I could feel the frustration fuming off him. To remember things bit by bit had to be maddening.

Eventually, he gave up and went inside, flashed his badge, and the attendant let us in. If only the attendant had known what we were hoping was inside that locker.

A ton of drugs meant to be peddled by children and instead confiscated by a cop on a secret mission.

I was pretty sure we would all be in deep shit if anyone had figured this out.