It was that but that wrecked the whole fucking thing.

“Sorry about that.” Shaw wiped his forehead. It was April, but Shaw was sweating like he’d run a marathon in July.

North shifted into gear, and the Caravan lurched, guzzled, and died. He tried the ignition. The Caravan whined and groaned, but it didn’t turn over. He pumped the gas and tried again. The Caravan’s whine rose to a higher pitch.

“Do you want me to run back inside? I bet Jadon would give us a ride—”

“Jadon?” And then it landed. Jadon. “No, we don’t need a city cop dragging us down to the station—”

“I don’t think he’d do that.”

“—where we’re stuck for twelve hours while they try to decide what they want to do with us—”

“I really don’t think—”

“—when we can call Pari and have her over here in twenty minutes.” With a grunt that shook the car down to its suspension, the Caravan came to life, and North nudged the gas and let the engine sputter. “See, it’s fine? Jadon. You don’t need to go ask Jadon for help.” He laughed. “Jadon.”

As they rolled out of the Central West End, Shaw worked the window handle and leaned out into the weak breeze. “You’re saying his name a lot.”

“Well, what did Jadon tell you?”

“Tell me?”

“About Sevcik.”

“Oh.”

“You pumped him, right? All that playing with your hair and batting your eyelashes, you were working him for information. Right?”

“Oh yeah. Of course. It’s just, he didn’t really say anything.”

“Nothing?”

“No.”

“You didn’t get anything out of him?”

“What’s going on with you? What did you get out of Barr?”

“Barr wasn’t exactly Mr. Personality.”

“Well, you had a chance to—”

“But I did get a look inside the apartment. Barr wanted me to see. He pretty much rubbed my nose in it.”

“And?”

“And somebody wrecked up the place. It was a fight; blood on the wall. Not much. Not like a murder. But it wasn’t just a friendly disagreement either.”

Shaw turned away from the window to face North. The air, carrying a brush of cinnamon from a bakery on the corner, whipped chestnut hair against the pale column of his neck. “Matty?”

“Maybe. Maybe he didn’t take the bad news lying down when Mark told him that he’d recorded the whole thing.”

“I don’t think Matty would lie to us.”

And North had plenty to say about that. Plenty. Only Jadon Reck had gotten into his head, and whatever North said now, he knew it would come out wrong. So he settled for: “Maybe Matty wasn’t lying. Maybe he just didn’t tell us. He didn’t think it mattered.”

Shaw frowned, shook his head, and turned his attention to the window. They were back on Kingshighway, headed toward Benton Park, when Shaw rolled up the window and dropped heavily against the seat and rubbed his face with both hands.

“There’s something I’ve got to tell you about Regina. Something to do with the case.”