“Okay, don’t get mad. Fifty.” She sent him an easy smile as he settled back again. Erika had been around too long to let an opportunity slip away. “A girl has to make a living, sí? The name is Pablo Manchez—he’s the one with the face.”

“Where can I find him?”

“I don’t know. You got the name.”

With a nod, Jonas took the bill out and passed it to her. Erika folded it neatly into her purse. “I’ll tell you something else, because Jerry was a sweet guy.” Her gaze skimmed the bar again as she leaned closer to Jonas. “This Manchez, he’s bad. People got nervous when I asked about him. I heard he was mixed up in a couple of murders in Acapulco last year. He’s paid, you know, to…” She made a gun out of her hand and pushed down her thumb. “When I hear that, I stop asking questions.”

“What about the other one, the American?”

“Nothing. Nobody knows him. But if he hangs out with Manchez, he’s not a Boy Scout.” Erika tipped back her drink. “Jerry got himself in some bad business.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry.” She touched the bracelet on her wrist. “He gave me this. We had some good times.”

The air in the bar was stifling him. Jonas rose and hesitated only a moment before he took out another bill and set it next to her drink. “Thanks.”

Erika folded the bill as carefully as the first. “De nada.”

* * *

She’d wanted him to be home. When Liz found the house empty, she made a fist over the keys in her hand and swore in frustration. She couldn’t sit still; her nerves had been building all during the drive home. Outside, Moralas’s evening shift was taking over.

For how long? she wondered. How long would the police sit patiently outside her house and follow her through her daily routine? In her bedroom, Liz closed the canvas bag of papers and cash in her desk. She regretted not having a lock for it, as well. Sooner or later, she thought, Moralas would back off on the protection. Then where would she be? Liz looked down at the key again. She’d be alone, she told herself bluntly. She had to do something.