This time, Broussard didn’t push, just moved to the next page. The game went on for a while, a collection of bored/stoned/sad-eyed streetwalkers, all black. Donna Lee Bumpers, Royanne Chambers, Quitha Martha Masterson, DeShawna Devine Smith.

Broussard shuffled the 653.2 deck like a Vegas pro. Poulsenn smiled and watched. Milo kept outwardly cool but his bowels were churning. Knowing exactly where this was going.

She was the eighth card dealt.

Different hair than last night’s red extravagance—a bleached blond mushroom cloud that made her look ridiculous. But the face was the same.

Schwinn’s backseat tumble.

Tonya Marie Stumpf. The Teutonic surname seemed incongruous, where had that come from—

The mug shot danced in front of him for a long time, and he realized he hadn’t responded to Broussard’s, “And this woman?”

Broussard said, “Detective Sturgis?”

Milo’s throat tightened and his face burned and he had trouble breathing. Like one of those anaphylactic reactions he’d seen as a medic. Perfectly healthy guys surviving firefights only to keel over from eating peanuts.

He felt as if he’d been force-fed something toxic. . .

“Detective Sturgis,” Broussard repeated, nothing friendly in his tone.

“Yes, sir?”

“This woman. Have you seen her before?”

They’d been watching the unmarked, surveilling Schwinn and him—for how long? Had they been spying the Beaudry murder site? Snooped during the entire time he and Schwinn had been riding together?

So Schwinn’s paranoia had been well justified. And yet, he’d picked up Tonya Stumpf and had her do him in the backseat, the stupid, no-impulse-control, sonofa—

“Detective Sturgis,” Broussard demanded. “We need an answer.”

A whir from the table distracted Milo. Tape reels, revolving slowly. When had the machine been switched on, again?

Milo broke out in a full-body sweat. Recalling Schwinn’s tirade in front of Bowie Ingalls’s building, the sudden, vicious distrust, convinced Milo was a plant, and now. . . .

Told you so.

“Detective,” said Broussard. “Answer the question. Now.”

“Yes,” said Milo.

“Yes, what?”

“I’ve seen her.”

“Yes, you have, son,” said Broussard, crouching low, exuding citrus and success.

Son. The asshole was only a few years older than Milo, but it was clear who had the power.

“You definitely have seen her.”

They kept him in there for another hour and a half, taping his statement then replaying it, over and over. Explaining that they wanted to make sure everything had copied accurately, but Milo knew the real reason: wanting him to hear the fear and evasiveness in his own voice in order to instill self-loathing, soften him up for whatever they had in store.