Leppo’s wife of nearly twenty years was named Deb, but he called her “Debonair.” She was a tiny woman with red Medusa hair who drove a massive red Chevy Tahoe SUV. Odessa had met her exactly twice, the first time just a few weeks after her partnering with Leppo, which was very much a sniffing-out session, Odessa presenting herself in as nonthreatening a manner as possible. Debonair had been sweet to her, outgoing and friendly, but beneath it all was a strength that Odessa responded to, and admired. The second time had been at a weekend thing for agents, a cookout, where Odessa met Leppo’s kids and Debonair got to meet Linus, Odessa’s boyfriend, and from that moment forward everything was good.

Leppo said, “I was young, we both were. It didn’t last a year, but it took me another two years after that to recover. And thank God there weren’t any kids involved. Peters, it’s hard to tell, but he doesn’t seem like the type to go over a cliff like this. Take it from me, though. You never truly know who you are until you get really, deeply hurt.”

Odessa nodded. Sometimes the work lessons spilled over into life lessons.

“You know where you are now?” he said.

She took a hard left in the upscale neighborhood. “Almost there,” she said.

The streets were empty, a bedroom community if ever there was one. Odessa zoomed past well-tended lawns and brightly lit houses, which reassured her: Nothing very terrible could happen here.

“Oh shit,” said Leppo.

He saw it before she did: a Jeep parked up on the curb, its driver’s-side door open. The lights were on, the engine still running.

She pulled right up on the rear bumper of the Jeep to block it and prevent it from backing out. Leppo was calling in the address. They were going in.

Odessa jumped out, her hand on her holstered duty pistol, hurrying wide around the open door. The interior lights showed the Jeep to be empty. The vehicle had come to a stop on top of a street sign it had impacted and knocked down: one designating the NO PARKING zone.

She turned to the house. It was a two-story Tudor Revival with steeply pitched roofs jettied over the first floor. Lights shone inside, downstairs and up. The front door was closed. The driveway, to her left, rose to a half wall made of stone, leading to a side entrance that was unlit.

She was turning back to look for Leppo when she heard the gunshot. Startled, she whirled around just in time to hear the second shot inside the house, and see a burst of flame light in the dormer window of an upstairs bedroom.

“Leppo!” she called, pulling her Glock.

“Here we go!” he said, sounding muffled and far away.