I replayed his first comments, about him not being like Quinn or me. That’s what he thought I’d want to know, more about Quinn, how he was like me. I’d assumed he just meant because we’d both been cops.

When I said I was interested, he thought I meant in Quinn’s story, the one he’d interrupted at the motel. Was there a way to clear up the confusion? To say “Oh, I thought you were talking about yourself”? Ask him about himself. But if that wasn’t what he’d been offering…

Before I could figure out a way to continue, Jack passed me the map and put me in charge of finding our destination.

We found the new condo complex—so new it wasn’t even finished. A security van was parked at the far end, the lone occupant’s head down, reading or dozing. Jack pulled in, headlights off, and slid the car into the equipment lot between a crane and a bulldozer.

Across the road a billboard exhorted home buyers to “Experience the adventure. Live life in the heart of the game.” As I cracked open my window, I was hard-pressed to feel the adventure…or the life. The stale stink of dust filled the air. Empty window frames stared out like dead eyes. Sheets of plastic covered the board studded walls, the eerie slap-slap of the plastic the only sound.

I closed my window.

“Not quite the scenario we expected,” I said. “Too open. Too…empty.”

He nodded, gaze scanning the complex.

“Do you have a plan?”

“Working on it.”

“May I make a suggestion?”

“Always.”

I proposed we handle this as a two-man police raid, using a variation on standard procedures for infiltrating un-occupied buildings. Unlike an occupied area, here there was a good likelihood that our welcoming party wasn’t at 510 H.G. Wells Boulevard at all, but in an adjoining town-house, or even across the road, watching for us through a sniper’s sight.

The condos were row houses, with two basic styles—carport to the left and carport to the right. That meant we could investigate the one beside it, and expect to find the same floor plan reversed at 510.

Jack removed his gold; I put away the blond wig and jewelry—things that could catch the light. Then I scooped up dirt from the unfinished roadway, added bottled water, and we daubed it on our faces. I would have loved a Kevlar vest, but apparently the wire in my push-up bra was all the body armor I was getting. So I donned my gloves, took a deep breath and opened the door.

“Forgetting something?” he said.

I looked at him.

“Gun.” He reached under his jacket. “Here. Take my backup.”

“That’s okay—”

“Take it.”

As he thrust the gun at me, I opened my jacket and showed him the Glock. “See? I didn’t leave it back at the hotel.”