“That’s way gross,” Wes said.

Donnie liked the idea of the challenge and knew it wasn’t a bad idea to stop dissing Jews and blacks for a while. But he said, “Yeah, yeah, but the game’s on hold for a couple days.”

“Yeah?” asked Nathan, frowning.

Wes sighed. “The asshole, the house we tagged, perped our bikes.”

“Put ’em in his garage. Me and Wes were talking about it, what to do.”

Wes said, “To get ’em back.”

Donnie nodded for Wes to continue.

“And we need some help. Backup, you know. You up for that?”

Vince considered it. “We’ll help you but we get a point.” Tapping the scorecard.

Nathan said, “Dude, that’s mad brilliant.”

Donnie furrowed his brow. He was, though, only pretending to debate. He didn’t care about the point. The fact was that for the plan he had in mind, which he hadn’t told Wes about, he definitely needed the others.

Finally he said, “All right, you ladies get a point.” And popped the Red Bulls and passed the cans around.

Chapter 76

They were driving along Highway 1, O’Neil behind the wheel of his patrol car, Dance in the front passenger seat. In the back were Al Stemple and their confessing suspect, Representative Daniel Nashima. The uniform was in a second car.

This was the condition to his confession. A drive to the scene of the crime, where he’d tell her everything she wanted to know.

He wasn’t under arrest, so no cuffs, but he had been searched for weapons. Which had amused him.

The compact man was silent, staring out the window at the passing sights—agricultural fields of brussels sprouts and artichokes on the right; to the west, the water side, were small businesses (souvenir shacks and restaurants) and marinas increasingly downscale as they moved north.

Finally they turned off the highway and took the driveway to the parking lot where the roadhouse was boarded up. The trucking business was operating but Dance wondered for how long; she remembered the story on the news about the company’s probable bankruptcy.

O’Neil was about to stop but Nashima directed him to the end of the lot, not far from where Dance had discovered the path that led to where she’d found the witness in the trailer, Annette, addicted to cigarettes and music.

“Let’s take a walk,” Nashima said.

Dance and O’Neil exchanged glances and together they climbed from the car and followed Nashima as he started along the path. Stemple plodded along behind, boot falls noisy on the gritty asphalt. Both he and O’Neil kept their hands near their weapons. The unsub, armed with at least one nine-millimeter pistol, was still at large, of course.

Was he headed for the cluster of residential houses? And why did he seem to have no interest in the roadhouse itself?

I’ll confess…

He didn’t get far along the path, however, before he turned left and walked toward Solitude Creek, through the grass and around the ruins she’d seen earlier, the remnants of concrete floors, fences, walls and posts. As they got closer to the water, she found a barrier of rusting chain link separating them from the glistening creek itself.