It was from Dulac, and it said: Sorry, can’t call. Busy with a lead. Talk soon.

Busy with a lead? What the hell did that mean?

Then the light turned green, and Somers had to drive. He turned over the short message from Dulac, but he couldn’t figure out what Dulac might be investigating. The problem was that they didn’t have any leads. Hazard’s guess, that Darnell might have been behind the slayings, had turned out to be incorrect. Somers imagined Hazard was still corroborating Darnell’s information, but Somers didn’t need confirmation; he had seen the truth in Darnell’s face, heard it in his voice.

The problem, though, was that they didn’t have alternative suspects. Susan was dead, Wesley was in jail, Mitchell had been kidnapped, and now, if Somers had understood Hazard correctly, Nico was missing too. At least Somers had gotten a text from Dulac; he didn’t want to have to add his own partner to the list of people who had vanished in this case.

When he got to Sexten, he saw four cruisers and six uniformed officers. The sun was high overhead; heat shimmered above the Mustang’s hood. The gravel lot was almost too bright to look at, and broken glass glittered alongside flecks of mica and quartz. When Somers rolled to a stop and opened his door, he tasted dust rolling up from the gravel and the hot, green smell of trampled timothy. He changed clothes in the back seat of the Mustang, pulling on jeans and a t-shirt that he kept in the trunk, and tried not to groan as he spotted Russell and the scrawny third guy from the jail among the uniformed officers.

As Somers walked toward the knot of cops, he tracked the signs of tension: Carlson, young and slim with dark hair, stood with her arms folded; Nickels stood next to her, and she kept reaching up to check her flat, buzzed hair. Russell and the other guy from the jail stood a few yards away. Russell was talking in a low furious voice, while the other guy interjected the occasional, “Fuck, man,” and “fuck yeah,” and “fucking out of line.” Sounded like he used the same thesaurus as Hazard. In the center, like grandparents stuck at a toddler’s party, Norman and Gross stood together.

“Grid pattern,” Somers said as he approached.

“I told you, you dumbasses,” Nickels said.

“What’d you fucking say to me?” the guy from the jail said. He was about the same size as Russell, and like Russell, he had a lot of bark. When Somers looked at him, the guy crossed his arms and glared at the gravel.

“That’s right,” Nickels said.

“All right,” Somers said. “It’s hot, none of us wants to be here, and we’ve got a job to do. Let’s do it. You.”

“Yarmark,” the guy said.

“Help Officers Norman and Gross mark the grid. You guys already sketched it out?”

“Duh,” Norman said.

“Russell,” Somers said. “You help them too.”

“Well?” Gross said, looking at the two younger officers. “Go grab the stakes out of our car.”