Reed hadn’t changed much from Lyle’s picture. He was maybe five-eight, thin with dark hair that he kept short. He had the thick arms and the barrel chest of someone who lifted weights on a regular basis. Once Max confirmed that Reed was behind the bar, he sent a text to Lyle: Good to go.

Max’s first impressions of Reed Harris fell far short of the monster that Lyle had described. The man seemed affable as he chatted with the three men at the bar. Max had found nothing of value when he searched Reed’s name on his new phone, so everything that Max knew about Reed came from Lyle Voight, a man who admittedly hated his former son-in-law. As a cop, Max rarely acted on the word of a single witness, yet here he was, all in with nothing more than Lyle’s opinion as his bedrock.

The waitress came by, and Max ordered a burger and fries. When he turned his attention back to the bar, Reed had stepped away from the patrons and was tapping at the screen of his phone. Would he be stupid enough to text his accomplice? But then, Reed could be texting anyone—or not even texting at all. Max’s part of the operation was simply to watch Reed and give Lyle the heads-up if Reed left for home. But if he could get a peek at that phone, it might offer a second trail to follow.

The men’s room was past the bar. Max stood and walked over casually, his eyes cast hard to the side in the hopes of seeing Reed’s screen. As he passed, he couldn’t see anything, but Reed didn’t seem to take notice of him, so he turned around and bellied up to the bar at a spot where he could see over Reed’s shoulder. Reed noticed Max and turned. In that moment, Max saw it was a card game open on Reed’s phone.

“What can I get ya?” Reed asked.

Max dropped his chin. “Grain Belt.”

Reed slid his phone into the back pocket of his jeans, reached into a cooler, and pulled a bottle of beer out, popping the top and handing it to Max.

Max paid for the beer and walked back to his seat, wondering why he had made that trip to the bar. If Reed had been texting his accomplice, Max wouldn’t have been able to read it from that far away anyway. He would have had to steal the phone, and even then, the best Max could have hoped for was a number he could ping. But of course, he wasn’t a cop anymore, so he couldn’t ping a damned thing; he would need Bolger for that, and that’s where it would all come to another screeching halt.

The waitress came with Max’s hamburger, thick and juicy with a stack of extras—onion, tomato, lettuce, pickles—on the side. He ate slowly, not wanting to finish before Lyle had time to search Reed’s house. By the time he had downed his last french fry, Lyle still hadn’t texted him, so Max ordered another beer.