“I have pretty strong suspicions that the Tunneys, our first suspects in this, if you’ll recall, have something to do with the muscle part of this little adventure.”

“That seems an entirely reasonable set of suspicions.”

“I think that all the things that I suspect are things that you actually know.”

“Huh.”

“And I think you should tell me.”

I nodded at this and pointed toward Jimmy. “So, Jimmy’s alive.”

“Yes, he is.”

“And you and I have a confession from Orval Wooldridge that he was behind his kidnapping and attempted murder. We have a witness to that confession in Garrett Trimble.”

“Yes, we do.”

“We have means, motive, opportunity. All wrapped up in a very neat, very clean bow.”

“Yes.”

“So I think maybe you should stop overthinking this thing and have the good grace to put this one in your ‘win’ column, Langdon.”

She thought about that for a minute. “So that’s how it is, then, Valdez.”

“For this, yeah.”

“Uh-huh. And here I worried you actually believed that line of bullshit you spouted about working the nice side of the street.”

My phone buzzed. There was a text on it from an undisclosed number.

ONE FAVOR OWED, it read. CHOOSE WELL. CHOOSE WISELY.

I looked back at Langdon. “I know what side of the street I like better. But you don’t always get to choose the side of the street you walk on.”

Langdon looked at me for a moment and then directed her attention back to Jimmy.

The door of the ICU opened again and a cop and a woman in surgical scrubs came in. The cop looked around and spotted me, and pointed me out to the woman. She came up to me. “Are you Tony Valdez?”

“I am.”

“You’re a dispatcher.”

“Yes.”

“We need you. We’ve got a real mess of a car accident victim. We’re keeping him alive for you. Come on.”

I glanced over at Langdon. She smiled.

“Go on,” she said. “Go save a life.”

So I did.

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight