“What?”

Dulac tapped his third finger. “Married, dude.”

“He’s our chief.”

“He can be our chief and still be a silver-fox hottie. That’s, like, empowering, you know.”

“You have a boyfriend.”

“Uh, yeah. But I still have eyes.”

“And he’s straight.”

“Really?” Dulac said. “He said that?”

“No, but—”

“Then there’s still a chance, bro.”

Somers just shook his head. From the front of the building came a surge of loud voices, moving deeper into the building. Orear, the officer at the front desk, was shouting something, but it didn’t seem to make any difference. A moment later, a group of men came into view, at least ten of them, all white, all of them under twenty-five, all of them looking like they hit the gym regularly, and all of them with the unmistakable air of assholes. A few of them carried papers in their hands, and Somers groaned.

“What’s with the douche brigade?” Dulac asked.

“Hey everybody,” one of the guys shouted, a short guy with a high-and-tight cut of carrot-colored hair. “Settle your asses down. We’ll take things from here.”

Orear, puffing, came after the men.

“I think,” Somers said, “those are the new recruits.”

CHAPTER THREE

JULY 1

MONDAY

9:02 AM

HAZARD HAD A SLOW START to his morning. He kept an office for his private investigation agency, Astraea, in a set of second-story rooms on Market Street, and he started the day by making sure everything was in order, the way he always did: he straightened the secondhand furniture, brewed a pot of coffee, adjusted the painting that, by the end of the day, would somehow be crooked again, and watered the fern. The cracked front window let in a hot, humid draft, and the fern was thriving. Then Hazard moved into his private office, sat behind the beautiful desk that Somers had stolen, literally, from his father, and got to work.

Astraea was doing better than Hazard could have hoped. In fact, it was doing better than was reasonable. For an agency with only a single employee, operating out of a small town in the middle of Missouri, Astraea was doing astronomically well; Hazard allowed himself a little smile at the pun. He was getting work from Columbia, Jeff City, some of the resort towns scattered around Lake of the Ozarks, even once from Rolla. Most of it was simple stuff, background checks, adultery, nothing particularly challenging. But it was work. And it was work Hazard was good at. And he was proud of what he’d built.

Still, though. There was that itch, wasn’t there? The thought that, not so long ago, he’d done things that felt much more important.

He was typing up a summary of a recent investigation—a man skipping alimony payments, whom Hazard had trailed to an Oklahoma casino—when he heard the outer door open, and footsteps moving through the office. He glanced up.

Mitchell Martin was a wreck today; Hazard barely recognized him as the same kid who’d been flirting, albeit badly, with Nico at the party last night. His fiery hair was flattened and greasy; his watery eyes were sunken and slightly bruised from lack of sleep. He walked with his arms folded, hands tucked into his armpits, and halfway across the room he stopped the way wild animals will sometimes freeze at an unusual sound. He shot a look over his shoulder, and then he hurried into Hazard’s private office.