“I can smell it already!” Tanner said as she got out of the car. She started for the building like a bloodhound on a trail.

Mendez started after her, then spotted the van parked in the back corner of the lot next to the Dumpsters. He pulled up short.

“Wait.”

“What?” Tanner asked impatiently. “I’m starving!”

She turned around to look at him, but kept moving toward the diner.

“That’s Ballencoa’s van back in the corner,” he said. “I memorized the tag number.”

Tanner stopped in her tracks, then slowly began to move toward the van. “No shit? I guess pervs like pancakes and bacon too.”

Keeping one eye on the diner, Mendez followed her toward the van.

“There’s probably nothing in it,” Tanner muttered, raising up on tiptoe, as if that might help her see farther into the vehicle. “He doesn’t leave things to chance. I swear he probably wipes his prints down every time he gets out of it. He probably wipes his prints off the toilet seat when he puts it down.”

Mendez stole a look inside the cab of the van. If Ballencoa caught him near the vehicle, that news would go straight to Cal Dixon’s ear. His heart skipped a beat as the diner’s side door opened. A couple of doctors in surgical scrubs came out.

“We can’t go in the restaurant,” Mendez said. “If he sees me, he’ll flip. If he sees you, he’ll flip. If he doesn’t see either one of us, we can tail him.

“How hungry are you?” he asked Tanner.

“I could live on air,” she said, already starting for the car, as eager as he was to find out what Roland Ballencoa would do after his breakfast.

They drove around the block, finding a spot along the curb in sight of the diner, but not near enough to be conspicuous. Tanner opened her purse, pulled out a couple of Snickers bars, and handed one to Mendez.

“Breakfast of champions,” she said.

Mendez reached into the backseat and snagged a case with a pair of binoculars in it. It took a moment to get the focus right and to scan what he could see of the restaurant through the front window, but he finally caught a glimpse of Ballencoa in a booth toward the back.

“What’s he doing?” Tanner asked.

“Drinking coffee. Eating eggs.”

“Bastard,” Tanner muttered. “I want eggs. Let me see.”