“I’m hoping it will be peaceful,” Esperanza said. “But I don’t think it’s going to be. Thomas is claiming I’m an unfit mother because of my sordid past and the hours I work. He’s going for sole custody of Hector.”

“He’ll never get it,” Myron said.

“Like you have control over that.” She made a noise, might have been a half laugh. “But I love when you make definitive pronouncements like that.”

Myron flashed back to a recent one with Suzze:

“I just got a bad feeling. I think I’m going to mess up.”

“You won’t.”

“It’s what I do, Myron.”

“Not this time. Your agent won’t let you.”

Won’t let her mess up. And now she was dead.

Myron Bolitar: Big man with the big, definitive pronouncements.

Before he could take it back, Esperanza said, “I’ll get on this,” and hung up.

He just stared at the phone for a moment. The lack of sleep was starting to get to him. His head pounded to the point where he wondered if Kitty had any Tylenol in the medicine cabinet. He was about to get up and check when something snagged his attention.

It was in the pile of papers and photographs on the end of the couch. On the bottom on the right. Just a corner stuck out. A royal blue corner. Myron’s eyes narrowed. He reached for it and pulled it into view.

It was a passport.

Yesterday he found Kitty’s and Mickey’s passports in Kitty’s purse. Brad had last been seen traveling to Peru, so that’s where his passport would be, according to Kitty. That begged the obvious question: Whose passport was this?

Myron flipped it open to the identification page. There, staring him in the face, was a photograph of his brother. He felt lost again, his pounding head spinning now.

Myron was just wondering about his next move when he heard the whispers.

There were times it paid to have frayed nerves. This was one of them. Instead of waiting or trying to figure out where the whispers were coming from or who was doing the whispering, Myron merely reacted. He leapt up, knocking the papers and photographs from the couch. Behind him he could hear the trailer door being smashed open. Myron dropped and rolled behind the couch.

Two men burst into the room holding guns.

They were both young, both pale, both skinny, both on something—what they used to call “heroin chic.” The one on the right had a huge, complicated tattoo coming up out of the collar of his T-shirt, rising up his neck like a flame. The other had the practiced tough-guy goatee.

The one with the goatee said, “What the . . . we saw him come in.”

“He’s gotta be in the other room. I’ll cover you.”