“Look at you, Johan, so goddamn righteous, like butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth.” Tera chewed her lower lip and stepped closer still. She could smell the product in his hair, woody and enticing. “But I’ve seen your name on the police reports. I’ve read the witness accounts. It’s a good thing your daddy rolls with the bigwigs down at City Hall.”

“Don’t believe everything you read,” Johan said. “I’m just a lowly YouTuber.”

“Bullshit. You’re shady as hell, and my cop intuition is telling me not to trust you.” Tera inhaled sharply, flaring her nostrils. “But what’s that saying? The enemy of my enemy is my friend. I’m sure that’s not always true, but on this occasion . . .”

Johan’s smile grew.

“What do you say, Johan? Can we be friends?”

“Sure,” he said.

Tera licked her lips and turned for the door. “Wait right here.”

She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. She wanted to hit her rooftop patio and deadlift until her arms were on fire. Physical exertion was the best way to vent, in her opinion, but it would have to wait. For now, Tera took a moment to breathe the hazy air and unlock a thread of calm, then she grabbed her cell phone from the Buick and returned to Luke’s house.

“Track-U-Gen,” she said, activating her phone’s screen and angling it toward Johan and his boys. She pointed at an icon in the bottom corner: a magnifying glass on top of a map. “It costs more than most GPS trackers and asset locators, but it’s reliable, it has a longer battery life, and it’s precise to the square inch.”

“You’re tracking Luke?” Johan asked. She detected a hint of admiration in his voice.

“Have been for a few months now,” Tera replied. “I get a notification whenever he exits his allocated geofencing zone. I’m looking for a pattern, somewhere remote, the kind of place he might bury a body.”

“I get it,” Johan said. “You were hoping he’d lead you to his wife.”

“I wondered if he might.”

The three men looked at each other, communicating without uttering a single word. Through the waves of testosterone, Tera detected distinct notes of anxiety and anger, which she needed to direct toward the task at hand.

“No one will miss Luke,” she said. “He doesn’t have an agent. His sister, in Wisconsin, has disowned him. His only friend died two months ago. It’ll be weeks—months, maybe—before he’s reported missing.”

“What an epic fucking loser,” Xander offered.

“I couldn’t have said it better myself,” Tera said, then switched her gaze to Johan, the shot-caller, the big boss. “Let’s make a deal: I’ll tell you where Luke is, and you put him in the fucking ground.”

“You want us to kill him?” Johan asked.

“I want the same as you,” Tera replied. “Justice.”