Claude smiled with sudden awareness, his magnificent jaw jutting out all the more. “You’re the guy who put us out of work.”

With a flick of his wrist, Evan flipped the hook pick at Claude’s eyes, lunging left just before the gunshot. The bullet cracked past his ear. He dove not so much at Claude as into him, using him as a shield, getting inside the range of the revolver. Evan’s right hand flew at that Browning in the underarm holster, and then he smacked into the big man, pressing chest to chest, a dance move gone wrong.

It happened very fast.

Evan’s thumb shoved the safety lever off as his forefinger curled around the trigger. He rode the gun back in the sling and fired straight through the holster from beneath Claude’s armpit. The man behind them took the shot through the cheek, blood welling like struck oil. The pistol in his fist barked twice as he flew back. Evan felt both impacts ripple Claude’s flesh, friendly-fire smacks to the spine.

Claude dropped fast and lay still.

The other man had wound up sitting next to the bed, slumped forward over his gut, one hand clutching the lavender comforter. A perfect stillness claimed the room.

The whole thing had gone down in about a second and a half.

Evan picked up his gun and started out. Though the neighboring houses were far, the noise of a firefight would carry.

As he stepped over Claude, he noticed a yellow slip peeking from the inner lapel pocket of the laid-open jacket. Instinct halted him there above the body, told him to crouch and reach for it. He teased it out.

A customer copy of a shipping bill, rendered on thin yellow carbonless copy paper.

All at once the air felt brittle, as if it might shatter if he moved wrong.

His eyes pulled to the bed. Queen-size.

Big enough for roommates.

He looked back at the form, taking in the data.

Origin: Long Beach, CA

Destination: Jacksonville, FL

ETA: Oct 29, 11:37pm

Distance: 5141.11 miles (8273.82 km)

That was not the distance a package would travel by truck or plane. Not even close. That distance would be two thousand miles and change. This package was traveling down around the bottom of the continent and through the Panama Canal.

He scanned farther down the form.

Sure enough, a twenty-foot ISO-standard container had been secured on a midsize bulk carrier called the Horizon Express. An additional port fee of $120 was to be paid upon delivery to the Jacksonville Port Authority.

At the bottom of the form, something was written in pen, the blue ink distinct from the black dye pressed through from the other sheets. A name. And an age.

Alison Siegler/17 yrs.

Seeing the casual scrawl fired something at Evan’s core.

He wondered about the seventeen-year-old girl locked inside Container 78653-B812.