I was shocked at how well he handled the pressure, especially under the circumstances and with no sleep. He might have never worked for his father, but he knew the organization and, it seemed, how to direct it.

Three calls came in succession as Lucas tried to supervise the removal of Max and Tony’s bodies. Paige took the last for him.

As she listened, she frowned. “Are you sure about the time of death?”

Lucas glanced over sharply. She motioned for him to keep working.

“Yes, I understand,” she said. “It’s not an exact science, but it’s definitely been more than twenty-four hours?”

A pause, then she looked my way. “I think I have someone who can make a positive ID.”

I froze.

“I’ll bring her down.” She hung up and came over to me. “They found someone from the gang.”

“Who?”

She shook her head. “Better wait until you see. Just to be sure.”

DID THE BODY belong to Jaz or Sonny?

The question looped through my mind all the way to the Cabal morgue. I could have pushed Paige for an answer, but then Karl would see how important it was to me and I didn’t want that.

Either way—Jaz or Sonny—this was going to hurt.

HOPE POSITIVE ID

HOPE

POSITIVE ID

A young man in a suit that screamed “security detail” met Paige, Karl and me in the Cortez Corporation lobby and explained the situation as he led us to the basement, where the morgue and lab were located. The body had come from a contact in the city morgue.

“How does that work?” I asked.

“Mr. Cortez has friends everywhere and systems for everything. No one’s ever going to come looking for this guy.”

“The coroner said it was murder?” Paige prompted.

“Gunshot to the back of the skull. Right through the CNS. That’s the central nervous system.”

“Right.”

“And it was a professional body dump too.” He glanced at Paige uneasily, as if she might be shocked at the thought that someone could be a professional in such a thing. “It was pure luck that he was found so quickly. They ran his prints through their system, but he wasn’t in it. He was in ours, though.”

“So that’s how you flag them,” I said.

He deflated a little, as if I’d figured out the secret behind an illusion.

“But if his prints match the ones on file, he’s already been ID’d,” Karl said. “I don’t understand why you need Hope.”

“We have a name,” Paige said. “Whether it matches this man is another question.” She lowered her voice. “I’m pretty sure it doesn’t.”