I slow at an approaching intersection and take the turn as fast as the Ford’s tires will let me. The rubber squeals against the pavement. As soon as I’m around the corner, my foot is back on the gas.

I check my cell phone again and study the message my informant sent me, the text that set me off on this high-speed race.

Four words: he knows about you.

The text message is from the girlfriend of an ex-con who’s been working with Mexican coyotes, moving illegal immigrants over the border. The boyfriend, whose name is Kevin Jones but who goes by Rip, keeps those illegals locked in a storage shed somewhere until their families fork over more money. Sometimes the families can’t come up with the money fast enough, and the illegals die of starvation, dehydration, heatstroke, or a combination of all three. Then Rip dumps the bodies in the Rio Grande.

I know all this. But I don’t know where the storage building is.

That’s where the informant comes in. Her name is Chelsea, and her daughter is in a state home. I promised her that if she helped the Texas Rangers, we’d get her visitation rights restored. And it was the truth. With her past, Chelsea will probably never get custody of her daughter again, but at least there’s a good chance she’ll get to see the girl again.

Chelsea said she could find out the secret location of Rip’s storage building, except now it seems like it’s Rip who found out Chelsea’s secret.

And though Chelsea is an ex–meth user with terrible taste in men, she’s not a bad person. She loves her daughter.

If Chelsea’s dead, the blood is on my hands.

When I’m close, I kill the lights and the siren, and I roll into Chelsea’s gravel driveway as quietly as I can. She lives in a manufactured home with chipped paint and a yard full of overgrown weeds.

Chelsea’s car is parked there, and so is Rip’s jacked-up four-by-four.

I am about to step out of the car when my phone buzzes again. I go cold, thinking it’s a message from Chelsea. Worst-case scenarios roll through my head. I imagine Rip sending something from Chelsea’s phone: a photo of her dead body lying in the mud on the bank of the Rio Grande.

But when I grab my phone, there’s no message.

I hear the buzzing again and realize the call is coming from my other phone, my personal cell with a number that only my friends and family have.

There’s an incoming call from Anne, my ex-wife.

When she calls, I usually drop whatever I’m doing to answer. True, she’s not my wife anymore, but the two of us are still close friends. This time, Anne’s going to have to wait.