He was too tired to answer the question, and wouldn’t trust an answer if it fell out of his mouth. He was down to random streets and places: a park they’d gone to when Gibby was a kid, the dead man’s neighborhood, his neighbors, the crash pad of a dealer who’d grown up on Chance’s side of town, just on the chance he might have heard something.

Nobody knew a thing. That was the problem. They had an ID on the dead man in Chance’s house, and that gave them an address and a rap sheet, but that was it. The captain had sworn it: even the cops were dry.

How long until dawn?

Two hours?

“David 218.”

The radio squawked, and French keyed the mic. “David 218, go ahead, Dispatch.”

“Detective Burklow requests you call a private line. Stand by for the number.”

“Go ahead, Dispatch.” He found a pencil; jotted down the number.

“David 218, be advised the matter is urgent.”

French was on a four-lane, west side of town, and the last pay phone he’d seen was two clicks back. No traffic this late, so he cut the wheel hard, and left an arc of smoking rubber. When the Food Town appeared, it was across the street, so he left another black arc, and hit the parking lot entrance so fast he grounded out the shocks.

Burklow picked up a half second into the first ring. “This is complicated, so I need you calm. Are you calm?”

French squeezed the phone until he thought his hand would break. “Yes, I’m calm. Where are you?”

“Pay phone eight blocks from your house. Before you ask, your wife tracked me down an hour back, saying things like you were lying to her and she knew it, and it had to be about Gibby, and why would you lie about her last good son. She was on the ledge. I went over to talk her down. That’s when we got the call from Jason. He’s out. He’s looking for you.”

“How is that possible?”

“I don’t have the answers. He had little time and a lot of things to say, and that wasn’t part of it.”

French ground his teeth, trying hard to fight off the confusion and disappointment. “You said this was urgent. I thought it was about Gibby.”

“That’s the thing. Jason claims to know where he is.”

“Say that again.”

“Where he is, who has him, and how to get him out. He said the kid’s in serious danger, that the guy who took him is a killer, the worst kind.”

“Give me the address.”

“Bill, he says it’s the guy who killed Tyra Norris.”